"Tourism is one of the areas that guarantees stable returns in the long term, and this is important as we don't currently have many highly profitable investment channels," said Wang.

Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group, suggested tourism could stimulate investment in the anemic domestic market, at the International Investment Forum, which is taking place as part of the 19th China International Fair for Investment and Trade, held in Xiamen, Fujian province, from Sept 8-11.

Wang said that his company has invested in a forest resort in a county called Baishan, in Jilin province, in northeastern China. The county's GDP has since leapt to highest in the province.

According to Wang, China's per capita income is one-sixth of that of the United States. Yet its tourism expenditure per capita is one-15th of that of the US and one-20th of that of Europe. Wang added that the prospects for internal tourism consumption remain bright.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission, private sector fixed-asset investment in the first half of this year stood at 15.9 trillion yuan ($2.4 trillion), up 2.8 percent from the same period last year.

The year-on-year growth rates of private sector investment have been on a downward trend since the peak rate of 28.9 percent recorded in March 2012.