The World Tourism Cities Federation's annual summit kicked off in Chongqing on Sept 19. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The World Tourism Cities Federation's annual summit kicked off in Chongqing on Sept 19.

About 400 guests from 89 cities and 47 institutions worldwide gathered at the event.

"The federation was founded in 2012. With great support and joint efforts of all parties, it has completed all tasks for startup and achieved conspicuous results," says Wang Anshun, chairman of the WTCF Council and mayor of Beijing.

"I believe that this year's summit will become a grand event for tourism industries with a distinctive Chongqing feature and further promote innovative development of the world tourism industry."

Forums on shared economy, tourism promotion sessions and investment fair were held during the summit.

More than 20 famous tourism enterprises and related institutions from China and abroad attended the Tourism Investment Fair during the summit. Approximately 80 projects were showcased at the fair and intended investment is expected to hit $16 billion.

At the same time, the annual Market Research Report on Chinese Outbound Tourist (City) Consumption was unveiled at the summit.

Los Angeles and Qingdao in Shandong province were voted as host cities of 2017 and 2018 summit, respectively.

During the summit, WTCF signed strategic partnership agreements with Tencent Technology, Travel Channel and iQIYI. In addition, Chongqing tourism bureau signed a MOU with Washington DC Tourism Bureau and Airbnb.

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