A campaign to promote tourism for Chinese provinces and cities along the Maritime Silk Road has begun in the US and Canada.

The campaign organized by the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) visited Vancouver on Tuesday and Houston on Wednesday. On Friday, the show will travel to Dolphin Mall in Miami.

With the theme of Beautiful China - Journey along the Maritime Silk Road, the three-hour highlights provinces and cities including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong.

The Maritime Silk Road has a legacy that can be traced back more than two millennia, when the Chinese, Hindus and Arabs exchanged goods through maritime sailing.

The Maritime Silk Road started at the southeastern coast of China.

Passing by the Indo-China Peninsula and countries by the South Sea, it stretches into the Red Sea area from the Indian Ocean, and ends in East Africa and Europe. As the maritime channel for trade and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, the road boosted common development of countries along the route.

In October 2013, the Maritime Silk Road initiative, also known as the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" initiative, was first proposed by President Xi Jinping during a speech to the Indonesian Parliament.

It is a complementary initiative aimed at investing and fostering collaboration in Southeast Asia, Oceania and North Africa, along several contiguous bodies of water - the South China Sea, the South Pacific Ocean and the wider Indian Ocean area.

The area that has led China's economic development is opening wider and shining with its rich history, picturesque landscape and a highly developed outlook to welcome friends from all over the world.

By the end of 2015, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guilin and other cities along the Maritime Silk Road offered transit without visa within 72 hours to foreign visitors from 51 countries and regions, including the US and Canada.

With 2016 designated as the Year of China-US Tourism, China expect more than 6 million tourists from both China and the United States, said Zhang Meifang, China's deputy consul general in New York,

According to Pan Xiaopeng, deputy director of the CNTO in New York, from January to April, some 720,000 Americans traveled to China, the highest level in five years.

Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 09/23/2016 page2)