Beijing received more than 540,000 tourists in 26 major scenic areas on Wednesday, also the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, up 33 percent year on year, local authorities announced on Thursday.

In harnessing the benefits of global tourism, the international community will take “critical” steps forward in advancing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and post-2015 development agenda, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

Azerbaijan's Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Adalat Valiyev and Austrian Senior Advisor for Strategies and Policies at the Interface of Arts, Culture and Education, member of the panel for the European Capitals of Culture Norbert Riedl held talks on September 23.

The Foreign Ministry has been running a diplomatic campaign in world capitals in recent weeks to get them to cancel their travel advisories to Israel, which they issued to their citizens during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Foreign Ministry officials fear that every day the advisories remain in effect is damaging to both tourism and investments from abroad. 

Kenya is set to use social media to promote its tourism industry that is currently on its knees due to security challenges posed by terrorist attacks. The East African nation will in the next months start using Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Instagram to reach out to potential tourists across the world in new and traditional source markets. 

The picturesque Maldives, with its stunning scenery and turquoise waters, has long had a hold on the imagination of Chinese people, and the growing links between the countries will take on a more substantial form with a range of key infrastructure initiatives. A housing and a road project involving China was unveiled on Monday, part of a number of infrastructure projects that include building a landmark bridge and upgrading the main airport in the island country. 

Egypt’s tourism industry, battered by three years of political upheaval, violence and street protests, could fully recover by the end of next year if regional turmoil does not spread to the Arab world’s biggest country, the tourism minister said. 

Ebola is thousands of miles away from Kenya's pristine Indian Ocean beaches, but the deadly disease appears to be discouraging tourism there and elsewhere in this vast continent.