An international B2B expo on China's tourism market will be held in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province from Oct 24 to 27, 2017, an international exhibition group announced in Beijing on Monday.

The upcoming expo is the result of a joint venture between the Italian Exhibition Group, a leading trade show organizer from Italy, and Vision Fair China, a primary expo organizer in Chengdu. It is in partnership with the China Tourism Academy, a national institute for tourism research and promotion under the China National Tourism Administration.

Lorenzo Cagnoni, president of the Italian Exhibition Group, said: "This is the beginning of a process of which we are aware of both the prospects and the difficulties. We are facing it with determination and our intentions correspond with those of the Chinese institutional and entrepreneurial participants, who will work with us on realizing the project."

The expo will involve trade members and companies corresponding with the entire tourism chain: tourist transport (plane and cruise liner), bus operators, equipment for the hotel industry and outdoor activities, technology applied to tourism.

A total of 600 exhibitors and more than 1,000 buyers from all over the world are expected to participate in the expo, whose focus will be the entire continent of Asia. In addition, there are also meetings planned on online platforms.

In recent years, thanks to rapid socio-economic development, tourism has become an important part of Chinese people's daily lives.

Official statistics show that in the first half of 2016, the number of Chinese tourists who traveled abroad totaled 127 million, with an increase of 4.1 percent. Revenue from the tourist trade exceeded 300 billion euros ($320 billion), with a reported rise of 12.4 percent.

Last year the sum of investment created by tourism exceeded 137 billion euros, with an increase of 42 percent. Estimated spending by Chinese tourists abroad is almost 170 billion euros per year.

According to figures published by the World Tourism Organization, since 2012, China has always been the top country for tourism consumption abroad, and accounts for more than 13 percent of world tourism revenue.