Ma Tao (fourth from the right), Director of Dalian Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, meets the overseas travel influencers. [Photo by Yang Ningtao]

On June 23, an event themed"Exploring China by Visiting Dalian", which invited overseas travel influencers to enjoy their tour around Dalian, was launched at the city's World Musical Culture Museum. The event is co-hosted by Dalian Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and CRI Online, China Media Group, and organized by CRI Online's Liaoning Channel.

From the unique perspective of"foreign friends telling Dalian's stories", the event has shown the world the new image of Dalian by demonstrating its cultural tourism development, urban construction, opening-up and inclusiveness, to facilitate the building of Dalian into a"Culture City of East Asia", let more international friends hear the voices from the local people who welcome global friends with open arms, encourage people around the globe to explore Dalian and, consequentially, make them fall in love with this city.

Ma Tao, Director of Dalian Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, met overseas travel influencers and presented"Dalian's gift". Zeng Wuling, Deputy Director of Dalian Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, delivered a speech at the welcome ceremony.

The overseas travel influencers took a group photo at the welcome ceremony. [Photo by Yang Ningtao]

This event invited overseas travel influencers from Japan, South Korea, Turkey and other countries to enjoy an immersive tourism experience in Dalian. Mitsunori Ono and Atsutoshi Murata, two Internet influencers from Japan, Jeong Ji-eun, a Korean Internet influencer, and Ali Erdogan, a Turkish Internet influencer, started on June 23 a three-day in-depth tour to explore this city. With their own language strengths and unique perspectives of interpretation and exploration, these travel influencers discovered impressive highlights emerging due to the differences between China and other countries, and introduced to the world the natural scenery and poetic romance of Dalian, to help the world get closer to Dalian.

Jeong Ji-eun (left), a travel influencer from South Korea, learned the intangible cultural heritage technique of sugar-figurine blowing. [Photo by Yang Ningtao]

Atsutoshi Murata (right), a travel influencer from Japan, tried to learn the intangible cultural heritage technique of dough sculpture making. [Photo by Yang Ningtao]