The successful Guangdong International Tourism and Culture Festival has become a perfect stage to showcase the popularity of Guangdong and Pan Pearl River Delta (PPRD) region as a tourism destination, said Tang Bingquan, vice-governor of Guangdong Province.

Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in the Guangdong International Tourism and Culture Festival, which will end tonight.

According to the provincial tourism administration of Guangdong, more than 40,000 people attended the opening ceremony of the festival. More than 1,000 high-ranking officials from the central government and Guangdong provincial government, World Tourism Organization, consulates of various countries in Guangzhou, and other provinces of China, also showed up in the ceremony. The activities in the past few days attracted a large number of visitors from home and abroad.

The PPRD Tourism Promotion Fair drew more than $2 billion of investment into the region's tourism sector.

In the past 29 years, Guangdong Province has been one of the leaders in the nation in terms of economic development. Its average annual economic growth maintained a rate of 13.8 percent, according to Tang.

Last year, Guangdong's gross domestic product (GDP) hit $330 billion, accounting for one-eighth of the total of the country. The province's import and export volume hit $527.2 billion, accounting for one-third of the country's total foreign trade volume.

Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua earlier predicted that the province's GDP will surpass that of Taiwan by the end of this year.

"Guangdong is also leading the development of the whole country's tourism industry," Tang said.

Last year, Guangdong's tourism revenue hit $212.5 billion, occupying one-fourth of the country's total tourism income. The net profit of the province's tourism industry was $7.5 billion, which was one fifth of the nation's total.

More than 100 million overseas tourists visited Guangdong last year. On the other hand, about 2.56 million Guangdong people toured overseas countries and regions.

Tang noted that the tourism festival will give a further boost to the tourism development of Guangdong and the entire PPRD region.

The closing ceremony of the festival will take place tonight in Foshan, a city in Guangdong Province.

(China Daily November 30, 2007)