East China's Qiandao Lake is attracting record numbers of visitors, signalling its recovery from a 1994 mass murder that hurt tourism and damaged ties with rival Taiwan.
The official People's Daily said on Wednesday that foreign and Chinese tourists made 1.45 million trips to the Zhejiang province lake in the first 10 months of 1995, up 40 percent from the same 1994 period.Tourism-related revenues at the lake near Hangzhou more than doubled over the same period, the report said.
Tourist arrivals at Qiandao plunged after 24 Taiwanese were robbed and murdered on the lake in March 1994, a crime that reversed a warming in Beijing-Taipei relations amid charges that China did little to protect overseas visitors.
People's Daily said the number of foreign tourists at the lake hit an unspecified record, some 46 percent higher than the year-ago level.
It said authorities had introduced several measures to prevent such crimes, including a satellite communication network, a rescue center and public security outposts.