On May 29, the"International Mountain Tourism Day 2025" Theme Events kicked off on Gran Canaria, Spain. With the theme "Embracing Mountains and Seas, Coexisting with Cultures — Mountain Tourism and Cultural Inclusiveness for the Future," the event brought together representatives from international organizations, government officials, industry leaders, experts, scholars, and media worldwide to explore inclusive collaboration and shared development in global mountain tourism. The program included an opening ceremony, thematic forums, mountain cultural exchange sessions, a China-Spain cultural tourism exhibition, and the "Gran Canaria Night" welcome dinner. Participants engaged in diverse formats to share advanced concepts, discuss cutting-edge issues, and deepen practical cooperation. Mr. Guo Weiyi, Chairman of Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Group Co., Ltd., China, delivered a speech at the"Innovation in Mountain Tourism & Local Community Participation" Theme Forum.
The full text of the speech is as follows:
Hello everyone! There is an old Chinese saying that "fate brings people together even from a thousand miles away". I am very happy to come to Gran Canaria, this beautiful island where mountains and seas meet, on the occasion of the 2025 "International Mountain Tourism Day". I feel deeply honored to discuss the development and future of mountain tourism with global partners. Guizhou, China's only karst kingdom without plains, and the Canary Islands, Spain's unique volcanic pearls surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, are thousands of miles apart, but our reverence for mountain civilization and our pursuit of sustainable development of mountain tourism are closely connected. It can be said that mountains and seas echo each other, and our fate is profound. Today, I will share Guizhou's practices and visions under the theme of "Wellness and Leisure Leading a New Trend of Mountain Life", looking forward to working with global partners to inject humanistic warmth and sustainable momentum into mountain tourism.
I. Reconstructing Mountain Value with Wellness and Leisure
In today's world, the tourism industry is undergoing profound changes. Tourists are no longer satisfied with "scenery consumption", but pursue in-depth experience, health healing and cultural resonance. Mountain tourism wellness and leisure is a composite tourism model that takes natural ecology and humanistic resources as carriers, integrating multiple formats such as health preservation, leisure vacation, ecotourism, cultural experience and outdoor sports. Wellness and leisure is not a subversion of traditional mountain tourism, but a multi-dimensional value system that leads supply innovation through demand upgrading and reconstructs the ecological, economic and social values of mountain tourism. This is one of the main directions for us to build a world-class tourist destination, and also an important way to promote the realization of people's yearning for a better life.
II. Leading Mountain Life with Wellness and Leisure
For some of the distinguished guests here, Guizhou may seem a bit distant and unfamiliar. Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, pointed out that "the harmonious coexistence of Guizhou's ecological environment and ethnic culture provides a vivid case for global sustainable development goals". Isabelle Thomas, former President of the International Ecotourism Society, said that "Guizhou's mountain tourism proves that ecological protection and community development can achieve a win-win situation". Bernardo Bertolucci, a famous Italian director, said as early as 15 years ago: "If I were to shoot a film about the symbiosis between man and nature in the East, the beautiful and unique Guizhou would be my first choice." Guizhou was listed in Lonely Planet's 2022 list of "Top 10 Best Travel Regions in the World" with the comment: "Guizhou is China's last secret place, and its karst landforms and diverse ethnic cultures constitute an unparalleled travel experience."
Guizhou has the largest number of world natural heritage sites in China, with rich tourism resources and unique cultural connotations. The mountain coverage rate is as high as 92.5%, with 1.258 million large and small mountains. Waterfalls, karst caves, canyons, lakes and hot springs are everywhere. The forest coverage rate is 63%, with the world's largest primitive karst forest growing here, making it a veritable "mountain park". It is also a settlement where multiple ethnic groups live in harmony, with 757 traditional Chinese villages and 312 ethnic minority characteristic villages, making Guizhou a "cultural thousand islands". The natural scenery and ethnic customs complement each other, providing unique conditions for the development of mountain tourism. China's Guizhou is just like Europe in the world. In recent years, Guizhou has comprehensively promoted the strategy of tourism industrialization, and the tourism industry has developed in a "blowout" manner. We have deeply integrated ecological protection, cultural inheritance and scientific and technological innovation, promoted the transformation from "traffic economy" to "value economy", and are striving to build a world-class mountain tourist destination focusing on wellness and leisure.
