Jiangsu tourism promoted in Macao

Province's cultural service and trading fair pulls in visitors

Jiangsu province encouraged Macao residents to visit its many tourist attractions at the Macao International Culture and Art Expo held from Oct 22 to 24 in the special administrative region.

The East China province promoted 10 specially selected travel routes that weave their way through Jiangsu, taking in such cities as Suzhou, Yangzhou and Nanjing, at the opening ceremony of the cultural expo.

Since the first expo which was held in 2016, the now annual event has become the largest cultural, service and trading fair organized by Jiangsu government agencies outside the Chinese mainland.

In 2019, the expo attracted 200 companies and set up 300 exhibition booths. More than 1,500 artworks created by 260 artists were exhibited, including paintings, peach-stone carvings, embroidery, porcelain, paper-cuts and crystal products.

Of them, about 1,000 were sold on-site, with sales revenue reaching over 1 million yuan ($149,100).

During this year's expo, a mobile phone app for tourist information and services in Jiangsu made its debut in Macao.

The app, developed by the Jiangsu Culture and Tourism Department, was released in July on the Chinese mainland. It serves as a cultural and tourist service platform, providing information on restaurants, hotels, traffic, tourist spots, shopping and entertainment in Jiangsu, as well as other public services such as weather, locations of public lavatories, parking lots and tourist guides.

The app allows tourists to make reservations at more than 300 tourist attractions and also provides a large number of videos and pictures of the local scenery.

This can be partly attributed to a series of culture carnivals and tourist promotions Jiangsu has organized in Macao in recent years to display its unique charm. After the outbreak of COVID-19, the Jiangsu Culture and Tourism Department resorted to online tourist exhibitions to continuously increase its influence in Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries.

To further promote prosperity and high-quality development of culture and tourism industries, the provincial department and the Macao Government Tourism Office signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism cooperation on Oct 23.

On the same day, a business summit of Jiangsu, Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries was held, during which the three parties reached a consensus to share advanced ideas on tourism administration and management, and establish information sharing as well as other coordinated platforms.