TIANJIN, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The 13th China Tourism Industry Exposition kicked off in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Friday, highlighting international cooperation and industrial innovation in the culture and tourism sector.

The three-day expo is co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the municipal government of Tianjin. It has seven exhibition areas, covering a total space of 120,000 square meters.

The event will feature a wide range of activities, including exhibitions, specialized forums and business negotiations, and it has attracted more than 2,000 cultural and tourism enterprises.

Zhang Xu, chair of the World Tourism Alliance, said tourism plays an irreplaceable role in meeting people's needs for better lives and in improving the quality of national economic development.

China's tourism industry has rebounded rapidly and made a strong recovery. It has become an important way of stabilizing economic growth, expanding domestic demand, and improving people's lives, said Chinese Minister of Culture and Tourism Hu Heping.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, China saw a total of 2.384 billion domestic tourism trips made in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 63.9 percent.

During the period, domestic tourism revenue reached 2.3 trillion yuan (about 317 billion U.S. dollars), up 95.5 percent compared with the same period last year.

With the accelerated recovery of China's tourism industry, participants can experience the latest achievements of this sector at the exhibition.

Putting on the virtual reality device, people can ride a "bike" while enjoy the scenery along the Haihe River, a landmark of the city. They can also open a "dimension door" with diversified beautiful digital scenery inside.

The expo aims to present comprehensive achievements and cutting-edge technologies in the development of smart tourism by displaying the latest applications of digital services and intelligent tourism equipment.

On the exhibition area of China Telecom, a "metaverse exhibition hall" is eye-catching. By scanning the QR code with smartphones, people in different places can interact online with tour guides and enjoy the scenery without leaving their homes.

According to Dai Zhaowu, deputy general manager of China Telecom Tianjin company, it can save tourists' travel costs and give them a sense of experience, which may become a new trend of smart tourism in the future.

Nowadays, new technologies like 5G, cloud computing, and big data have been used in the tourism industry.

"Sunflowers" swaying in the wind, and the "stars" and "moon" twinkling in the "night sky," the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, one of the most famous and prolific Dutch artists, seem to come alive in the giant immersive areas in the Tianjin Digital Art Museum. Tourists look like they are standing in the paintings when they admire the artworks thanks to digital technologies.

Meanwhile, the event also provides a platform for Chinese business people and their counterparts in the tourism sector to promote exchange and cooperation.

"We mainly focused on inbound Europe out of China and like to grow on outbound to China. Now we'd like to meet new people and meet more Chinese local travel agents to cooperate with and see how we can grow together because we need each other," said Wouter Smits, founder and CEO of FGL Travel Ltd., which is headquartered in the Netherlands. He will stay in Tianjin for five days.

"We really need the Chinese market. China has many wonderful places. I hope to expand my business by offering my customers more choices," Smits said.

Igor Jurisic, CEO of Hostelling International Slovenia, also looks forward to finding more cooperation opportunities with local travel agents on this event. China's tourism industry has developed rapidly, and he said he has seen many new chances.

Zhang Xu believes that the expo will further enhance the demand for tourism, improve the appeal and influence of Chinese tourism brands, promote the upgrading of China's cultural tourism industry, and deepen exchanges and cooperation between China and foreign countries in the cultural and tourism sectors.

Held in Tianjin since 2009, the expo has emerged as a platform for exhibitions, business negotiations and trade in the tourism industry, promoting exchanges and cooperation between domestic and international tourism industries. Enditem

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