Golden opportunity

The upcoming eight-day Golden Week holiday presents a good opportunity to shape the tourist industry and related services so that the ambitious goal of building China into a world tourism giant by 2020 can be realized.

Compared with 10 years ago, China's tourist industry has already made notable progress. For instance, the number of domestic tours has tripled and the number of overseas-bound tourists has increased more than fourfold.

Over the last decade, China has been growing from a big country with abundant tourist resources into a big tourism power. With the added value of the whole industry now accounting for more than 4 percent of the country's GDP, the tourist sector has become a pillar of the national economy, driving the service sector and boosting domestic demand.