Guangzhou, a beautiful tourist city

In the city's posh central business district sits a 560,000-square-meter lush green park. The district is called Zhujiang New Town, and the park Huacheng Square. Also dubbed as the City Lounge, the park is home to more than 600 tall and precious trees lining a two-kilometer wood plank walkway and a lake covering a water area of 15,000 square meters.

What's even more eye-catching is a cluster of world-renowned buildings around the square. Dominating the city's skyline are the Canton Tower in the south, across the city's Peal River, and East Tower and West Tower, literally standing on both sides of the square's southern end. Standing nearby are a number of award-winning architectural structures like the Guangzhou Opera House, Guangdong Museum and the city's New Guangzhou Library.

"I fly the Guangzhou route once every two months. Each time, I love to come to the square and take a stroll. It is kept spotlessly clean," said Mehmet Bodur, a 61-year-old Turkish Airlines pilot.

The square is one of the city's most favored tourist spots. Guangzhou as a whole received 185 million visitors from around the world in 2016, among which 8.61 million were inbound. Total tourism revenue reached $47.3 billion in 2016, a 12 percent year-on-year increase.

Enjoying a pleasant sub-tropical climate, Guangzhou features blooming flowers and good air quality all year around. Pictures of blue sky, beautiful flowers and smiling faces within are the most shared images across social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WeChat and Weibo. "Guangzhou blue" has even become a popular term online and offline, used by local citizens and visitors.

During the 2017 Spring Festival holidays, 13 million people visited the city, with a 99.3 percent satisfaction rate and zero complaints for its hygiene and environment.

As one of China's most celebrated tourist cities, Guangzhou boasts a large number of historical, cultural and scenic spots, with great leisure and recreational facilities. The city has more than 50 world-class scenic areas, entertainment projects and theme parks, such as the Canton Tower, Baiyun Mountain scenic area, Chimelong Safari and the Pearl River night cruise. Chimelong Safari was once listed by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) among the top three on the Best Global Theme Parks list, and was the only one from Asia. Chimelong has also topped global water theme park lists for the past four consecutive years in terms of tourist numbers.

"Building a cleaner, tidier, safer and more orderly city" is the government's latest slogan and raises the bar for the city's urban management. The city government is planning within three to five years to further upgrade its urban environment, building itself into a first-class international city, and taking a lead in the nation's modernization drive.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region chief executive Leung Chun-ying recently visited Guangzhou and praised the big changes in the city's environment. "I was most deeply impressed by Guangzhou's orderly, clean environment. The management is obviously different from the past," said the chief executive.

"Guangzhou is very beautiful," said Alan Murray, President of Fortune magazine. According to Murray, Guangzhou is an ideal city to host the Fortune Global Forum. He expects CEOs from around the globe to enjoy its favorable business and livable environment.