The golden canola fields in Luoping County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, have been helping diversify local economy in blooming season as increasing enthusiastic tourists rush to enjoy the picturesque countryside landscapes and help create a wide variety of jobs for both locals and people from outside the town.

A weekly special train on Friday departed Kunming, capital of Yunan, carrying 245 passengers to Luoping to enjoy a weekend trip during the canola blooming season.

"Luoping has extensive canola fiends. Here, the tourists can appreciate mountains from far away and also the terraces, which are all very beautiful," said Ding Guoli, a tourist from east China's Nanjing City, capital of Jiangsu Province.

Coffee vendors from other parts of China, who migrate to the county on their vans, are also seizing the business opportunities created by the warm blooming season.

Huang Xinya, a mobile coffee van operator from southwest China's Guizhou Province, has been following the weather forecast since the Spring Festival.

Arriving at Luoping a week ago and looking forward to a flowering period, Huang said her business has been thriving, with up to a maximum of 70 cups of coffee being sold a day.

"I love travel and appreciate beautiful landscapes. If the weather is good, I sell coffee to tourists and if the weather is bad, I enjoy the landscapes myself and shoot some short videos," said Huang.

As the blossom season is typically an off-season for farming, local villagers use their ox carts to carry tourists around and also earn themselves additional income.

"During the flowering period of canola, there is a great number of tourists in the village. Because they have never been an ox cart before, I took them on my ox cart and show them the village. I earn about 200 to 300 yuan (about 27 to 40 U.S. dollars) a day through my ox cart business and my homestay business earn me about 1,000 yuan (nearly 140 U.S. dollars) a day," said Wang Guozhang, a villager.

This year the canola blossom season in Luoping is about half a month late due to cold wave, with the whole flowering period being estimated to last until the end of March.

The released data showed that the county is expected to receive up to 5.3 million tourist visits during the period.