‘China Tourism Day’ celebrated

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

As part of month-long activities of ‘China Tourism Day’, the Sanya Tourism Board, China, has organised a series of events to promotion Sanya's overseas tourism.

The first major event was 10-day Sanya Food Festival in Dubai held under the banner of ‘A Bite in Two Cities’.

The official informed that a 2-week ‘Dubai Food Festival’ was held in Sanya, where Ali El Bourji, the Executive Chef of Dubai Atlantis, introduced authentic Middle Eastern delicacies such as Tagine Chicken Stew and Lebanese Fattoush Salad to Chinese tourists. During the ‘Sanya Food Festival’ in Dubai, Norman Yu, the Executive Chef of Atlantis Sanya, led a team to prepare authentic Sanya dishes such as Wenchang Chicken, Hele Crab, and Qingbuliang, so as to let Dubai's tourists enjoy a feast.

Albert Yip, General Director of Sanya Tourism Board said that Sanya will continue to strengthen tourism linkage and exchange with destinations along the Belt and Road, with the 2024 Sanya Overseas Tourism Marketing Promotion Events in the Middle East as the core, relying on the status of Dubai's international aviation hub to radiate the surrounding emerging source cities, such as Abu Dhabi, Doha, to provide a good foundation for Sanya to link up with broader international arena, upgrade its "one trip with multiple stops” tourism products, develop new source markets and realize long-term cooperation.

The Sanya Food Festival in Dubai held as food & culture exchange and promotion week in the Middle East and also displayed Li Brocade, Li Pottery, rattan weaving and colorful clay carvings, traditional clothes trying on, partridge tea tasting, coconut snacks, coconut candy tasting and other interactions with Sanya's cultural characteristics, thus all-roundly displaying Sanya's tropical resort style and ethnic cultural charm. The visitors actively participated in the interactions and expressed their interests and desires for Sanya.

More than 60 travel-related companies and media outlets in the Middle East also attended the festival. During the promotion, Sanya Tourism Board signed a MoU with Rayna Tours, a large local travel agency in the UAE, on strengthening the flight connections, mutual transportation of passengers, and the development of culture and tourism industry.

At the same time, Sanya Tourism Board enthusiastically promoted Sanya's specialty cuisines, intangible cultural heritage, recreation, accommodation and other vacation products.

During the stay in the UAE, the representatives from the Sanya Tourism Board visited several large travel agencies, including Hunter International Travel Agency, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the UAE, Rayna Tours, China-Arab TV, and Peninsula Compass Tourism LLC, to discuss the characteristics of the tourism markets of the two places, the marketing and promotion mode and experience of the overseas markets, and reached a preliminary cooperation intention on how to utilize the status of the international aviation hub in the UAE area to connect the routes of other countries, so as to better connect the tourism products of ‘one trip with multiple stops’ and promote the mutual transportation of the sources of passengers of the two places.

Manan, Senior Director of Sanya Tourism Board said “Given that Dubai is the most important center in the global region and there is a link between the Emirates and Hainan Province, especially the city of Haikou, and given Dubai’s global status, Dubai had to be the first stop for media efforts to enhance tourism capabilities and explore the possibility of cooperation with the Middle East region in the field of reading and tourism.”