Suzhou becomes more and more popular tourist destination for Americans because we have been branding Suzhou in America for three years. But some of people don’t understand our promotion strategies, so today I hold the press conference to introduce some details on behalf of Suzhou Tourism Administration in five minutes and would like to answer your any questions in the following ten minutes.

First of all, we improve awareness of Suzhou. We set up four main international social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Yotube and post attractive photos and articles everyday to trigger more viewers notice Suzhou. What's more, we invite American journalists to travel around Suzhou to experience authentic Suzhou lifestyles and they can write attractive articles afterwards.

Secondly, we hired a local PR American company called PHG to help us communicate top 100 travel agencies, who run outbound business to China. PHG tries to persuade local travel agencies to add Suzhou products to their business. Local people can order Suzhou tourism packages if they are attracted.

Thirdly, we often hold special activities to expose Suzhou. For example, we rented a boat which is running around the Statue of Liberty in New York and decorated it with Suzhou iconic images. In addition, we invited local media and travel agencies to attend Suzhou promotion conference on the boat.

Fourthly, we often educate Suzhou local travel agencies how to receive Americans better. We told them what kind of products Americans like, what kind of service do Americans prefer, why should we adapt the food to their appetite?

What we are doing in America seems like circle of ecosystem. Creating awareness, more Suzhou tourism Packages, Creative activities and good service. All of them have been done well and then more Americans are coming to Suzhou.

Questions from Audience:

1. Why does Suzhou Tourism Administration choose America to be targeted market?

America is top second biggest market of Suzhou. Take 2015 as an example, Suzhou received more than 100 thousands American tourists. What's more, America has a big population. Dollar value is increasing and it is stronger than any other money in the world. All in all, America is huge potential & high-quality international market.

2. What's the most attractive of Suzhou for Americans? How can Suzhou Tourism Administration convince it works well?

Suzhou is famous for its waterways such as Grand Canal, Yangtze River, East Ocean and many famous lakes. Furthermore, Venice of the east has been spreading for hundreds of years since 13 century by Marco Polo. So we think "Suzhou, Venice of the east" is still the best city image. Venice is well-known by almost Americans and the east means mystery and power. We are confident most of them like this slogan based on the research. In fact, the annual growth rate of American market reached 15 percentages or more.

3. Suzhou food is delicious, but some of Americans don't like them. How do you deal with such this situation?

Yes, we totally agree the best food is their hometowns' dishes. We found most of American tourists would like to taste local food at the beginning of the journey, but it is not endurable for them to have local food in each meal even though they are delicious. We asked local agencies to arrange western food after one or two local Suzhou meals. We often encourage tourists to taste different kinds of local food. We help them find coffee shops as possible as we can. I think the change does work. Most of American tourists are satisfied the adaption.

4. What does Suzhou Tourism Administration think about FIT tourists when more and more individuals would like to travel free by themselves?

Nearly half of American tourists were from FIT. The FIT market is developing very quickly, which has surpassed the group travel. Some of them come directly from America but the others are from other cities and they already work and live in China. So we put much more details information on TripAdvisor, which most of international FIT tourists would like to visit. In meanwhile, we ask one Chinese company called Laibay to design more Suzhou unique products to attract more tourists who are already in China.