Tianjin municipality achieved a record best on tourism indicators for the last six months, enjoying a heated tourism season, according to the Tourism Bureau of Tianjin Municipality.

Statistics shows that over the first half of 2010, Tianjin has received 823,000 overseas tourists and 46 million domestic tourists, up by 16.8 percent and 15.2 percent, respectively, from the same period last year.

Also, the tourism foreign exchange earnings reached $687million, up by 18.9 percent over the same period last year, while the domestic tourism earnings totaled 57.5 billion yuan, up by 21.1 percent.

Early this year, 20 tourism major projects made progress in construction and many of them have opened to the public, such as the Tianjin Port Museum, Prince Zhuang Mansion, Innovation Street in Hebei District, to name just a few.

Moreover, the “One-day tour of Tianjin” bus line was opened on April 24 in the Tianjin Tourism Distribution Center, and by last Saturday, 1,306 trips were offered for 55,000 tourists, with an income of 1.26 million yuan.

The cooperation between a score of travel agencies in Tianjin and Shanghai also attracted many tourists and tour groups to come to Tianjin after visiting the Shanghai Expo.

By Guo Changdong and Zhang Nan