CNTA Chairman Li Jinzao indicated that the Chinese tourism community will, in accordance with the requirements of Chinese and US state leaders, go all out to prepare for China-US Tourism Year to be staged in 2016 together with its US counterpart.

 

Li Jinzao noted that the Chinese and US tourism enjoys a sound momentum of development. In 2014, 15.4% of outbound tourists in the world came from the two countries of China and the US which received 11.45% of the total on international travel. Tourism cooperation between the two countries represents the main force sustaining and leading sound development of the world tourism, and constitutes an important component of the China-US new relations.

 

Li Jinzao said, for the China-US Tourism Year in 2016, the two countries will work out a top design that is expected to facilitate breakthroughs in tourism exchange scale and the number of people travelling between the two countries will exceed 5 million at an early date. This event will help link up localities, expand cooperation space between provinces and states, and promote in-depth development of cooperation among them; it will boost cooperation among enterprises, and will drive and lead development of the tourism industry; moreover, it will contribute to the software and hardware environment and bring more convenience to tourists.

 

It is learned that tourism has become an important growth pole for economic cooperation between China and the US. During the eight years from 2007 to 2014, China and the US registered a total of 25 million travels between them, up 7.6% year on year. Specifically, Chinese tourists bound for the US increase by 18.4% annually while the US tourists to China 1.6%. The number of Chinese and US tourists travelling between the two countries exceeds 4 million annually.

 

In his speech, Li Jinzao indicated that China-US tourism cooperation has entered into a brand new phase. The Chinese and US tourism exchange holds significance to promoting development of tourism of both sides, enhancing people-to-people friendship, expanding economic and trade cooperation and deepening cultural communication. Thanks to the increasingly expanding cooperation, China and the US will benefit from the thriving development of tourism.

 

China, a major tourist destination in the world and the largest tourist source in the Asian-Pacific region, and other large tourism economies hold Tourism Years in turn to promote international tourism. In recent years, such events as China-Russia, China-ROK and China-India Tourism Years attract attention of worldwide tourism communities.