860 Years Old City
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Beijing Tourism Destination
To promote Beijing Tourism, especially the 72-hour Visa Free Transit Policy, Beijing Tourism Office held the first promotional event “Kongfu Panda in Beijing” at New York Grand Central on June 26. This was Beijing’s first time of organizing a tourism-themed street performance in the open area of New York City’s busiest site. The show attracted the attention of many passers-by. Attendees of the event include Consul of China in New York, and Director of China National Tourism Office in New York, Ya Ping Xue, President of Beijing Tourism Development Office, Wei Nan Zhou.
The performance was held at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central. Young artists from Beijing and New York performed Kongfu Panda, Chinese Martial Art, Fan Dance, Tai Chi and the Peking Opera “Face-Swap,” and gained cheers and applause from the audience. Children in the audience were especially charmed by the extraordinary show. Eight U.S. middle school students who studied Chinese dance in Beijing three months ago were also invited to the event and showed their elegant moves. Staff from Beijing Tourism Office handed out promotional brochures about the new 72-hour Visa Free Policy and Beijing Tourism Markets, as well as some hand-illustrated tourists’ maps of Eastern Beijing Royal City. Wei Nan Zhou, the president of Beijing Tourism Center, remarked that the U.S. is Beijing’s largest tourism market, with approximately 700,000 visits per year; however, there is still a large potential growth of the market. In recent years, Beijing Tourism Office has been promoting Beijing Tourism in various creative ways tailored to the U.S. market. From the New Year’s Eve Countdown at Times Square, to the Concert of China’s top three sopranos at Lincoln Center, and to the appearance of Beijing’s Tourist Fair at Universal Studio in Los Angeles, Beijing Tourism is having a growing impact on major cities in the U.S.
Along with application of the 72-hour Visa-Free Policy, Beijing Tourism Office will also be collaborating with CNN, Fox National Geography and New York Times to further showcase Beijing as a tourist destination and its rich touristic resources. The party of thirty delegates from Beijing Tourism Office has visited Canada before this trip to New York, and their next stop will be Mexico.