(1) Ecological orientation, building a global green barrier
We thoroughly implement the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping, adhere to ecological priority and green development, and strive to transform ecological environment advantages into mountain tourism economy. Guizhou is a "natural big air conditioner". Relying on the unique advantage of an average summer temperature of only 23℃, we have cultivated a climate wellness market. "Guiyang, China's Summer Capital" is well-known. In 2024, Guizhou received 120 million summer tourists. We are laying out a wellness and living network integrating multiple formats of "accommodation + catering + wellness + culture + entertainment" across the province, providing tourists with one-stop services for "resident-style" leisure and wellness. In Fanjing Mountain, a world natural heritage and a "natural oxygen bar", we have implemented an appointment and restriction system, receiving no more than 8,000 tourists per day to balance the ecological carrying capacity of the scenic spot and the tourist experience. We are planning leisure and wellness resorts, Zen-themed resort hotels, high-end mountain ecological campsites and other projects around Fanjing Mountain, which will reshape the unique charm and market competitiveness of Fanjing Mountain through the combination of "nature + humanity + wellness" blockbuster genes.
(2) Culture as the soul, integrating culture and tourism to activate local culture
For thousands of years, 18 ethnic groups in Guizhou have lived in peace with mountains and coexisted with water, leaving many precious cultural heritages, including 3 UN intangible cultural heritages and 99 national intangible cultural heritages. We adhere to shaping tourism with culture and highlighting culture through tourism, focus on cultural inheritance and innovation, and deeply integrate traditional culture with modern tourism through intangible cultural heritage experience, cultural and creative product development and other forms. We have set up characteristic tourism commodity experience stores in major scenic spots in Guizhou to meet the diversified and personalized leisure consumption needs of tourists. We have ingeniously created an immersive activity with Ming Dynasty culture as the core in Yunfeng Tunpu Scenic Area. Through rich forms such as music performances, costume parades and drama performances, we have built a three-dimensional and vivid cultural experience space for tourists, showing the unique charm of "down-to-earth, original ecology and warmth".
(3) Technology as a bridge, promoting inclusive development of mountains
Guizhou has high mountains and deep valleys, with dangerous terrain, which has inspired the determination of Guizhou people to "open roads through mountains and build bridges across waters". We have built more than 30,000 bridges in the mountains, making Guizhou a "world bridge museum". Nearly half of the world's top 100 highest bridges are in Guizhou, and the transportation and opening-up pattern has been completely changed. The Huajiang Gorge Bridge, which is under construction, will become the world's first bridge when completed this year. We are building the first bridge-tourism integrated complex integrating "bridge sightseeing + high-altitude sports + tourism services" around it, innovating a series of products including cliff hotels, starry sky camping, wellness research and study. Because of Guizhou's unique landform, there is also a world-class treasure here - "China's Tianyan (FAST)", which is the world's largest single-aperture and most sensitive spherical radio telescope. It is a unique "top resource" for mountain research travel. Through technological empowerment, we can build a new scene of mountain tourism featuring "playing with technology, exploring the unknown and deep experience".
III. Jointly Building a Wellness and Leisure Ecosystem for Mountain Tourism
The tourism industry carries the mission of cultural mutual learning, and mountain tourism should become a global practice of harmonious coexistence between man and nature. Today, we are here on this beautiful "volcanic island" to invite you - welcome to Guizhou, the "Mountain Park Province" with 23℃ in summer. Feel the pulse of ecology in the sea of clouds in Fanjing Mountain, listen to the echo of culture in the lights of Xijiang Qianhu Miao Village, and experience the temperature of industry on the hiking trail in Chishui River Valley. Guizhou is accelerating the construction of a world-class tourist destination, with a continuously improving development trend and unprecedented development opportunities. We sincerely look forward to finding cooperation opportunities with colleagues here in promoting the formulation of international standards for mountain ecotourism, exploring the benefit-sharing mechanism of mountain tourism, and building tourism products such as the "International Mountain Tourism and Wellness Corridor", so as to jointly build a wellness ecosystem for mountain tourism. Let us take mountains as bridges and seas as ink to jointly write a new chapter of mountain tourism featuring "humanistic coexistence"!
Source: IMTA
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
Editor Ⅱ: Bao Gang
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong