Kevin Watkins (third from left), David Hope (second from left) and other guests cut the ribbon at the event. Photo: Yin Yeping/GT

The Amazing China Hastings Year of Tourism, which celebrates and enhances the special connection between China and Hastings, New Zealand, took place at the New Zealand Embassy in China on Tuesday. Hastings District Councillor and the project director Kevin Watkins and Deputy Head of Mission at the New Zealand Embassy David Hope participated in the event and gave a speech. This year marks the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism 2019, an initiative agreed by both China's Premier Li Keqiang and then New Zealand prime minister Bill English in 2017. The Amazing China Hastings Year of Tourism is a part of the national program, and is officially endorsed by the New Zealand Minister of Tourism Kelvin Davis, Tourism New Zealand, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The Hastings project has invited each of China's regions to participate in a "treasure chest" exchange. After acceptance, Hastings will send each of the participating regions a chest that holds special gift. Each region in China will then send back the chest containing something that represents their region. 

The chests received from China will be prominently displayed in Hastings, but initially they will be unopened. "There is an excellent reason for that," Watkins said. "We envisage that the chests will become part of a fantastic secondary school competition which will help our students learn much more about China and all of its beauty. Hastings students will need to use their researching skills, by solving clues about China's culture, geography, history and people, to match the gifts with the regions they have come from. The first three students to correctly match all of the gifts with their home regions will win." The aim of the Amazing China Hastings Year of Tourism is to strengthen the strong relationships that Hastings already has with China - through tourism, tertiary education and trade.

Following Watkins' first visit to China in 2004, he returned to New Zealand with the determination that the people and, high school students in particular, needed to interact and learn much more about China. "We want to build understanding and friendship between our two countries, particularly within our younger generations who will have more and more interactions with their Chinese peers as technology continues to enable closer ties across the world," Watkins said.