During the Dragon Boat Festival, scenic areas, museums, exhibition halls and rural scenic spots of Xianning City have launched a variety of Dragon Boat Festival themed activities, which immersed the tourists in a profound cultural atmosphere. According to statistics, Xianning City saw a total of 1.352 million tourists during the holiday, and the comprehensive tourism revenue reached 925 million yuan, up 20.2% and 20.7% respectively from the same period last year.

Wonderful folk activities, such as making glutinous rice dumplings and the dragon boat race have been staged across Xianning. Jiayu County held the 2nd Pudu Double Dragon Cultural Tourism activity, which attracted tourists through song and dance performances, fragrant spas and clown’s performances.

On Jun 6th, the 2nd “Yellow Crane Tower Wine·Chenxiang Cup” Xianning Dragon Boat Open Race was solemnly held in the waters ranging from Tongxin Bridge, Ganhe River to Shuanghe Bridge section, where 32 teams competed fiercely against each other. Besides, there were also stalls sold delicious snacks, such as crayfishes and pancakes, which has allowed the tourists to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival together with Xianning citizens and also demonstrated special Xianning folk culture to the tourists who came from other provinces.

What’s more, the 2nd “Uniting People through Rice Dumplings and Warming People’s Hearts in Dragon Boat Festival” Zongzi-making Public Welfare Competition held by Xianning City attracted a great number of people, seeing 0.58 million online page views. Various dragon boat festival themed activities launched by Sanjiang Forest Hot Spring, Chongyang Langkou Hot Spring and the Xianning Mall of Zhongnan Commercial (Group) Co.,Ltd. were also brilliant.

The serial activity of “Protecting Cultural Heritages and Inheriting the Red Genes” and Culture Entering Scenic Spots launched by Xianning Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism was held in the Red Square in Huangpao Mountain, Tongcheng County on Jun 8th, which is the Culture and Natural Heritage Day of China. The other five counties (prefecture-level cities and districts) of Xianning also set parallel venues to simultaneously hold the exhibitions of cultural heritages, intangible heritages and manual craftsmanship. Visitors can taste the bean curds of Maishi Town, fried sesame balls and a special local delicacy, Baotuo (a stuffed dumpling made from sweet potato starch). In the meantime, they also launched a prize-winning quiz game concerning the law for the protection of cultural relics and intangible heritages in a bid to enhance the tourists’ awareness of protecting cultural heritages.

During the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, Xianning Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism has published the 7 summer themed high-quality travel routes, including the rural recreational tour in Mufu Mountain area, parent-child science popularization tour in Xian’an District and ecological healthy tour in Jiayu County, etc, and promoted the special scenic spots along the travel routes in all media platforms, which has attracted a great number of tourist to appreciate the picturesque rural scenery and try the special country delicacies.

Chibi Ancient Battlefield of the Three Kingdoms, Jiugong Mountain scenic area and Yinshui Cave scenic area received 58,200, 9600 and 13,400 tourists respectively according to statistics. (By Ruan Zehua/Xianning Daily)