The tourism industry in Tai'an city, Shandong province achieved a great deal in 2015. Here are the top 10 news items about Tai'an tourism in 2015.

Tourism industry contributes a big chunk to Tai'an's fiscal revenue

Tai'an's tourism industry had fiscal revenue of 7.35 billion yuan ($1.13 billion) in 2014, accounting for 39.2 percent of the total in Tai'an. It achieved tax revenue of 3.98 billion yuan in 2014, 21.2 percent of Tai'an's total.

Tai'an held the Taishan Tourism Alliance, a meeting on the O2O (online to offline) business mode for tourism, on April 21, 2015, the Dazhong Daily reported.

With the aim of creating the largest O2O business matching platform in the country, the event attracted more than 1,300 participants from travel agencies, resorts, hotels, tourism website companies and investment and financing institutions.

In 2015, Tai'an issued an official document about how to improve its tourism environment. The document pointed out three necessary aspects--reconstructing housing facilities, rectifying public order, and creating a sound market environment.

Tai'an plans to build a 56 million yuan all-purpose tourist distribution center to provide one-stop services to tourists.

The center will be connected to transport networks including high speed railways and expressways, according to the municipal government's website.

Upon completion, the center will serve as a comprehensive service platform, providing consulting services for do-it-yourself travel and group tours. It will also offer convenient transport services and help tourists book hotels and tickets for scenic spots and popular entertainment events.

Rural tourism becomes a new growth engine for Tai'an tourism

Tai'an has developed many rural tourism products, including flower appreciation, fishing, and having a taste of farm food on ecological farms.

Four villages in Tai'an--Liyu, Liutai, Tangfang and Nantangzi--were listed among "China's model villages of rural tourism" by the China National Tourism Administration on Dec 25, 2015.

The 2015 Mount Tai International Tourism Aerial Photograph Competition was held in Tai'an, Shandong province from Sept 7 to 11, 2015.

It was the first aerial photograph competition by unmanned aerial vehicles. It attracted 20 teams of aerial photographers and videographers. The awards were scored on the basis of background music, aesthetics, composition, and artistic quality.

Tai'an held a series of activities to encourage tourists to act in a civilized way when travelling. Some tourist consulting centers, tourist guides and tourists have been awarded for their civilized conduct in 2015.

Tai'an ranked 2nd for tourist satisfaction among all of the cities in Shandong for the first quarter of 2015, according to a survey released by the China Tourism Academy.

Tai'an promoted standardization of tourism services, and made progress in smart tourism, which covers management, marketing and tourism services. Mobile platforms, such as WeChat and Weibo were also used to publish a great variety of tourism information in a timely manner.

Tai'an will continue to regulate the travel market, step up industry standardization and strengthen infrastructure construction to further boost tourist satisfaction.

Tai'an upgrades tourist services by building more public washrooms

Tai'an will tear down substandard public washrooms. It will construct 430 new public washrooms and reconstruct 493 old ones throughout the tourist spots in the city by the end of 2016. It will also build more than 2,000 washrooms in its rural tourist spots.

Tai'an's two tourism products made of peach wood won two gold medals in the 2015 Awards Ceremony of Appraisal and Selection Event of Chinese Featured Tourist Commodities held in Kunming, Yunnan province in November 2015. The selection event was the first held by the China National Tourism Administration.