The history of the press dates back to the 1980s, during which the strong links of the university to the Chinese tourism ministry CNTA significantly contributed to the establishment of TEP.

In 1978, the Chinese government introduced the economic reform and put great emphasis on the integration into the global market.

In order to improve the English proficiency of the service personnel, especially in terms of the tourism industry, for three consecutive years, the CNTA consigned the language training responsibility to Beijing International Studies University and in 1981, the Department of Tourism was jointly established by the university and CNTA.

[2] As of 2007[update], the Tourism Education Press has been awarded 23 book prizes for 41 of its publications, and 109 of all TEP publications have been selected into the Textbooks of Nation project, Distinguished Textbooks projects or nominated for other academic awards by the Ministry of Education and the municipal government.

The cooperation was referred to as Academic Community, in the sense that the press would facilitate the development of tourism discipline as an academic intermediary, while the research projects conducted by the academy would provide the press with publication sources.