17th century engraving of explorer Marco Polo from Yules "Cathay", no authentic portrait of explorer known to exist. Source: Supplied
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A CHINESE city is searching for a foreign traveller to become a "modern Marco Polo'', with a $50,893 salary on offer to the winner.
Hangzhou in eastern China, renowned for its canals and bridges, was described as the "most beautiful and elegant city in the world'' by the Venetian traveller Marco Polo, whose 13th-century journal was one of the first detailed accounts of China written by a European.
Now the city is said Chen Li, of Hangzhou's tourism commission.
The promotion is akin to Australia's "best jobs in the world'' campaigns, the first of which required the winner Ben Southall to live on a tropical island for six months.
150,000 apply for Tourism Australia's Six best Jobs in the World
The new Marco Polo will be recruited via Facebook - which is banned in China - and will undergo intensive training before being flown to the city for a 15-day trip, the tourism commission said in a media release.
Duties include making a short video about Hangzhou and promoting the city online. Both men and women are eligible, it said.
"To be a modern Marco Polo is a very interesting job, it will maybe change their life,'' Chen said. "They may find inner peace, like Kung Fu Panda.''
"The Travels of Marco Polo,'' composed in 1298, described a journey across Asia through realms of pygmies, exotic plants and cannibals.
The book had an enormous impact on European perceptions of the continent, but modern historians have questioned the veracity of Polo's account, and some query whether he reached China at all.
China was the world's third most visited country in 2011, behind the United States and France, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, with 57.6 million international tourism arrivals.
An aerial view of the 36km Hangzhou Bay Bridge, in Hangzhou, eastern China. AFP PHOTO
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