Winners of “My Favorite Asian Cuisine” chefs pose for a photo. [photo/ACFGZ]

The eight-day Asian Cuisine Festival Guangzhou, part of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, concluded Thursday with fruitful results.

The event, aimed at using culinary culture to facilitate cultural exchanges among Asian societies, attracted 8.98 million participants from home and abroad, data from the organizing committee showed.

Xu Yonghong, a member of the Standing Committee and director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Guangzhou Committee, said that the festival promotes exchanges and mutual learning among Asian civilizations and adds new incentives for Guangzhou to be more integrated into the world. “During the festival, a variety of activities are carried out to show the beauty of Asian cuisine and the unique charm of Guangzhou's diet culture to visitors from around the world, “she said.

“From the opening ceremony of the festival to ‘My Stories with Asian Cuisine’ story sharing session,” she added, “from the World Cuisine Collection at Haixinsha Island to ‘My Encounter with Asia’ Host Country Day activities, different cultures shine and complement each other here, bringing together a colorful gourmet carnival.”

“This is a cuisine festival with fruitful results,” said Xu. “Fifteen initiatives are proposed to consolidate the achievements of this event, including the establishment of the Asian Cuisine Culture Industry Development Strategic Alliance, building the Asian cuisine festival host countries linkage mechanism, and so on. We will continue to work together with Hong Kong, Macau and Foshan (Shunde) to promote the cuisine culture of the Greater Bay Area.”

She went on to say, “During the eight-day festival, 8.98 million tourists gathered in Guangzhou to enjoy food and culture, and more than 1,400 related articles were reported by domestic and foreign mainstream media. Besides, views of videos related to the event on social media platforms exceed one billion times.”

“My Favorite Asian Cuisine” brands were unveiled later during the closing ceremony. Winning gourmet restaurants, chefs, banquets, dishes and souvenirs of Asian countries in Guangzhou were selected by both the world's leading gourmet think tanks and institutions (accounting for 60% of the scores) and netizens (accounting for 40% of the scores).

Some 500 guests including consul generals and officers from consulates in Guangzhou, government officers, and representatives of food organizations and the media attended the closing ceremony.