The construction of the Dali Highway connecting Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan province will be finished soon. The Dali Highway connects the national highways of Western China. It is the first highway that runs to Tibet. Without the Dali Highway, it takes 4 hours by car and 2.5 hours by train to go from Dali to Lijiang. The new highway will reduce the driving time to 2 hours.

The new highway, which connects a handful of major tourist attractions along the way, will also have a significant impact on tourism. Many who work in tourism have expressed their intention to redesign current tour routes in accordance to the Dali Highway. They believe the adjustments will enable tourists to enjoy more scenery in less time.

Dali has unique environmental and historical resources. Since the opening of the Kungming-Lijiang rail line in 2009, it has been serving as a transfer station for tourists to Lijiang.

Some people are concerned that the new highway may have the same impact, emphasizing the role of Dali as a transfer station instead of a tourist attraction. Zhou Xuefeng, a member of the Dali tourism development committee, said that the so-called “transfer-station influence” only applied to group tours. For individual travelers, Dali has been and always will be worth seeing.

Edited by Michael Thai and Le Qin