Suzhou raises international profile with tourism campaign
Over the past year, Suzhou has achieved encouraging results from a series of tourism promotions in four important international markets of North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea and created more than 370 million bites of social media exposures.
The official English account @VisitSuzhou has more than 1.2 million followers on major international social media platforms, according to the Suzhou Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism.
Nine online and offline activities for promoting Suzhou were held last year in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Seoul, with more than 810,000 tourists taking part in, according to the bureau.
Xu Weirong, deputy director of the Suzhou Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, delivers a speech at a press conference on November 1 to showcase the achievements of the Jiangsu Province city over the past year in its promotion campaign in international markets to attract overseas tourists.
"This is the ninth year in which the Suzhou Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism has promoted Suzhou culture and tourism in the international market," Xu Weirong, deputy director of the bureau, told Shanghai Daily.
"We have worked together with the tourism industry to create a brand image of Suzhou as an international destination, bringing the city's 2,500-year-old cultural heritage, the culture of Jiangnan (regions south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River) and Suzhou's great beauty to travelers throughout the world."
Wang Rudong, chief of the foreign exchange and cooperation division of the bureau, said that Suzhou has made full use of both international and domestic resources to present its cultural and art heritage, festivals, cultural stories, and foods and sceneries in the four seasons to global tourists.
Traditional art performance forms, such as guqin or the ancient zither, have been handed down in Suzhou for thousands of years.
Since November 2021, the bureau has planned four online activities around the annual promotion theme of "Suzhou Heritage" in the North American and European markets. Combining the four themes of the Chinese New Year, Kunqu Opera, Suzhou Craftsmanship and Jiangnan Culture and Art Festival, the events demonstrated to global consumers the perfect integration of Suzhou's 2,500-year-old culture and the modern city.
