The Anhui Province Tourism Development Board has announced a plan to use the 20,000 ayis from the province working in Shanghai in an innovative guerilla marketing campaign. "We discovered many of our foreign friends in Shanghai didn't know anything about Anhui except that their ayis came from the province" commented Tang Xiaoxia, the provincial tourism head.

Ayis will be encouraged to promote the province's scenic spots, including Jiuhua Mountain and the Ming Emperor Tombs. Many foreign residents returned to their homes on Tuesday to discover impressive replicas of various Anhui sights. "My ayi had constructed a full-size replica of the Xuguo Arch Gate in Yixian using my socks", commented Max Wycliffe, a British translator living in Jing'an District. Dedicated Xiao Hong, an Ayi from Anhui who works in the Hongkou Area, used the discarded pizza boxes in the house of Shane Hayes, an Australian expatriate, to reconstruct the Ruins of Zhongdu near Fengyang.