OREANDA-NEWS. October 05, 2011. The Datong Coal Mine Group has been making great efforts to adjust its industrial structure by greatly promoting its tourism while further strengthening its main coal industry in recent years. The group has developed distinctively themed, comprehensive coal mine tourist sites, actively tapped coal mine tourism resources and built coal mine tourism brands, thus taking steady steps along the industrial transformation path, reported the press-centre of Datong Coal Mine Group.

With unremitting efforts, some distinctive coal mine tourist projects including the "Coal underground tour", "Datong Coal Mine Mass Grave sites", and "Jinhuagong National Coal Mine Park" have taken shape and achieved both economic and social benefits.

The "Coal underground tour" is a unique coal mine tourist project developed on the working faces discarded after-exploration of the Jinhuagong Mine. Its main tour area, 300 meters deep underground, consists of six tourism-working faces featuring those original, once indispensable mining methods such as blast mining, conventional mining, high-grade conventional mining, fully-mechanized mining and fully- mechanized tunnelling. Sitting on the real spots and decorated with real objects, the tourism-working faces are amazing, authentic and fantastic. The geological wonders like subsided columns and faults are epitomes of coal production. The "Jinghuagong coal underground tour" became one of the "National Industrial Tourist Demonstration Attractions" in 2005, a first ever unit to gain such an honor from China's coal industry.

The more than 20 sites of mass grave sites located within the limits of the Datong Coal Mine Group trace back to the Japanese aggressive war against China.

During world war II, the Japanese aggressors occupied the Datong coal mines, wantonly looted the coal resources and even carried out a bloody rule of "humans for coal".

The Mass Grave Memorial Hall exposes mercilessly the monstrous crimes committed by the Japanese militarists against the Chinese nation and the world. It has been listed in the sixth batch of the State-protected historical sites and designated "the national patriotism education base" by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The Provincial Tourism Administration has made the Memorial Hall a state-level Class AA tour site.

The Memorial Hall sits on one of the 30 carefully chosen "red tourism routes" and is one of the 100 "red tourism scenic spots."

Over the past two years, the Datong Coal Mine Group has worked out a new development scheme for the Jinhuagong Mine tourism industry. By seizing the highly precious opportunity when the city Datong renovated and repaired the Yungang Grottoes, the Group tried to harmonize the park building with the protection of the grottoes, thus blending the "Buddhism" culture and the "coal" culture. The national mine park when finished will include: a coal museum to introduce coal knowledge such as coal forming and its component,coal and technology,etc.an industrial scenic spot featured as display of industrial relic landscape; a coal mine folk culture village, which will maintain the original architectures, demonstrate historical life style and natural and humanistic landscapes.

The park is expected to run a full-fledged tourism chain including "sightseeing, travelling, foods, entertainment, shopping and accommodation." And it will help boost the Group's transformation and leapfrog development.