The World Travel and Tourism Council has released its list of the top 10 cities with the fastest growing tourism market. Interestingly, all of them are in Asia, and the top spot has been grabbed by a Chinese city known as Chongqing.
WTTC has published its new City Travel and Tourism Impact report, which includes the top 10 fastest-growing tourism cities in the world. Asian cities dominated the list, and Chongqing in southwest China had a tourism growth of 14 percent last year. Guangzhou ranked second, growing 13 percent. China has seen a pretty healthy rise in domestic tourists, which propelled tourist growth in these cities.
The city of Chongqing, which lies along the Yangtze River, is actually a pretty important port city for China. And although most of its visitors right now are Chinese citizens, it has plenty to offer to international tourists as well. Chongqing is, in fact, the perfect gateway to China’s river valleys and the three gorges.
Chongqing also has an interesting food scene. There are around 30,000 hotpot-serving restaurants in the city. To celebrate this signature dish, the city hosts an annual Hotpot Festival. This year, the festival falls on November 9-12.
Chongqing has also been working on renovating its old attractions, like the Yangtze River Cableway that was reopened in 2014. The cableway built in 1987 became an important way to cross the river.
The city has also renovated many of its old factories into cultural centers. There is the Maoer’ Creation & Art Park, once a chemical factory and now a recreational area with night markets, food stalls and a cinema. And Eling Park, once printing factory, is now home to hipster bars and coffee shops.
Chongqing city has around 10 tourism projects planned for the future, including a theme park developed by the American brand Six Flags, which is expected to open in 2020.
