Huangshan, a scenic city in east China famous for its imposing Huangshan Mountain, has announced a project to expand its air terminal with 40 million yuan, aiming to attract more tourists via charter flights.

The project would start at the end of this month to expand the terminal from the current 2,200 square meters into 5,700 square meters, allowing an annual passenger flow of 100,000 people, according to the Huangshan tourism committee.

The expanded terminal would be put into use before the May Day holidays next year.

A total of 988 charter flights would land in and set off in the Huangshan airport between Huangshan and foreign countries from May to December this year, compared with 148 charter flights for the corresponding period last year.

At present, Huangshan airport has six charter flight airliners to Hong Kong, Macao, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

An official with the Huangshan tourism committee said most of Huangshan's foreign tourists are from ROK, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States, with ROK being the largest foreign tourist source.

Huangshan receives 20,000 ROK tourists and 30,000 Japanese tourists annually.

The city has set a target to receive 20 million tourists, including one million from foreign countries, by 2010 and realize a tourism revenue of 20 billion yuan.