Li Yan, 28, an assistant manager at a Beijing-based Japanese cosmetics company, still remembers her first DIY (do it yourself) tour of Hebei Province in the summer of 1999.

"It was the last summer vacation in high school. My friends and I planned to go traveling before we entered university," Li told Beijing Review. "The conventional path in China for traveling was to find a travel agency that would arrange the itinerary, accommodation and transportation; all you had to do was pay the bill. We thought we were mature enough to try the DIY tour, so we chose nearby Hebei as our destination."

Li and her friends got on a train and spent a whole week in Qinhuangdao, a coastal city located some 300 km east of Beijing.

"We enjoyed the sunshine, the beach, the seafood and the Great Wall," Li recalled. "It was a refreshing and relaxing travel experience, because we didn't have to follow the tour guide all the time and rush to take pictures at scenic spots."

"I think the core value of traveling is relaxation rather than only sightseeing," she added.

Li's view was echoed by Lu Li, spokeswoman for the Hebei Provincial Tourism Bureau.

"Leisure travel is what we have been promoting in recent years. It is sort of a DIY or family get-together tour, which may consist of gourmet cuisine, shopping, spa and massage, sports and entertainment, and so forth," said Lu. "It is more than sightseeing."

The provincial government launched a program to promote leisure travel in the Beijing-Tianjin belt zone in July 2008.

"Hebei completely surrounds Beijing and Tianjin municipalities (which also border each other). The belt zone covers seven cities and 50 counties--more than half of the province's total area--that are within a 2-hour drive of Beijing or Tianjin," Lu explained.

"The belt zone can be seen as a hub; surrounding provinces and countries like Russia, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Japan can be seen as spokes. There will be an expanded tourism network in the area," she added.

Popular destinations in Hebei include the Ming Great Wall, the Beidaihe beach resort, Chengde Mountain Resort and outlying temples. New leisure travel destinations including hot spring resorts, ski parks, golf courses and equestrian parks have been under construction in cities and counties across Hebei, Lu said. More than 100 new destinations will open by 2012.

Transportation will also be more convenient, as Hebei signed a tourism cooperation agreement with eight surrounding municipalities and provinces in early December. The agreement exempts tourist vehicles over 45 seats from paying area tolls.

Statistics from the provincial tourism bureau show that 101 million people from home and abroad visited Hebei in 2007, generating 58 billion yuan ($8.3 billion) in revenue, an increase of 13.9 percent over the previous year.

"Hebei's GDP in the first three quarters of this year hit 1.18 trillion yuan ($169 billion)," Lu said. "Tourism, one of the pillar industries, will account for more than 8 percent of the province's GDP by 2020, compared with the current 4.2 percent. Leisure travel in the Beijing-Tianjin belt zone will account for 80 percent of total tourism revenue."