At the 2017 National Sports Tourism Industry Development Conference held in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, Wuxi’s mayor Liu Xia introduced Wuxi’s sports industry and its goal for the future.

According to Liu, nearly 10 million people came to Wuxi for sports events in 2016. Consequently, 18 major sports tourism projects were organizedwith 10 of them being selected as high-quality projects by the National Sports Tourism Expo.

In recent years, sports tourism has played an important role in Wuxi‘s branding strategy. Wuxi has organized several high-level sports events such as the Wuxi Marathon Race, the Tour of Taihu Lake (cycling) and the World Cup of Snooker, plus hosting a number of international events such as the World Fencing Championships, Asian Fencing Championships and Asian Table Tennis Championships. These events have exerted a direct economic impact of 143 million yuan ($21.2m).

Liu also added that Wuxi would see a set of sports tourism facilities, events and companies appear by 2020, including 5 highly-influential sports tourism destinations, 3 elite sports tourism bases, 8 sports tourism towns, 5 prestigious sports tourism events, 8 sports tourism routes and 8 competitive sports tourism companies and brands. These new sports tourism projects will see Wuxi attract an estimated 16 million people making up 16% of all tourists. It is hoped that the sports and recreation industry in Wuxi will see a revenue of 35 billion yuan ($5.2b) with sports tourism reaching 210 billion yuan ($31.1b). 

Source: sportsmoney

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick