Wu Xuewen, head of the National Tourism Administration’s Programming and Finance Department recently told a tourism seminar in the capital of Shanxi province that tourism is the key to the province’s future development.

The seminar, in Taiyuan, the capital city of .the central Chinese province, was part of the 6th Central China Investment and Trade Expo and centered on tourism cooperation and comprehensive reform in central China, on Feb 26.

Wu told the gathering that, “Making tourism a priority will help Shanxi and is the key to breakthroughs in the province’s reform process,” and that, “This is the first seminar on comprehensive reforms in the tourism industry since China began these reforms in 2009, and it is really significant.”

The seminar was the work of the provincial Tourism Bureau, provincial Brand Marketing Society, and Tourism Times magazine, with the sponsorship of the provincial government and National Tourism Administration.

Experts, scholars and officials at the seminar all agreed that tourism had become an important source of economic growth and that Shanxi, by experimenting with reforms in the competitive industry, can speed up development and make a breakthrough in reforms across the province.