Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hubei province signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China Eastern Wuhan Company on Jan 3, in a bid to promote the tourism industry and aviation, hubeitour.gov.cn reported.

The framework agreement requires the company to improve the air route design of the prefecture, adding stops at other domestic cities and districts or adding connecting flights at Enshi.

In addition, the prefecture will also strive to increase its passenger throughput, and new air routes, from Enshi to Kunming city in Yunnan province and to Xi’an city in Shaanxi province, are set to be launched.

According to the Enshi government, about 26 million tourists visited the prefecture in the first 11 months of 2013, generating revenue of 14.3 billion yuan ($2.36 billion), including airline industry profit of more than 15 percent.

Enshi had, until this new agreement, four domestic air routes, to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Haikou (all via Wuhan), and the passenger throughput in 2013 was 288,000.

The Shanghai-Chengdu railway line means that it now takes about five hours to travel from Wuhan to Enshi, and only 50 minutes by air.

Edited by Niva Whyman