Fujian province will give priority to the development of six tourist islands: Gulangyu, Pingtan, Dongshan, Meizhou, Langqi and Yushan, according to the Development Plan for the Modern Marine Service Industry of Fujian Province announced by the Fujian provincial government on Oct 25.

Pingtan's development focuses on ecological tourist spots, which are represented by Junshan Mountain and Nanzhai Mountain, as well as erosion landscape tourist spots such as Shi Pai Yang and Xianren Well.

The island county will also promote marine tourism resorts in Tannan Bay and Haitan Bay in order to build the area's tourism brand.

Gulangyu Island, one of Fujian's hottest tourist attractions, will commit to the protection of ancient buildings and create a building exposition park on the island.

Gulangyu will also explore its unique island music culture and build museums for different musical instruments, similar to the island's piano and organ museums already open to the public.

The four other islands will also promote their own tourist brands, taking advantage of characteristic local cultures, customs, landscapes and geography.

In addition to tourist islands, Fujian will foster five coastal leisure zones, including the Minjiang Estuary Coastal Zone, Xiamen Bay Coastal Zone, East Fujian Coastal Zone, Quanzhou Bay Coastal Zone and Zhangzhou Coastal Zone.

The province will construct a coastal driving path to connect tourist spots along the road. In addition, a cooperative mechanism for Fujian-Taiwan tourism will also be improved to enhance cross-Straits tourism.

The province plans to build art villages, fishing villages and marine ecological parks for leisure and entertainment experiences.

A number of operas, films, television shows, and literature depicting shipyard culture will also be created.

Fujian province's marine culture and creative industries hope to reach an added value of 15 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) by 2015, accounting for 9 percent of the total added value of the province's modern marine service industry.

According to the plan, the total value of the modern marine service industry in Fujian will reach 308 billion yuan ($49.34 billion). Fujian hopes to establish itself as an innovative development zone for the modern marine service industry on China's southeast coast by 2020.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Michael Thai