China to further develop village tourism

SANYA -- Local township and village tourism in China will receive a boost in investment this year, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said on Thursday.

Ten thousand villages will become tourism spots and 200,000 households will be turned into farm stay accommodation, Wang said at the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit.

Over 13.5 million people were employed in the tourism sector last year, with more than 1.7 million households in the farm stay business and benefiting more than 30 million farmers.

The Chinese tourism market is expected to exceed $2.5 trillion within five years and the country will roll out more supportive policies to nurture the tourism sector, Wang added.

China is the second largest travel and tourism economy in the world with each Chinese person making an average two trips last year. This is expected to grow 7 percent annually for the next 10 years, according to the WTTC.

The London-based WTTC, founded in 1990, is one of the most influential tourism organizations in the world. It has selected a different city to host the annual Global Travel and Tourism Summit meeting since 2000.

This will be the second time it has held the meeting in China. In 2010, the summit took place in Beijing, the country's capital.