One hundred and eight beauties from various countries and territories met in Henan, China, from July 7 to August 2 to compete for the title of “Miss Tourism Queen International 2007. In the end, world tourism was the winner.

Although Russian beauty, Olga Zarubina was crowned as queen, the real victor of the contest was friendship among the peoples of the world, built on the platform of tourism.

“Miss Tourism Queen International 2007” was organised by the Miss Tourism Organisation, China, the Exclusive Resources Marketing Limited, Singapore, and the Henan Provincial Government.

The pageant representatives in Ghana is the 1st Royal Events Limited. The country was represented by “Ghana’s Most Beautiful,” Lena Ama Acquah, who was among 10 other contestants from Africa.

Miss Democratic Republic of Congo, Mwinga Diane Mizumi made it to the top 10 while Miss Cameroun, Marthe Nathalie Houag was voted as the Best African delegate outside the top 10.

Within the one-month period that the event was held in various towns in the Henan Province, the contestants, members of the media and the Chinese inhabitants shared exciting moments of friendliness that was perfectly in line with the objectives of the pageant, which has been held in various parts of the world since 1949.

Islands and territories such as Guadelope, French Antilles, Fernando de Noronha, Nuie, Curacao and a host of others had the opportunity, through the pageant, to make themselves better known to the outside world.

For instance, this reporter got to know much more about all these islands and territories for the first time during the tourism festival.

And it was also exciting to observe the black contestants, journalists and officials at the pageant being given a lot of attention by the Chinese inhabitants of communities in some of China's ancient towns, as many of them claimed that they were seeing blacks for the first time.

Some of the people were visibly so excited to see black people that they forced their way through security barriers to take photographs with the dark-skinned reporters, beauty queens and officials.

The 108 contestants and hundreds of media men and women saw the Chinese side of tourism where value was added to everything that was presented as a tourism product.

Chinese chop-sticks were packed in stylish cases and sold as souvenirs. The Chinese calligraphy was also done beautifully on T-shirts.

Their mountains had grottoes created in them, while beams of light criss-crossed fountains that shot out from machines connected to rivers, creating very exciting “water works”. And indeed, “fire works” were also part of their evening entertainment shows.

Tourists who love “jamming” night-clubs will love those in China. Though some were a bit over-crowded, many of them presented live music performances, stand-up comedy and gymnastic displays as preludes to the dance sessions.

The Chinese love their language and many of them do not speak any of the so-called international languages such as English, French and Spanish.

And that is about the only thing that may make a tourist in China quite unhappy, as one must have to use all one’s senses to ask for everything from a chilled bottle of beer to hot Chinese vegetable soup.

But with one Chinese word, “nihao” (hello), one is sure to win the Chinese to one’s side for any assistance.

There was no doubt that the hundreds of contestants, press men/women and officials who attended this year’s “Miss Tourism Queen International Pageant” in China had a good feel of all tourism is about.