For the last 10 years, Greeks and foreign tourists alike have highly anticipated the Sani Gourment festival. Held at the start of every tourist season, the festival brings together top chefs from around the world to cook up and offer the best cuisine to guests.

Yau-Tim Lai was among the nine chefs invited for this year's festival, titled "The Silk Road: From Beijing to Rome." It is the second time the festival, held in May, has been named after the Silk Road.

"Out of more than 100 of my favorite dishes, I bring five to this festival considering the availability of raw materials and the taste preference of the guests," said Lai.

On Lai's five-course menu are smoked chicken bean curd roll, crystal king prawn, roasted duck slice, deep-fried, slow-cooked beef ribs and coconut.

Tim's Kitchens in Hong Kong and Macau have both received two Michelin stars, while the third Tim's Kitchen in Shanghai made it on the Food & Wine Magazine's list of 50 best restaurants in China.

Tamara Tekuna Gachechiladze, known as the "queen of fusion Georgian cuisine," was the only female chef in this year's festival. Hailing originally from Georgia, Gachechiladze initially studied psychology in Germany, before her career was changed by an academic program she embarked on while in New York.

According to Gachechiladze, Georgian cuisine had been influenced through the ages by the Mongols, Ottomans, Persians and Russians among others. She tries to maintain its traditional flavors while presenting them in a contemporary, light and refined fashion.

"It is a very good idea and the concept of Silk Road is very interesting for me because Georgia itself is located in the middle of the Silk Road," said Gachechiladze.

She acknowledged, though, that it is hard to be a female chef in this profession dominated by males.

"You have to be tougher, smarter, stronger to prove you are equal, but at the same time it is a little bit easier as you can use your senses, your creations," said Gachechiladze.

"Here it is nice, because I have more attention than any other (male) chef. This is good," laughed Gachechiladze.

According to Fokion Zisiadis, deputy chairman of luxury hotel group Sani, naming the festival after the Silk Road is important.

"In the public's mind, the Silk Road is a simple, one-way route from East to West, but ... in reality, it was a vast, labyrinthine network of roads and byways: cultural and commercial routes that linked the Orient to the western world," said Zisiadis.

In Zisiadis' opinion, by focusing on the Silk Road, the festival highlights and explores not only the gastronomic characteristics of nations and but also peoples who are little known in the West that are "sometimes wrongly dismissed as insignificant or unimportant."

According to Zisiadis, with the spectacular rise of China, the discovery of oil and construction of basic infrastructure, the Silk Road has acquired a new and timely importance.

For Kaloaki Dimitra and Ziggelis Pantazis living in the city of Xanthi in northern Greece, the festival is a good opportunity to expand their knowledge of different cuisines.

Commenting on the Chinese cuisine prepared by Lai, they said they "like it a lot except the dessert."

Dimitra and Pantazis, who have participated in the festivities for three years, would make online bookings of the wines appeared on the festival menu and try to cook similar dishes at home after the festival.

As a result of the festivities, promotional efforts and its good location, occupancy of the Sani Resort -- the festival venue -- stood at 90 percent, even though the peak season for Greek tourism has not yet started.

This gives reason for Andreas Andreadis, president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), to be optimistic about attracting 25 million foreign tourists in 2015, after hitting a record high of 24 million in 2014.

"The first three months are on target. Because of the negotiations to solve the debt crisis, there is a small slowdown in April, but we hope that it will pick up in the later part of the year," Andreadis told Xinhua.

During the debt crisis, the tourism industry's share of Greek GDP increased from about 15 percent to 20 percent because of the unique beauty of Greece, the lowered prices and the publicity Greece got, said Andreadis.

He said Greece can eventually attract 35 to 40 million tourists per year and the industry will account for 30 percent of the GDP, adding that by 2021 at least 1 million Chinese will visit Greece annually.

His optimism was shared by Greek Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura, who told the 3rd Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum on May 27 that she wants her country to become Chinese tourists' number one destination in Europe.

Kountoura invited more Chinese people to visit Greece, pledging to redouble efforts facilitating the issuance of visas and establishing more direct flights between the two countries.