With the recent clear skies and the shining river nearby, it is supposed to be the busiest season for Yang Zhi, 23, a waitress at a traditional inn in Central China's Hunan Province.

The inn is located in Fenghuang county, a popular tourism town in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, but these days only half the rooms in the inn are booked.

The reason is as clear as the spring skies. On April 10 local authorities began charging entry to Fenghuang town, prompting a backlash among the businesses there.

The number of guests decreased sharply, Yang told the Global Times, after the government together with a travel corporation started forcing visitors to buy a 148 yuan ($23.97) ticket.

A Web-based survey on sina.com with more than 90,400 participants by Wednesday showed that 92 percent of respondents would not like to visit Fenghuang because of the charge, and only 1 percent said they would go to the scenic town regardless of the fee.

In response to the controversy, the Fenghuang county government adjusted the policy on Monday. The student ticket price was lowered to 20 yuan from 80, and visitors from more nearby regions would not be charged.

Against the public will?

"We opposed it when rumors of the fees started spreading in early March, but no one came to ask our opinion before making the decision," said Yang, adding that hundreds of locals and private business owners staged a protest on April 11 but police officers and special police forces were sent to disperse the crowd, while a local official claimed that most of the public supported the policy.

A staff member surnamed Wang from the local government's press office, told the Global Times the protest was incited by unlicensed tour guides who would lose their jobs because of the ticket policy, and said local businesses wouldn't be sacrificed.

Five business operators closed their shops and inns to show their dissatisfaction on Monday but they were taken away by local police in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

One of the business owners, who requested anonymity out of fears of police harassment, told the Global Times that two policemen had knocked on his door at 4 am then spent several hours asking him to reopen his shop.

Du Quanli, a 20-year-old local working for an agency that helps tourists design their own schedules and routes, told the Global Times that she could see some people, who she believed had been hired by the local government, walking around the town every day, demanding closed shops open their doors.

Local police did not respond to the Global Times queries by Wednesday afternoon.

Gao Xiangwen, another deputy head of the county, has tried to reassure local business operators, saying that people won't care about ticket costs once Labor Day arrives and thousands of tourists flood into the town, in comments reported in the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.

However, the online reaction remains largely opposed. Yuan Yulai, a famous lawyer who has over 667,920 followers on his verified Sina Weibo account, has started an online campaign encouraging people to stop visiting the town as of Saturday. His post calling for boycotts has been forwarded by more than 100,000 Web users.

"We cannot let their will be twisted by a government who only cares about collecting quick money but pays no attention to the people's will," said Lin Bo, a Chengdu-based lawyer who forwarded Yuan's post on his verified Weibo account, making it clear he would not visit Fenghuang unless the policy changes.

A town sold to companies

Some 168 private boatmen signed an agreement with Unitenix, a travel corporation that manages tourism in Fenghuang on Monday. The company promises to pay boatmen monthly salary of 1,000 yuan and another 50,000 yuan as a security deposit, because the boatmen will no longer be able to collect fees.

Ye Wenzhi, the president of Unitenix, said that the local government will take 40 percent of the income from ticket sales as tax. He told the Guangzhou Daily that charging fees was "not wrong" and that they should have charged an entrance fee earlier as developers must provide all the services and supporting facilities the area needs, even when travelers are just walking around the town.

The local government only has a 49 percent stake in Fenghuang town, so both profit and revenue is shared with the private companies that have bought shares. In details provided to the Global Times by the press office of the county government, for each ticket sold for 148 yuan, 131.27 yuan will be used for overheads.

This was broken down into individual costs, such as 73.64 yuan for "operating costs," and 23 yuan for "development costs.

In a Weibo post from the 21st Century Business Herald that has been forwarded over 2,000 times, analysis revealed that the government could collect 120 million yuan if 2.3 million visitors visit Fenghuang in 2013, the same level as 2012.

In an e-mailed reply to the Global Times, Cai Long, deputy head of the county, said that was not accurate and did not consider the reduced-price tickets or maintenance costs.

Cai also said tourist complaints are increasing. "There were complaints about unlicensed cab drivers, private tour guides collecting kickbacks and the pollution left by the large number of tourists. We need money, and if we can manage the whole town as a scenic spot, solving the problem will be easier."

Unwanted destinations

Quan Yong, a tour guide who has worked for five years in Fenghuang and the nearby Miao villages, said that of the 10 scenic spots included in the ticket price, eight were rarely visited, and most visitors wanted to just walk or go boating at a cost of just 10 yuan, but now they would need to pay 148 yuan regardless.

The rent in main streets of the old town has skyrocketed as high as 30,000 yuan monthly in recent years. This prompted the inn where Yang works to double its accommodation fees last year. "The fears of most inn owners have come true, the number of tourists has decreased," Yang said.

The old town had 13,000 tourists on average daily, but the number has dropped to 4,360 visitors per day in the past week, according to numbers released by county government.

"The drop is temporary, people were just used to the old model," Wang said.

Both Cai and Ye told the media that the policy would only last five to 10 years. "Once the whole situation becomes more organized we will offer free entrance," Cai said.