On April 20, Xiangyang Tourism Development Conference & National Mobilization Conference on Urban Tourism Standardization Demonstration announced that Xiangyang would transform from a tourist transit area into a tourist destination in 2018. Xiangyang aims to attract 5,500 tourists and achieve total tourism revenues of RMB 41.5 billion in 2018, up 20.9 percent and 21.8 percent year on year respectively.