Officials from Xiangyang in central China’s Hubei province visited Japan and South Korea from Dec 11 to 18 to promote the city as a travel destination, hubeitour.gov.cn, the official website of Hubei Provincial Tourism Bureau, reported.

The first promotional event was held in the Miyako Hotel in Tokyo on Dec 12, and the second in the Imperial Palace Hotel in Seoul on Dec 16, and tourism industry professionals as well as the media attended both events.

Du Kegang, secretary of the Disciplinary Committee of Xiangyang Municipal People’s Government, gave speeches at both events and Ruan Lili, vice-director of Longzhong tourist attraction management committee, gave presentations about the city’s attractions.

In addition, the officials recommended four theme tourism routes, concerning the culture of the Three Kingdoms (AD 220-280), the culture of the Hanjiang River area, Jingshan Mountain ecological tourism and the tourist cooperation with Wudang Mountains and Shennongjia, two popular tourist attractions in Hubei province.

Gao Min, person in charge of the foreign affairs department of RRC, a tourism company in Japan, said that the company will share resources with other local tourist agencies with the aim of increasing cooperation between Tokyo and Xiangyang.

In addition, representatives of several travel agencies said that they hope to visit Xiangyang in the spring of 2014, and meet with representatives of the local government and various enterprises.

During the two promotional events, participants from Japan and South Korea were concerned about the lack of international flights linking Xiangyang with cities such as Tokyo and Seoul, and Xiangyang representatives said this is one of the major issues that they are currently addressing, in addition to the construction of highways.

Edited by Niva Whyman