Tai'an to host Mount Tai climbing festival

The 37th International Mount Tai Climbing Festival will kick off on Sept 5 in Tai'an, East China's Shandong province.

The event will feature a series of cultural tourism, sports, and economic and trade activities, aimed at promoting the city's cultural heritages and tourism resources to visitors from across the world.

These activities will include an opening ceremony for the festival, an international cultural tourism exchange event, an investment and trade fair and a Yellow River tourism promotion event.

Tai'an is renowned for its cultural and tourism resources and is home to Mount Tai, a UNESCO World Natural and Cultural Heritage site, which attracts many visitors from home and abroad. Between the beginning of the year and Aug 16, more than 5 million tourists had visited the Mount Tai Scenic Area.

Tai'an has been making efforts to promote the upgrading of its cultural tourism industry and deepen the integration of cultural and tourism with other business forms. In the first half of the year, the city's cultural and tourism industry achieved an added value of 15.3 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), which accounted for 9 percent of its GDP.