The Inaugural Meeting of World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) & Beijing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit was held on 14-l6 September, 2012 in Beijing under the theme of "Better City Life through Tourism". Of WTCF’s 24 international city members, 23 sent representatives to the meeting. London also attended the meeting as an observer. All of the 23 Chinese city members (including Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macau Special Administrative Region) and 11 institutional members attended the meeting. The mayors of Busan, Dublin, Riga and Victoria attended the meeting in person.

The meetings included the following agenda: the WTCF General Assembly, during which the Statutes of WTCF and other relevant rules as well as the WTCF emblem, flag and logo were adopted; the Council Meeting, which selected the first WTCF Council, and recommended Wang Anshun, Mayor of Beijing, as the Chairman of the WTCF Council and appointed Lu Yong as the WTCF Secretary-General. The representatives participating in the meeting unanimously adopted the Befffng Declaration.

The first World Tourism Cities Expo, the World Tourism Cities Film Festival, the World Tourism Cities Beijing Gourmet Food Festival, the Closing & Award Ceremony of the Beijing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit and workshops were held during the summit, building a new platform for exchanges among the WTCF members. The publication of the research outcomes of tourism experts, i.e. the World Tourism Cities Evaluation System and the Comprehensive Evaluation Indicator System of the Tourism Industry, which provided the theoretical foundation for promoting the social and economic development of world tourism cities, was highly commended by the participants.

In addition, of the world's three leading tourism organizations, CEO and President of the World Tourism and Travel Council, and CEO of Pacific Asia Travel Association attended and addressed the meeting, and Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization delivered a video message.