The City of Sanya Launched the Sanya Celebration in Moscow

(Source: Travel Weekly China)

China's top tourist city Sanya held the 2017 Sanya Celebration, an international tourism promotional event themed "A Romantic Invitation to Beautiful Sanya", in Moscow, the capital of Russia, on August 10, receiving an enthusiastic response. The successful promotion by the municipal government of Sanya strengthened the deep exchanges between Sanya and Moscow in culture, tourism and other fields. Vice Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Oleg Ryzhkov, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui as well as more than 100 guests from Russian authorities, tourism agencies and the media were present at the event.

The Sanya Celebration lights up Moscow

The Celebration received positive responses and included a photo exhibition of Sanya city, a food show, a culture display of the local Li nationality, VR-based visual experiences of the local natural scenery and traditional Chinese medicine therapy tours, among other themed outdoor events, giving citizens in Moscow a deep impression of "Beautiful Sanya, Romantic Paradise".

A.M. Porisky Antovic Dolovich, a citizen in Moscow, said, "The Celebration is quite meaningful and I am attracted by the extraordinary displays, dances and Li brocades. I hope to have a chance to visit Sanya and truly experience the local coastal customs."

Sanya mayor Wu Yanjun said, "Sanya, China's sole tropical seaside vacation destination with international-grade facilities, is creating a world-class costal tourist city. Keeping in line with international standards, the city will further diversify its tourism products, enhance its ecological protection, optimize its landscape features and improve its infrastructure and services. Looking forward, Sanya will provide better services for tourists from Russia and around the world."

Oleg Ryzhkov, Vice Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, said at the promotional event, "Sanya creates a more convenient tourism environment for tourists from all over the world. I look forward to traveling to the city with my family."

Li Hui, Chinese Ambassador to Russia, said in his speech that the celebration allowed Russian citizens to know more about Sanya, and further enhanced the communication and cooperation between the city and Russia's related municipal and federal bodies, making Sanya truly become the bridge connecting friendship between Chinese and Russians.

Sanya city received 333,000 foreign tourists during the first half of this year, including 126,000 tourists from Russia, with the latter number up more than 400 per cent from a year earlier and ranking first in the city's inbound tourism market.

Travel products are popular among citizens

At the promotional event, the multi-way "stereometric" interaction improved the popularity of Sanya among Russian citizens. The unique-style exhibition hall with the rhyme of the coconut and sea showcased the city's special tourism resources, while the exhibition booth with the themes of meals, accommodation, travelling, tourism, shopping and entertainment welcomed a lot of visitors. In addition, the outdoor road show fully demonstrated the services offered for Russian citizens.

"The celebration gives me a feeling of actually being there. My friends traveled to Sanya before and were full of praise for it. I will travel to the city with my family this year." said Dmitry Gorin, a citizen from Moscow.

Russian travel agencies help to promote Sanya tourism

In addition, the tourism promotional event, designed especially for international travel industry executives in Russia, was held in the afternoon and was attended by hundreds of executives from across the sector and gained a wide attention of journalists from across Russia and local residents. With beautiful photos, wonderful video clips, passionate words and expressions, tourism representatives from Sanya made a comprehensive introduction on the tourism sector in Sanya and in-depth interaction with the participants, enabling them to have a knowledge of Sanya in an enjoyable atmosphere.

In the interactive process, the Sanya delegation made full discussions with the Russian travel agencies on how to optimize routes and improve the level of local tours in the tourist destination.

The Russian travel agency representative Sergei Nazarov said: "We are always optimistic about the tourism market in Sanya for its beautiful sea, comfortable coastal resort environment, and good tourist reception service. This promotion give us more confidence in the development of Sanya's tourism routes. Now, Sanya has become more international with more convenient and fast traffic, a more perfect reception capacity and more diverse tourism products. The city will become one of the major overseas markets for our travel agencies, and we will guide more Russian tourists to enjoy a good vacation time there."

The Celebration had previously been held in Bangkok, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jakarta, Indonesia, Almaty, Kazakhstan and now in Moscow, Russia. The municipal government of Sanya said that future stops for the roadshow include the UK and Germany, as well other countries that are the main sources of visitors to Sanya. At each stop, they have a common goal of enhancing the awareness and heightening the reputation of Sanya in international tourism markets.