Wuzhen, a 1300 year old water town on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is a national 5A scenic area and one of China’s top ten historical & cultural towns. It is also one of China’s most charming towns. Located on the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou Plain in northern of Zhejiang Province, it is at the center of the golden triangle consisting of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Wuzhen is easily accessed through a number of expressways and national highways. The ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flows through the town, which is divided by waterways into four areas, Dongzha, Xizha, Nanzha, and Beizha. Since its foundation in 872 A.D., Wuzhen has never changed its name, location, waterways, or way of life. Its traditional buildings have survived hundreds of years of weathering but remain intact today. In 2001, Wuzhen was named as a candidate for UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage List. At the end of 2006, it was included in the revised List of China’s Candidates for UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. In 2009, Wuzhen was named as the first PATA eco-tourism destination in Mainland China.
Wuzhen Tourism Co. Ltd is a large travel service group whose shares are jointly held by China Youth Travel Service, Tongxiang City Government, and IDG. Its business mainly covers travel services, scenic area operation, hotels, real estate, and tourist souvenirs. The company has dedicated itself to the protection and development of tourism in the ancient town of Wuzhen. With a corporate philosophy of “surpassing through foresight”, in the ten years since its foundation, Wuzhen Tourism Company has steadily expanded, working to make Wuzhen into a famous destination in China and throughout the world. The company will focus on “value marketing” to expand corporate development, set “quality benchmarks” to continually improve its level of management, use a “people based” orientation to foster its core competitiveness, and use “experiential tourism” as its direction to build the number one brand in China’s tourist industry. Wuzhen receives a total of more than five million Chinese and foreign tourists per year.
