Xiamen tourism industry added a bespoke spur to its already impressive reputation with the recent news that nine tourists took a luxury yacht cruise from the city's Wutong Pier to Kinmen county on Feb 21.

The maiden tour spanned the six kilometers that separate Xiamen and Kinmen on the Taiwan Strait and the half-hour cruise offered the guests wonderful views of the surrounding scenery.

Upon arrival, the visitors disembarked and had the chance to explore the area's historic buildings that represent both Fujian-style and Western-style architecture in the village of Shuitou and the Zhaishan Canal that was excavated in early 1960s. They also tried a variety of local specialty foods.

Kinmen Island offers visitors a wide range of sightseeing and culinary options and visiting the area has becoming increasingly popular for mainland residents in recent years. Additionally, the presence of duty free shopping outlets has made Kinmen an important cross-Straits travel destination.

Cross-Straits travel has continued to grow in recent years with 846,600 Taiwan residents either transiting to or arriving in Xiamen last year, a number three times greater than mainlanders travelling in the opposite direction.

Furthermore, the Kinmen and Penghu islands featured prominently on the itineraries of the 257,700 mainland travellers that visited Taiwan via Xiamen in 2016, with 70 percent taking tours of the islands. In its ongoing efforts to promote Kinmen's touristic advantages, Xiamen Tourism official website visitxm.com added Discover Kinmen in 2016 to serve as the official site of Kinmen Tourism. The Discover Kinmen website has received 80,000 visits and is considered an important travel resource by travel guides and tourists alike.

Tourists pose in front of a luxury yacht set to travel along the six kilometers between Wutong Pier to Kinmen county on Feb 21. [Photo/fjsen.com]