The 7th International Tourism Festival Xinjiang China

The 7th China Xinjiang International Tourism Festival kicked off in Karamay Xinjiang on June 25, 2011. According to the official statistics, over 200 distinguished guests both from 26 countries and 24 provinces in China attended the the Xinjiang Tourism Promotion Meeting yesterday afternoon as well as the grand opening ceremony of the 7th International Tourism Xinjiang China yesterday evening, which opened the curtain of the week long inspection tours of both the north Xinjiang and West Xinjiang 2011.

The size of this year's Xinjiang internatoional tourism festival is smaller in size in comparison with that of last year. There are a few reasons behind the clear decrease.

Some participants couldn't fly on time from Beijing to Urumqi on June 24, 2011 because of the heavy downpour which had started from 4:30pm on June 23, 2011, causing lots of delays and cancellations of the flights.

Some people have to give up due to the coming of the tourism peak season, After second thought, they prefer to work rather than participate the tourism festival. In addition, a small number of would-be attendeers are a little bit worried at the safety situation in Xinjiang.

The tourism director also gave us a clear account of the travel agency situation in Xinjiang. At the end of 2010, there are 441 travel agencies, 488 star rated hotels, 12 of them are five star hotels. There ae 168 scenery spots rated as level 3, level 4 and level 5. There are totally 94325 registered tour guides in Xinjiang. 200,000 people are directly involved in the tourism industry and over 800,000 people are indirectly involved.

Then the Karamay mayor delivered a speech introducing the basic knowedge about the ctiy of Karamay. He says "Karamay means "black oil. He contunes that 50 years ago, Karamay used to be a desolated Gobi - no grass, no water, even on birds. Karamay now has already become a mutifuctional and inhabitable city, full of vitality and vigor. Karamay has a population of four hundred thousand people with a total area of 7733 square kilometers. It has 38 ethnical groups including Han, Uygur, Kazak, Mogolian and so on.

Though the speeches are long and a little overlapping, the 2 hour art performance afterwards was fantastic! Below is the list of the performance with photos:

Honorable Guests are coming 1

Honorable Guests are coming 2

Speeches delivered by several high ranking officials

Xinjiang Tourism Festinval Attendees

Tonight was a safe night

Opening Song "Welcome My Dear Friends" by Palidan

1. Dance Series: Soul of Eastern Music

2. Musical Acrobatic "Hello Labour"

3. Song "the Mother of Grassland"

4. Performance "Our Xinjiang Yakaxi"

5. Song and Dance"Entrepreneurship and Brilliant - Karamay"

6. Children Songs and Dances "Grown up"

7.Songs and dances by Maierziya, Wujuan

8.Chorus "the song of Karamay

9. Musical dance "Jasmine Flower'

10. Song Series "Come on! Friends"

11. Solo Song "The Sun Rises from the East"

12. Traditional Costume Show "Beautiful Xinjiang"

13. Solo Song "I Love you China"