Longan Carnival Held in Daxin, Guangxi to Boost Tourism Development

Guangxi News Network, Daxin, August 12 (Reporter Xu Qianlei) - On August 12, the 2016 Great Beauty Daxin Longan Carnival was launched in Daxin county town. The event runs from August 11 to 15. During the event, Daxin County will launch a series of rich and colorful distinctive rural tourism activities centered on the Longan Carnival.

According to reports, this Longan Carnival takes "'Longan' Tours Detian - 'Eyes' Open to the Four Seas" as its theme. The event covers cultural performances, sightseeing, sports competitions, folk custom displays, tourism promotion and various other activities. The specific contents include a cycling tour around the town by bicycle enthusiasts, a fun longan-picking competition, tours of distinctive villages, ethnic-style cultural performances, a longan electronic music beer festival, a longan carnival music gathering and a series of other activities.

At the launch ceremony, in addition to the traditional dragon dance performance, Daxin County also invited Guangxi TV program host Guangguang, Guangxi Zhuang folk song queen Huang Chunyan, singer Bao Chaozhi, face-changing king Wei Dong, feather balancing performer Zhen Yue, young singers Li Baolong and Tang Yifang, and other big names to perform on the same stage with Daxin's local Kapok Troupe. The wonderful cultural performances won continuous applause from the audience. At the same time, Guangguang, known as the "King of Guangxi Finger-Guessing," also invited audience members onto the stage for interactive finger-guessing games, with longan as prizes, setting off a wave of excitement throughout the venue. At the event site, Ms. Li, a tourist from Nanning, told reporters: "Taking advantage of this Longan Carnival to travel and sightsee in Daxin, I not only enjoyed the beautiful scenery, but also got to pick and taste fresh longan. It really feels great."

Daxin County is one of the six major longan production bases in the country and the place of origin of kudingcha (bitter tea), and has long enjoyed the reputation of "Home of Longan" and "Home of Kudingcha." In recent years, Daxin County has made every effort to advance the construction of the China-Vietnam Detian-Banyue International Tourism Cooperation Zone and build a distinctive border-customs tourism belt. At present, Daxin County has successfully developed 5 autonomous-region-level ecological towns, 14 ecological villages and 89 municipal-level ecological villages. It has also invested more than 20 million yuan to build an ecological rural tourism demonstration belt where "villages are in the forest, courtyards are in the greenery and people are in the scenery." Today, rural tourism attractions such as Nongsha Tun in Taocheng Town, Nawang Tun in Encheng and Xinxing in Quanming have become the best tourist resorts and leisure destinations for holidays. From January to July 2016, the county received a total of 3,184,400 tourist visits, an increase of 16.37% over the same period last year. Among them, domestic tourists numbered 3,116,600, an increase of 16.46% over the same period last year. Overseas inbound tourists numbered 67,800, an increase of 12.25% over the same period last year. Foreign exchange earnings reached 24,520,400 US dollars, an increase of 20.46% over the same period last year. Comprehensive tourism revenue reached 2.583 billion yuan, an increase of 14.34% over the same period last year.