As the biggest travel service enterprise in China, CITS Head Office has already had a development history of 50 years. On April 15, 1954, under the concern of Premier Zhou Enlai, CITS Head Office was officially established as the service unit for foreigners. In the same year, CITS branches were also established in 12 cities including Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou. The Party and Government leaders Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and Li Ruihuan received many times guests visiting China under the arrangement of CITS Head Office.

CITS Head Office's main business line covers: solicit and receive foreigners, overseas Chinese and tourists from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to visit China or return homeland or travel inland; organize Chinese citizens and foreigners in China for overseas travel; organize Chinese citizens for tours in China; undertake international and domestic conventions; provide tourists with such services as transport, accommodation, tour, communication, visa, entertainment, shopping, tourism AID and medical first-aid; arrange for international and domestic passenger and cargo transport by road, sea and air; develop the tourism market. Travel service is the core service provided by CITS Head Office, while the entry tourism service reflects the enterprise's core competitive strength.

In the process of exploiting the international tourism market of travel services, CITS Head Office has successively developed a number of deliberate products for visiting China: Three-gorge Tour (including the President Pleasure-boat), tour on the silk road, tour on ancient canals, Great Wall tour, Yellow River Tour, Shangri-La Tour, China Landscape, River and Lake Tours in the South, Curious Mountain and Water Tour, Nationality Tour in Southwest, Winter Tour, Pilgrimage Tour for Four Buddhism Mountains, Tour for Ancestors, which have become the main products for CITS Head Office.

The series products of Sunset Healthy Elder Tour, Romantic Seafloor Wedding, Wind-land Tour and other round-the-world tours have also become the well-known products in the tourism market for Chinese citizens.

Currently, CITS Head Office has established the steady business cooperative relationship with over 1,400 travel agents in more than one hundred countries of the world and 14 offshore subsidiaries in such countries and regions as America (New York and Los Angeles), Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka), Australia (Melbourne and Sydney), France (Paris), Germany (Frankfurt), Sweden, Demark, Hong Kong and Macao and possessed over 150 sole-invested, shareholding companies and chain enterprises, which have formed the steady international sales network and complete reception network.

CITS Head Office has successively joined PATA (Pacific Asian Travel Association), IATA (International Air Transport Association), ASTA (American Society of Travel Agents) and other international organizations and is the only Chinese corporate member of WTO (World Tourism Organization)."CITS" have become the well-known brand at home and abroad and evaluated by State Administration of Trademarks as Chinese Famous Trademark, being registered in over 60 countries and regions in the world.

In term of market shares in the international tourism of Chinese travel services, CITS Head Office has always maintained the leading position in the Chinese counterparts. Since the day when the ranking of Chinese travel agents, CITS Head Office has always been leading China Top 100 Travel Agents in terms of economic indices including the foreign tourists and has continued to hold several prizes including "Best Enterprise Prize" and "Travel Agent with Highest Foreign Visitors".