The 'world's longest sightseeing escalator' has been launched in an area of outstanding natural beauty and opened just for those tourists who would not be bothered walking there.
Enshi Grand Canyon in Enshi city, Central China's Hubei province, aims to increase visitor numbers to the area. With the £4.3million escalator, which takes 18 minutes to travel on, the project hopes to boost tourism by getting rid of effort from the great outdoors.
Per ride costs £2.44. According to MSN, the escalator has a steel concrete structure and an additional wooden structure that have been surrounded by climbing plants which helped it blend in to the surrounding environment.
Xiong Yan, the man in charge of the project who works at Central-South Architectural Design Institute, told People's Daily: "The whole engineering plan focused on ecological protection, which can be seen from the wooden structure and grey tile at the top of the escalator."
The first phase of 945ft has been in service since 2011, but now the whole length covers the complete descent.
"Now tourists can take the escalator to go down the mountain all the way. It improves the degree of comfort during their journey," said by a spokesman at En'shi Grand Canyon Scenic Spot.
Mirror says that the escalator can accommodate 7,300 visitors in an hour, with annual figures intended to reach 600,000 visitors.
The longest escalator in the world has resulted to social media being abuzz with people who have already tried it. Moreover, Chinese site Weibo garnered various comments regarding the new structure. It had featuring comments like: "I visited there before. I didn't take the escalator downhill. I took the staircase."
"I went there during the [Golden Week] national holiday. My dad and grandma took the escalator. They ended up arriving later than those who took the staircases," another explained.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
