Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, set up the Chengdu Tourism Hong Kong Operation Center, on Wednesday.

On the same day, the city promoted its tourism investment projects worth over 14 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion) in Hong Kong.

Chengdu was the first inland city to set up such a center in Hong Kong.

The center will make it possible for cultural, tourism and sports departments in Chengdu to understand the market trends in Hong Kong and promote Chengdu's tourism sector to other regions and countries via Hong Kong, said Wang Zhonglin, deputy mayor of Chengdu.

By the end of September, 65,927 Hong Kong people had visited Chengdu, up 15.7 percent over the same period last year.

"It showed that the second largest number of people visiting Chengdu were people from Hong Kong, lagging only behind the Japanese," Wang said.