Jilin’s tourism pavilion holds great appeal for visitors at Northeast Asia Expo

Jilin Province’s tourism pavilion, featuring local tourism products, resources, features and advantages, was one of the most attractive pavilions at the11th Northeast Asia Expo that concluded on September 5.

“Come to Jilin to enjoy flowers in the spring, cool air in the summer, fruit-picking in the autumn and ice and snow in the winter"--this is the message the pavilion hoped to convey.

Entering the pavilion, one could watch a promotional video displaying Jilin’s magnificent landscape, enjoy passionate art performances, buy tourism commodities ranging from the Three Northeast China Treasures to wood carvings, Songhua inkstones, clay sculptures and guard paintings, and choose from border tours, rural tours, leisure tours and other tourism products.

Tourism authorities of Jilin Province made full use of the expo to display and promote tourism resources and products under their jurisdictions. The favorable feedbacks showed the expo to be a strong impetus for local tourism development: Sales of tourism souvenirs and commodities at the booths of all prefecture-level cities increased; visitors stayed longer at Jilin’s tourism pavilion; and businessmen and tourists’ gained much better understanding of Jilin as a tourist destination.

Mr. Sun, who ran a travel agency in Guangzhou, came to Jilin’s tourism pavilion to talk business for four consecutive days.

“The talks were fruitful,”said Sun, who sought to have deeper cooperation with travel agencies of Jilin to develop ice and snow tours because Jilin, a province with wonderful ice and snow resources, was well-known in Guangzhou for such tours.

He had reached cooperation intentions with one travel agency from Changchun City and another one from Jilin City.

Tourism resources and products difficult to come by elsewhere were most effective in convincing a tourist to visit a place, said Sun.

Sun was right. The popularity of Jilin’s ice and snow tours, border tours, and folk custom tours among non-locals and the great deal of attention from non-local businessmen to local tourism products and routes launched at the expo were testament to Sun’s opinion.

Jilin’s scenic areas, travel agencies and enterprises selling tourism commodities and souvenirs all benefited from exhibition at the expo.

“We reaped a good harvest at this year’s expo,”said a staff member at a booth selling ula grass-made shoe-pads, slippers and pillows. The original supply was sold out in the first three days of the expo, so the company gave an extra supply to meet consumer demands.

Crowds were seen at all sections of Jilin’s tourism pavilion and visitors were seen carrying many a shopping bag.

At the booth of Liaoyuan City, two colorful baskets attracted many visitors to watch or pose for a picture with them. The baskets were filled with cotton socks made in Liaoyuan, the most popular tourism commodity at the expo.

An official from Liaoyuan’s tourism bureau said many scenic areas and tourism enterprises in the city participated in the expo as exhibitors and achieved expected results. The art performance the city staged won high praise from spectators. Liaoyuan’s popularity as a tourist destination had greatly increased, said the official.

Like Liaoyuan, other prefecture-level cities in Jilin Province took turns to stage art performances and hand out discounted entry tickets, tourism commodities and souvenirs to visitors for half a day at the pavilion.

“After our city’s art performance was staged, many visitors came to our booth inquiring about tourist routes to be launched during the National Day holiday,” said Jin Hua, an official from the information center of Tonghua City Tourism Bureau.

The approach of half-day promotion has found favor with scenic area operators because it was effective in bringing a scenic area from obscurity to popularity by showing its must-dos, must-sees and must-eats to visitors in half a day, said an official from the Longwanqun National Forest Park.