Athens’ First Sunrise for 2021 Featured on Chinese Social Media

The Acropolis, Athens (archive photo). Source: Visit Greece / Y Skoulas

Chinese social media users had the opportunity to admire Athens’ first sunrise for 2021 through a campaign that ran online on New Year’s Day.

A 15-minute video, created by the Greek National Tourism Organization’s (GNTO) office in China, was broadcast on Wechat, a popular social media platform in Asia, with more than 1.2 billion active users.

GNTO’s initiative was part of a broader campaign titled “Sunrise 2021″ that offered Wechat users the chance to watch the sunrise at select destinations around the world through a 24-hour live streaming link.

The organization created Athens’ video with the assistance of the Erotokritos sisters, two influencers known as the “Greek Twins”, that live and study in China.  The “Greek Twins” captured the sunrise at the Acropolis and Mount Hymettus.

“The GNTO kicked off Greece’s digital promotion to international markets for 2021 in a dynamic way,” the organization said in an announcement.

According to the GNTO, Greece’s live streaming reached over 2 million views.

The “Sunrise 2021” campaign – one of the largest organized by Wechat – was held with the aim to celebrate the social network’s 10 years of operation and send a message of optimism for the new year.

France, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Malta, England, Argentina, Iceland, Kenya and Saudi Arabia were some of the countries that participated in the live streaming broadcast.