Year-ender: Top 10 world tourism news in 2015

China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) released its Top 10 World Tourism News in 2015 on Thursday.

Li Jinzao, director of CNTA, said in 2015 China has paid attention, integrated and influenced the world in an unprecedented way.

"Tourism and diplomacy have played an important role on the international stage," said Li. "Diplomacy has paved ways for tourism and tourism has boosted diplomacy."

"In the past year, fast-growing tourism industry has contributed a lot to the global economic recovery from investment, consumption, export and employment on one hand. On the other hand, tourism industry is also facing many challenges such as terrorism attack," added Li.

"The top ten world tourism news cannot fully deliver the color tourism world, however, it does reflect the highlights, focus, pain points of the world tourism."

1. Tourism contributed 10% of global GDP

The World Travel and Tourism Council(WTTC) estimates that the total contribution to the world economy from travel & tourism sector would be US$7.8 trillion. Travel & tourism industry also provided 284 million jobs across the world, accounted about 9.5 percent of total employment.

China's domestic travels will have more than 4 billion visits while the outbound tourist visits will reach 120 million. China's domestic travels, outbound tourist visits, domestic tourism consumptions and outbound tourism consumptions all rank top of the world. Chinese tourists' "Baku kaii" (meaning "crazy shopping") has become the buzzword of the year in Japan.