政府新闻

上海旅游节以盛大游行开场 2024-09-17

A spectacular visual feast turned the iconic Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall into a sea of joy and fun last Saturday night as the 2024 Shanghai Tourism Festival, the city's annual tourism extravaganza, kicked off.

During the 23-day Shanghai Tourism Festival, 200 activities will take place across the city, establishing Shanghai as a world-famous tourist destination and the first stop in China for inbound travelers.

The opening ceremony and grand parade of this year's Shanghai Tourism Festival were composed of four chapters. A total of 25 performing troupes from countries such as the United States, France, Italy and Poland, and 25 dazzling floats were showcased, creating a scenery of mobile urban museums and grand stages of performance art.

Foreign performers in the festival

Among them, the "SAGA City of Light" float made its debut featuring classic Art Deco styles. The shapes of the float body and door frames were inspired by various scenes within the "City of Light" immersive theater, such as shikumen (stone-gates architecture) and trains, each with distinctive characters and plots that will be gradually revealed behind the story-filled doors.

The entire float was surrounded by a lively red cape that fluttered around the body, with a gorgeous and large Chinese totem in the center of the cape, igniting the grand narrative of the city's light.

A grand celebration

Between September 15 and 25, the immersive theater will offer discounted admission to visitors in celebration of the festival.

The float from Jilin Province uses a design combining the application of AI technology to vividly restore the enchanting scenery of a snowy kingdom, while the Dunhuang float, making its debut in Shanghai, showcases Dunhuang's cultural elements such as flying Apsaras, echoing the upcoming "The Great Art of Dunhuang" exhibition at the China Art Museum.

The float of "SAGA City of Light"

In line with the ancient Chinese saying, "It is always a pleasure to greet a friend from afar," Shanghai is warmly welcoming travelers from across the globe.

The event is a joyful gathering for performers from around the world.

Georgia Pletzer from Austria was a part of the festival. She and the other 39 musicians in the same band playing traditional folk music from Austria presented a show at the grand opening ceremony.

"It's really great, we are from Austria and it was really amazing to fly to Shanghai and travel here," Pletzer told Shanghai Daily.

"It's a great city and the skyline is amazing as we had a cruise tour the day before the rehearsal," she added.

"We prepared a show extra for Shanghai and for the festival."

In fact, the band spent up to nine months preparing for the show since December last year.

The show even incorporated a classic Shanghai song - Shanghai Tang.

A group of foreign performers wow audiences.

"They (organizers) asked us if we could play the traditional Shanghai song and we tried it," said Markus Schoesser, another band performer. "It fixes perfectly in the show and is really a nice part of the show.

"It's a total different song to our music tradition, but we have learnt it really well. We had fun playing other types of music, not only traditional Austrian music."

"The festival is really a big event and Shanghai is really a nice city. We have seen so many good things here."

A show at the grand opening

Maja Olczyk, from Poland, added: It's really hot, but it's an amazing and beautiful city.

"I really enjoy spending time here and can't wait to see how is the festival going to be."

She visited markets and old streets in Shanghai.

"The organization of the festival is amazing, and people are amazing," she said. "We are really happy to be here. I hope one day I can come back here because it's really a great city."