The sky's the limit for hot air balloon festival

Hot air balloons are not a novel sight for visitors to established tourist sites such as Turkey's Cappadocia region.

However, they were a breath of fresh air when they were introduced to Zhangye, a city in the northwestern province of Gansu, in August 2016.

In July 2013, a provincial government blueprint for Zhangye's development, which highlighted the city's breathtaking Danxia landform of red sandstone and steep cliffs, prompted authorities to offer tourists a range of activities such as scenic tours and aerial sightseeing experiences.

"With encouragement from the provincial authorities, we quickly introduced rides in helicopters and small planes. Later, we introduced hot air balloons to enhance low-level aerial sightseeing," said He Yonggang, general manager of Zhangye Danxia Culture and Tourism, a private company. He added that Zhangye has great advantages for the development of balloon-based sightseeing.

"The Qicai Danxia scenic area ("colorful Danxia scene") has a charming landscape - the Danxia landform - and aerial trips offer astonishing views of it.

"In 2016, the scenic area was still in the primary stage of development, so there weren't many activities available to travelers that could have hampered its sustainable growth," He said.

He noted that the introduction of aerial entertainment was highly beneficial to the area's branding campaign. "However, running such events was not easy at the very beginning because we had no idea how to manage a flying team, how to promote the service or analyze data from the balloon," he added.

"We spent years producing seven pilot balloons and purchased about 10 others for companies. Now, we have much better flight and meteorological data."

To better promote tourism, Zhangye held China's first hot air balloon festival on July 19, 2019. About 100 balloons lifted off during the two-day event, which was attended by about 50,000 tourists.

Thanks to the festival's popularity and that of related low-level aerial entertainment in general, Zhangye received over 2.8 million visitors from home and abroad in 2019, a rise of 12.5 percent from the previous year.

"The second festival (in July last year) lasted 12 days and attracted 40,000 visitors. It featured an aerial performance by balloon operators, a photography competition and singalongs designed to cheer people up in the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak," He said.

He added that the company wants to promote the hot air balloon festival as an international gala in the future to boost Zhangye's reputation and further develop the local tourism industry. "Fast-developing social media and information technology also provide us with great opportunities to introduce Zhangye to the outside world," he said.

Xue Liyang, a 28-year-old from Shanghai, returned to Zhangye this year after being amazed by the scenes she saw during the second hot air balloon festival.

"The balloons were scattered across the sky like stars, making me feel like I was in Turkey. I had never imagined seeing such a breathtaking view in China. It was romantic and beautiful, and I promised myself that I would return this year to experience the area's beauty again," she said.