Over a hundred guests from abroad learned about North China's Shanxi province and its diverse tourist scenic spots at a promotion meeting held in Beijing on May 19.

The meeting was an important part of the activities during the first World Conference on Tourism for Development held from May 18-21, 2016, to promote tourist resources of Shanxi and build the province into an excellent tourist destination around the globe.

As the tourism industry has grown rapidly in recent years, Shanxi hopes to attract more tourists from foreign countries and is eager to learn from other countries about how to develop a successful tourism sector.

Shanxi boasts convenient transport conditions with seven airports in the province. It has opened international flights to eight countries and regions, including Japan, South Korea, and Thailand, and will add air routes from Taiyuan to Russian and Belgium.

In 2015, overseas tourists travelling to Shanxi numbered 848,000, indicating that Shanxi has become one of the most favored tourist destinations in the world.

The province has increased cooperation with world renowned tourist destinations such as the US, France, and Italy.

It held a world tourist commercial purchase conference in each of the last two years, leading more than 400 businesspeople engaged in the tourism sector from 40 countries and regions to survey possibilities in Shanxi.

The First World Conference on Tourism for Development is jointly organized by the Chinese government and the World Tourism Organization with a specific view to advancing the contribution of tourism to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations.