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China, treading down the capitalist road, will launch a "red tourism" drive this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Communist Red Army's epic Long March escape from pursuing Nationalist troops.

Tourism authorities will designate 10 "tourism bases," 20 "red tourism cities" and 100 "red tourism classic scenic spots" as the core of the campaign, the Web site of the People's Daily said on last Thursday.

Nostalgic tourists will be able to choose from themes like "re-experience the Long March," "revisit the battlefield," "heroic city tour" and "tours to famous personage hometown" for the 70th anniversary of the Long March, it said.

"The promotion of 'red tourism' is a need to eulogize the brilliant cause of the Party, inspire and carry forward China's national spirits," it quoted He Guangwei, head of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), as saying.

The campaign would also "help people in old revolutionary base areas overcome poverty and get rich," He told a work conference in the western city of Urumqi in Xinjiang.

China has already slashed the price of tours to the late Chairman Mao Zedong's hometown in the southern province of Hunan in a bid to lure one million students there this summer.

In 2002, China officially allowed entrepreneurs to join the Communist Party, capping a quarter century of reforms that have taken the economy of the world's most populous country from being totally planned to mostly market-based.

The legendary 1934-35 Long March, a circuitous 7,770 miles retreat from a base in southern Jiangxi Province to Shaanxi Province in the north, is a high point in the annals of Communist history.

Only a fraction of the 100,000 people who embarked on the trek made it to Yan'an, where the Communists set up the base where Mao Zedong rose to power.