With the National Day holiday underway from Oct 1 to 7, global tourist attractions are seeing a larger influx of Chinese visitors, including the world-famous Oktoberfest in Germany.
The world's largest beer festival draws in more than 6 million people annually from all over the world. According to travel agencies, more and more of these people are from China, such as Du Chuan and Shen Bing who came from southwest China's Guizhou Province.
"We learned about Oktoberfest long time ago. We love German culture. It's our first time to come to Germany. We're here to visit our friends and family on the one hand, and on the other hand to understand what are the differences between Germany and China," said Shen.
"We'll tell our friends the history and culture of Oktoberfest when we are back. We'll also tell our friends the Germans' love and hospitality towards friends from all over the world," said Du.
According to Germany's national tourist board, arrivals from China have been steadily increasing since long-haul flights resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic, with Munich and Bavaria being the top choice for overnight stays.
But those numbers are still only half of the 2019 figures and many beer tents at Oktoberfest are still noticing their absence.
"We had a lot of Chinese tourists, visitors, guests here. Fantastic. You often recognized them. They're in a good mood, funny. But since the pandemic, I noticed it during the pandemic. It's decreased. Now I notice a gap in Chinese guests. There's a shortcoming there," said Gerd Laumer, managing director of Hacker Festzelt.
A change at this year's event is the increase in security measures following a series of violent incidents in Germany, including a deadly knife attack at a public festival in the city of Solingen in August.
The Oktoberfest opened on Sept 21 and will run through Oct 6.
Oktoberfest attracts more Chinese tourists to Germany
A Chinese businesswoman in Lebanon on Tuesday said China's evacuation of its citizens from the Middle East country was swift.
The first batch of 69 Chinese citizens, along with 11 of their foreign family members, have been evacuated from Lebanon and safely arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensified in southern Lebanon.
Eliana Ibrahim, president of the China Arab Association for Promoting Cultural and Commercial Exchange, who has lived in Lebanon for over two decades, talked about the latest situation in Lebanon during in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).
"We all know Lebanon is in such kind of situation, but really for everybody's life it's quite different. The people in the south of Lebanon, they have to leave their houses. They are sleeping on the street and they're sleeping in the public school which opened by the government to host them. Some of them rent houses in the north of Lebanon or they live in their relatives' houses," she said.
The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday marks a major escalation in the long-running conflict and deepens fears of a wider regional war.
"The only explosion I heard was the one on Friday, the one which was targeting the leader of Hezbollah. That was the huge one and the other explosions, I never heard that," Eliana Ibrahim said.
She said she kept contact with the Chinese Embassy in Lebanon about the evacuation plans. She believes the Chinese authorities have made quick response to the worsening sitution in the Middle East country.
"I was the witness of the 2006 evacuation of the Chinese people in Lebanon. So I shared my experience with the Chinese embassy and I gave them all the support because we have a travel agency. We know from where we can rent buses. So all of this information was already requested by the Chinese embassy one year ago. It's even quicker than I thought," she said.
Cyprus, the closest European Union member state to the Middle East, is a hub for evacuees, having handled an influx of around 60,000 people fleeing the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006.
Chinese citizens swiftly evacuated from Lebanon amid escalating Israel-Hezbollah crossfire
