“New York City, already a top international tourist destination, has a message for visitors from China: There’s more to see than the Empire State Building and Times Square,” writes Amy Qin in Thursday’s (9/22) New York Times. “To spread that message and appeal to the growing number of Chinese tourists heading abroad, the city has named the superstar Chinese pianist Lang Lang as its first ‘cultural tourism ambassador.’ At a ceremony outside Steinway Hall in Manhattan on Tuesday—or ‘Lang Lang Day,’ as proclaimed by Mayor Bill de Blasio—the musician was presented with a personalized double-decker bus featuring his photo in front. The event was timed to coincide with the release last week of Mr. Lang’s latest album, ‘New York Rhapsody,’ billed as a love letter to the city where Mr. Lang, 34, maintains a residence…. Mr. Lang released a list of some of his favorite things … Carnegie Hall, Broadway and, yes, the Empire State Building—but also … Chinese food and the Steinway piano factory in Queens and the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn…. The city is responding to a shift in Chinese tourism away from whirlwind, multicity group tours toward individual travelers who set their own itineraries.”
Posted September 27, 2016
