Yinamu Nasirding, head of the Xinjiang government’s tourism department, said the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region plans to receive 50 million tourists by 2015.
"We have welcomed more than 25 million tourists from outside Xinjiang so far this year, and we plan to double this number by 2015."
Nasirding said Xinjiang "boasts all kinds of landscape, including snowy mountains, deserts, lakes and grassland."
Affected by strife in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, the number of visitors to the region dropped sharply in 2009. Following a return to order, domestic and international tourists have started to return.
Around 2.2 million visitors traveled to Xinjiang during the National Day holiday this year.
"The biggest problem concerning tourism in Xinjiang is that Xinjiang is too big," China.org.cn reported Nasirding as saying. "For example, the distance from Urumqi to Kashgar is 1,500 kilometers. From Beijing to Shanghai, it’s only 1,000 kilometers."