News » Olympic Games

VIENNA Nike Vapormax Blue , March 29 (Xinhua) -- The current 20152016 winter season in Austria has broken records for both overnight stays and overall visitor numbers, Statistics Austria revealed in preliminary figures on Tuesday.


The statistics office said overnight stays between November and February have increased 1.7 percent to 47.1 million, while visitor number increased 3.5 percent to reach 12.45 million, with the months of March and April still to come.


German visitors were as usual the most important for the domestic tourism industry, their guest numbers increasing 1.6 percent for the first four months of the winter season, while other increases in guest numbers were noted from Great Britain (6.5 percent increase), Switzerland and Liechtenstein (5.8 percent increase) Nike Vapormax Pink , and the Czech Republic (7 percent increase).


Overnight stays from domestic guests also increased 2.3 percent to reach 10.5 million.


In response to the figures Austrian tourism minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said they showed Austria is "attractive and competitive," and particularly for the important month of February showed it was the number one winter sport destination in Europe.


The only blips on an otherwise successful season have been a large 28 percent drop in overnight stays from Russian visitors, as well as a 5.4 decrease in those from The Netherlands, despite a 4.3 percent increase in Dutch visitor numbers.


The annual Airstyle snowboarding competition in Beijing is set to take place in November, one month ahead of the traditional December schedule, organizers said in a press conference on Monday.


The National Stadium, or Bird's Nest - the venue for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games Nike Vapormax Platinum , will host the event on November 18 and 19.


An upgrade of the snow-making system led to an earlier schedule, said Li Sheng, CEO of promoter SECA.


"November 15 is often considered the start of Beijing's winter season, and we now have a winter sporting event the weekend after that," Li told reporters.


Once considered an X-sport, Chinese athletes were left out in the cold at big air snowboarding events, but after it was included in the snowboarding competition of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games Nike Vapormax Off White , more people, especially the young, began paying attention.


He Wei will be the only -Chinese to compete at the competition. But several top stars have entered.


Mark McMorris, bronze medalist in the men's slope style at the Sochi Winter Games, leads the list of world-class athletes, which includes Canadian X-sport star Sebastien Toutant and Yuki Kadono of Japan, winner of the 2012 event at the age of 16.


American snowboarding star Shaun White was once the poster boy for the tournament Nike Vapormax White , but after the Sochi -Winter Games, he chose to focus on his music career. He didn't retire fully from competition, choosing to promote snowboarding events.


After Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, winter sports in China -received a boost.


The Beijing event will kick off the Airstyle series' 2016-17 season, with the other two events to be held in Innsbruck, Austria and Los Angeles next year.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych before their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China Nike Vapormax Black , Dec. 5, 2013. (XinhuaJu Peng)

Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Beijing on Thursday, vowing to further bilateral strategic partnership.


"China-Ukraine relations have entered a fast track for long-term healthy and stable development since strategic partnership was established in 2011," Xi told Yanukovych.