Eight cities from Hunan Province have jointly set up an "Excellent Chinese Travel City" Alliance in hopes of helping build a barrier-free tourism region and enhance supervision on trans-regional tourism resources.

The eight cities are Changsha, Zhangjiajie, Yueyang, Changde, Chenzhou, Shaoshan, Zixing and Liuyang. All of them boast rich cultural and natural sceneries, and the establishment of this alliance is part of the activities for the Hunan Travel Festival 2006.

In the future, these 8 cities will create a joint conference system and make general plans regarding the travel development in the area. In the meantime, they will enhance their cooperation in travel industry management, market supervision and service quality supervision.

A representative from Hunan Provincial Bureau said that the foundation of this alliance will help improve the cooperation and communication among Hunan's travel industry, and elevate Hunan's general image as a tourism region. The representative says Hunan's travel industry has achieved an annual growth average of 20% over the last decade.