The 4th Sichuan International Travel Expo will be held in Emeishan City, Leshan from September 17 to 24, it was announced at a press conference in Beijing on July 10.?

The 4th Sichuan International Travel Expo will be held in Emeishan City, Leshan from September 17 to 24, it was announced at a press conference in Beijing on July 10.

Aiming to become a first-rate tourism expo with global reputation and influence, the expo has been constantly improving and expanding. This year’s edition will feature five major themed activities including the opening ceremony, Emei Summit Forum and promotional weeks for the guest country of honor and the featured city and six secondary activities like travelling Leshan in autumn.

Activities are mainly in the forms of exhibition, transaction and forum as the expo’s mission is to promote exchange and cooperation within the tourism industry, facilitate business talks and transactions and exhibit mountain tourism products to boost sales and the sector’s overall development.

Compared with the past three editions, the expo will be higher-profile and more international this year with exchanges and cooperation with a number of international tourism organizations such as the World Tourism Organization, Pacific Asia Travel Association and ASEAN-China Center expected to go deeper.

Besides, ways to exhibit and sell tourism products will be more diverse this year. In addition to the conventional Domestic Pavilion, International Pavilion and Sichuan Pavilion, there will also be a pavilion featuring interactive activities for participants to experience tourism products, a pavilion where local people can enjoy preferential prices for tourism products, a pavilion for business talks and transactions, a pavilion for tourism commodities among others.

Apart from?the five major activities and secondary activities, a night tour of the Minjiang, Qingyi and Dadu rivers and the Leshan Giant Buddha located near the confluence of the three rivers will be rolled out for the first time for participants.

Meanwhile, as the travel expo is scheduled not long before the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday, organizers have arranged 21 activities to greet the coming festival and holiday such as a poem and music festival and a world traditional martial arts championship.

Leshan, the permanent venue of the expo, is located in southwest Sichuan. It has an area of 12,800 square kilometers and administers 11 counties, cities and districts with a total population of 3.55 million. Leshan has a well-protected ecology, a beautiful cityscape and a profound culture. It is home to 37 world- and national-class tourist attractions including Emei Mountain, Leshan Giant Buddha and Dongfeng Weir. Leshan is also designated as an excellent tourist city, a famous historical and cultural city, a garden-like city among other titles. More than 40 million Chinese and foreign tourists visit Leshan annually.