The 80-year-old Liberation Bridge on the Haihe River is a famous tourism attraction in Tianjin.

Large projects in the Binhai New Area, such as the Airbus A320 assembly line, a factory for next-generation rockets and a new shipbuilding facility, will attract talents from all over the country and the world and also serve as tourism sites.

'Economic development in the Binhai New Area and Tianjin as a whole will fuel the local tourism industry, and vice versa," She said. "Through promoting Tianjin as a tourism destination, we want to market its overall resources and promote its image.'

Tianjin's tour slogan

'If a tourist wants to know more about China in the past century, then he or she cannot miss the chance of touring Tianjin, just an hour's drive southeast of Beijing.'

She said it has been difficult to formulate a tourism slogan that describes Tianjin's attractions in a single sentence.

'The city is truly multiple-faceted. What we are trying to do is to integrate all Tianjin's tourism treasures, disclose the city's charm and promote Tianjin's image worldwide.'

If Xi'an is well-known for its historical heritage over the past 5,000 years and Beijing is famous for its past millennium, then Tianjin can be proud to declare its many cultural, social and economic highlights over the past century, She said.

Over the past 100 years, the city has witnessed the introduction of Western education, technology, architecture and financial systems, which are all worth touring and seeing, She stressed.

With the Binhai New Area of Tianjin on the track to become the next growth engine of China, its significance and weight as a tourism destination increase further.