Chinadaily.com.cn and the China Youth Travel Service (CYTS) website, ChinaTravelDepot.com, signed a co-operative deal in Beijing on January 18. This new strategic deal will see the CYTS and China Daily working together to boost China as an international tourism destination.

As chinadaily.com.cn, the website of China Daily, the Chinese national English-language newspaper, is the largest English-language news portal in China, its influence on overseas readers will provide the ideal platform for CYTS's inbound tourism initiatives.

With its newfound capacity to utilize CYTS's 30 years of experience of inbound tourism and its online booking system, the China Daily website can now provide visitors with one-stop comprehensive value-added travel services.

This will allow prospective visitors to benefit from a number of ecommerce facilities, including immediate reservation, confirmation and payment. Visitors to the site will also have the option of booking airline tickets online, as well as making hotel reservation and organizing car rentals and package tours.

Under the terms of the new agreement, the two sides are committed to sharing their resources to boost the worldwide competitiveness and appeal of China’s tourism and cultural industries.

Through jointly promoting a number of annual major tourist events, such as the World Expo and the Asian Games, the two organizations hope to highlight the attractions of Chinese tourism culture to the overseas market, while stimulating the development of domestic tourist attractions. It is believed that the level of co-operation between the two sides will increase in the future.

Guo Xiaodong, vice president of CYTS Holding Co Ltd, and Ren Kan, editor-in-chief assistant of China Daily, both attended the signing ceremony.