Located at the Suzhou Sun Mountain Botanical Garden, the public toilet is the first of its kind in the world that is built with 3D printing technology. Though built without using a steel bar, the toilet’s strength exceeded the traditional reinforced concrete. The new toilets include not only those for men and women, but also those for mothers and children.
Over the past three years, Suzhou has built 166 new toilets. The local tourism department has also developed a mobile phone app to make it easier for tourists to find toilets when the feel the call of the nature.
In the public toilets in Shuyang County, there are mother and child lounge, tea room, reading room, and automatic teller room. A solar-powered all-weather fitness facility is also installed in the outdoor venues to provide convenience when they need to find the place for fitness and rest.
Major scenic spots in Wuxi have launched gender-neutral toilets with more to be installed in the future. The target for this year is that 50% of the scenic spots in the city will be installed with gender-neutral toilets.
Since 2015 when the toilet revolution was launched, 2623 new toilets have been built across the province, well beyond the original target of 1707. Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Xuzhou have been rated National Model for the Toilet Upgrading Campaign.
China’s National Tourism Administration started the toilet upgrading campaign in 2015 at tourist sites across the country to make the notorious facilities cleaner and more regulated.
China will step up the efforts in a three-year period lasting from 2015 to 2017 to improve the toilets at tourist sites that have long been complained of their insufficient numbers, unhygienic conditions, and lack of management.
Some 33,500 new toilets will be built at tourist sites during the period and another 25,000 renovated. By 2017, the country aims to make tourist restrooms reach three-star standards.
The national tourism administration has asked local authorities to step up policy support and launch campaigns for the move.
