Harbin a hot destination

The fairytale-like scenery of Harbin, with its exquisite ice sculptures and snow-covered Western-style architecture, has been attracting tourists all winter, but the boom is expected to peak during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday beginning on Saturday.

"All 24 of my rooms have been booked out for the Spring Festival holiday since around Jan 10," said Li Liwei, who runs a homestay in Xuegu, on Harbin's southeastern outskirts. "Most of the customers are people from southern cities and provinces, including Shanghai, Sichuan and Guangdong, who wish to experience the festive atmosphere in the world of ice and snow."

He said his family helps him run the homestay, and they want to make travelers from southern climes "feel at home".

The increasing popularity of winter tourism has led travel portals to predict a busy holiday season in Harbin, the capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

Mafengwo, a travel service and social networking platform, said Harbin is its users' most popular domestic destination for the Spring Festival holiday.

The Trip.com Group travel portal said bookings for Harbin are up substantially this year, with most made by people from warmer southern cities such as Guangzhou, in Guangdong, and Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, who are eager to see snow.

"Travelers from southern provinces are curious about everything in Harbin, including the food, snow and the culture," said Liu Mingyuan, a local tour guide for Tuniu, another travel portal. "And young travelers born after the 1990s and 2000s have a higher preference for niche and novel travel destinations.

"For example, many young travelers like visiting a former pharmaceutical company in Harbin where the building and decorations are as resplendent as the Louvre Museum in Paris.

"Harbin has many specialties and delicious food such as Russian-style cuisine, sweet and sour pork, and the iconic Modern-brand ice lolly, which has a history of over 100 years. Barbecue is also famous here and the sausages. We also have specialties like frozen pears and frozen persimmons."

He said Harbin's cultural heritage contributes to a good atmosphere for Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations.

"We post couplets and paper-cut window decorations featuring the Chinese character fu," he said, referring to the Mandarin word for good luck. "We also make dumplings and put coins and candies in some of them to send good wishes. According to traditional customs, people who eat a dumpling with a coin in it will get plenty of treasure and money in the new year, and those who eat dumplings containing candies will have easier and smoother lives."

In addition to the natural snow views, the city is organizing over 200 cultural and entertainment events including music concerts, acrobatic skating and talk shows till the end of February, the provincial culture and tourism bureau said.

Harbin saw record visitor numbers and tourism-related revenue during the three-day New Year's Day holiday in January, with over 3.04 million visitors and nearly 6 billion yuan ($835 million) in revenue.

"It will be a romantic memory for us to welcome the Year of the Dragon in the world of snow and ice," said Zhong Minyi, 35, from Fuzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Fujian. "My daughter, who is 5, loves snow and she has been longing for the holiday."

Zhong plans to spend the Spring Festival holiday in Harbin and at Changbai Mountain, a destination with skiing resorts, hot springs and lake views in neighboring Jilin province.

Tour guide Liu said he felt proud and happy to see his hometown go viral online and embrace an increasing number of travelers this winter.

"I've been to many places, both at home and abroad, but I love my hometown of Harbin the most," he said. "The people here are kind and generous, and I hope all the guests here for the Spring Festival holiday can have a good experience."

chengsi@chinadaily.com.cn