SILVER SPLENDOR: Girls of the Miao ethnic group wear their traditional costumes adorned with extravagant silver jewelry

Summer in China can be a time of stiflingly humid days, and thoughts of escaping the heat are never far from the minds of most.

Sensing an opportunity, Guizhou, an inland province in the southwest of China, has come up with a very cool idea.

Taking advantage of the comfortable weather the area enjoys, the provincial capital of Guiyang announced its "Escape From Summer Heat" initiative (from May to October this year) and it's already proving popular as holiday makers, eager to chill out, rush to the city.

At a press conference in Beijing on June 12, Ji Hong, Vice Mayor of Guiyang, said the tourist season will last five months, and the city will lay on various activities such as tasting local fine teas, exploring the valleys and romantic tours catered to lovers during the Qixi Festival, China's Valentine's Day, which falls on August 7 this year.

But besides these colorful programs, the big drawing card of Guiyang and the whole province is the cool weather.

It's the first thing visitors notice on arrival, when they step off the plane and are welcomed by cool fresh breezes.

According to Ji, the average temperature of Guiyang in the summer is around 23 degrees centigrade, perfect for a summer resort and deserving the title "the summer capital" given by the Chinese Meteorological Society in 2007.

Green is cool

TREE MANIA: The virgin forest in Kaili, Guizhou Province

Green is the color that dominates Guiyang, a plateau city. It is home to 183,000 hectares of woodland, with a forest coverage of 31.7 percent. A belt of trees, up to 7 km wide and 70 km long, was planted around the city, providing a green ecological shelter for residents. A larger forest belt