Come to China for an exciting low-altitude adventure

A man lands on a beach after experiencing skydiving in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, March 14, 2023. (Xinhua/Fan Yuqing)

By Liu He

Local Chongqing resident Yang Baike, in his eighties, discovered a new perspective for observing Changshou Lake -- by taking to the skies. Accompanied by his family, Yang completed his first aerial adventure on a floatplane at the Changshou Lake water sports base.

Low-altitude tourism is becoming increasingly popular among tourists as China expands civilian access to low-altitude airspace, typically defined as the vertical range from 1,000 to 3,000 meters above ground.

On the first day of this year's May Day holiday alone, more than 1,000 visitors like Yang visited the same water sports base in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipally.

A helicopter of China General Aviation Co., Ltd. gets ready for an aerial tour in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, March 21, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhou Huimin)

A growing number of tourist attractions have launched low-altitude flight and sightseeing programs in recent years. 

Earlier this year, for instance, Fengjie County in Chongqing launched low-altitude helicopter tours, offering a new perspective for tourists to enjoy the scenery of Kuimen, the entrance to the Yangtze River's deepest gorges.

Nam Lee, an expert parachutist from the Republic of Korea, skydives with a tourist in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, June 23, 2022. (Xinhua/Hu Zhixuan)

Moreover, aerial sports such as parachuting and skydiving are favored by more sports fans. 

The airspace near the Dujiangyan irrigation system has become a hit among Chinese parachuting lovers because of its breathtaking aerial view. Many people posted vlogs and travel notes on social media to record their skydiving experiences there.

Low-altitude tourism is expanding across China. Hainan, a leading province in China's low-altitude tourism, recorded 13,700 hours of flight time, 152,000 takeoffs and landings, and 364,800 passengers in 2023. 

Chongqing aims at opening at least two low-altitude air routes for tourists to enjoy aerial views of the city's landmarks. The Southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen plans to deploy more than 600 low-altitude drone launch and landing platforms and operate over 220 urban drone routes by 2025.

Staff members work on the final assembly of a light aircraft at a plant of Rhyxeon General Aircraft Co., Ltd. in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, May 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

The growing popularity also brings much profit to this emerging industry. 

"The low-altitude airspace is a no-man's land with huge growth potential that could nurture a trillion-yuan new industry," said Shen Xiangyang, founding director of the International Digital Economy Academy in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The size of China's low-altitude economy by 2023 is estimated at more than 500 billion yuan, with its scale expected to rise to 2 trillion yuan by 2030, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).