(Yicai Global) Dec. 21 – The number of China's visitors to forests in the tourism sector this year have already exceeded 1.4 billion and this emerging area is expected to generateCNY1.15 trillion (USD174.9 billion) worth of comprehensive social output, figures from China's forestry administration show.

The total number of visitors in forest tourism in China has reached 4.6 billion, with an annual growth rate of 15.5 percent, creating comprehensive social output value of CNY3.34 trillion in the last five years. As ever more vacationers visit rural areas and forests, woodland tourism is expected to grow into a huge market, Zhong Yongde, dean of the Tourism College ofCentral South University of Forestry and Technology, said at a forum held yesterday.

The Forum also released the latest list of China's forest 'Oxygen Bars,' which adds another 31 forest parks, thus increasing the total to 115. The air in these woodlands contains a high concentration of negative oxygen ions with strong medicinal and health qualities.

Natural forests are usually located in less-developed areas. Among all 832 indigent counties in China, 432 have forest parks, or 52 percent of the total. The development of forest tourism has brought significant economic benefits to these areas in recent years, China's forestry administration said.

The government will upgrade timberland resorts' basic service facilities, transform single tourism into a comprehensive tourism industry and combine it with culture, education, sports, health and other industries, an official with the forestry agency said. China has spent more than USD100 billion on reforestation projects in the last decade in the largest such project in history, greening an area the size of New York and Pennsylvania combined, The Christian Science Monitor reported in June.