Chongqing Fragrant Hills Summit: DevelopingThisFamous Tourism City to Welcome the Summit

From Sep19th to Sep 21st, the 2016 WTCF Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit will be hosted by WTCF and Chongqing government at the Chongqing Yuelai International Convention Center. The theme is “Shared Economy and Development of Tourism Cities” and will consist of7 parts: Members Conference, Council Meeting, Summit Forum, Tourism Promotion, Tourism Discussion, Tourism Investment Conference, and World Tourism Cities Expo. According to the WTCF constitution, the World Tourism Cities Federation Conferenceisheld every 4 years. This year, many important events will be held, also, many big decisionswill be implemented. Additionally, the Chongqing Announcement will be released as well as the host cities of the 2017 and 2018 summit. The 2016 summit will include a main forum and three sub-forums discussing theme of “Shared Economy and Development of Tourism Cities.” 10 tourism sessions will be held with 30 worldwide wholesalers and nearly 100 local travel agencies from Chongqing will be invited to participate in the trade fair. According to estimates, 400 people, including hundreds of tourism cities from all over the world, 50 tourism institutions and organizations, and representatives from famous tourism media outlets will represent and attend the summit.

World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) is a non-governmental, non-profit international tourism organization voluntarily formed by well-known tourism cities and tourism-related institutions around the world under the initiative of Beijing. WTCF is the first city-based international tourism organization in the world and based in Beijing. WTCF currently has 168 members, including 113 city members and 55 institutional members. In 2015, WTCF was awarded the annual tourism prize of World Tourism Industry Leader Award 2015 at the World Travel Mart(WTM) held in London. The awards are designed to reward entities or individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the development of the world tourism industry of that year. Also, the awards have a profound influence on the international tourism industry. According to the member’s requirements, WTCF will also host Conferences, We Media Marketing Sales, Tourism Projects Investment, Strategic Consult, Trade Fairs, Promotions, Customized Services, and Industry Training, etc., all of which are warmly welcomed by members.

Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, which has been previously held 4 times, is the main communication platform for the WTCF and world cities. The former three times was held in Beijing and last year’s was held in Rabat and Fez in Morocco. Chongqingwas voted to be host city of the 2016 summit by council members during the 2015 summit.

Tourism is the natural form of shared economy and cities are the basic unit of world tourism. The shared economy has the potential to mobilize many kinds of resources and realize the allocation of resources efficiently. So, we must start the integration of shared economy, for it canpromote the sustainable development of world tourism cities and bring benefits between cities and tourism. Chongqingis one of the founding cities and made good practice on the shared economy.The 2016 summit’s theme, “Shared Economy and Development of Tourism Cities,” is aimed at introducing more ideas about shared economy and promotes the intensive, efficient sustainable development in the world tourism industry.

With the highly regardsby the Chongqinggovernment to successfully hold the 2016 summit, the special tasks of preparation has been settled and arrangementswere made to clarify the task and responsibility. The Chongqing city has formed a strong atmosphere of "Welcome the Tourism Summit build a world famous tourist city".