Local township and village tourism in China will receive a boost in investment this year, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said on Thursday.
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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.
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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.
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The Chinese tourism market is expected to exceed 2.5 trillion USD within five years and the country will roll out more supportive policies to nurture the tourism sector, Wang added.
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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.
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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.
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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.