Consul General Julius Caesar A. Flores attended the Opening Ceremony of the China (Xiamen) International Leisure Tourism Expo 2016 at the Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center (XICEC) on 23 September 2016. The Expo, which ran from 23 to 25 September 2016, was themed “Refreshing Fujian, Beautiful Xiamen” and "Belt and Road tourism", was organized by Xiamen C&D International Travel Service Group with the support of Xiamen Municipal Tourism Bureau.

This year's event covered an area of 30,000 square meters of XICEC covered halls with 1,000 booths from domestic and international exhibitors, such as Eutour United, Royal Caribbean International and the Spanish Tourism Authority, and C&D Travel Services. More than 200,000 visitors from more than 30 countries and regions including Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, the US, Canada, Germany, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan participated in this year’s Expo.

The Philippines was represented by Philippine Airlines (PAL-Xiamen) which set up a booth and distributed tourism materials provided by the Philippine Tourism Office (PTO)-Shanghai.

The 3-day expo included forums on Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE) tourism and leisure tourism, a purchase fair and a conference on self-driving tours, aiming at providing a comprehensive service platform.

Consul General Flores was invited as one of the VIP guests in the welcome dinner attended by more than 600 tourism stakeholders from all over China and across the world. END