EDITOR'S NOTE: On May 29 2021, the main activity of the third International Mountain Tourism Day—the World Heritage Famous Mountain (Jinfo Mountain) Summit kicked off in Nanchuan District, Chongqing Municipality, China successfully. Themed with “World Heritage Protection and Green Development of Mountain Tourism”, the Summit got strong support from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF), the Internationale Organisation Für Volkskunst (IOV) and the China Association of National Parks and Scenic Sites. The theme forum presented wonderful contents with high-level opinions, frontier observations and dialogues on trends. The speeches will be released in succession to share with industry colleagues.
Shao Qiwei, former Chairman of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), Vice Chairman of IMTA delivered an address at the Summit's Opening Ceremony:
We are in a special period witnessing challenges, opportunities and major changes unseen in a century. At the recent Global Leaders Summit on Climate, President Xi Jinping said, "In recent years, climate change, biodiversity loss, worsening desertification and frequent extreme weather events have all posed severe challenges to human survival and development. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has added difficulty to economic and social development across countries. Faced with unprecedented challenges in global environmental governance, the international community needs to come up with unprecedented ambition and action."
As an international organization aiming to protect mountain resources, preserve mountain civilization and promote the mountain economy to the benefit of the people living in mountainous regions, IMTA is responsible for building consensus in the mountain tourism circles and leading the sustainable and eco-oriented development of mountain tourism. This is why the event is themed "World Heritage Protection and Green Development of Mountain Tourism". We should make great efforts to propel mountain tourism and industry players to establish a low carbon concept, and use low carbon technologies to deliver more green, low carbon and eco-friendly tourism products, develop new mountain tourism business and activate heritage resources, so as to realize harmony between mountain tourism and world heritage famous mountains.
Canterbury-Mountain Plains @David-Wall
World famous mountains are precious natural wealth for mankind, important carriers of world natural heritage and cultural heritage, as well as the foundation for the existence and development of mountain tourism. The COVID-19 pandemic facing mankind is profoundly changing people's outlook on development, life and health, and their outlook on tourism as well. The people's yearning for a safe and healthy life will go beyond their pursuit of materials. Mountain tourism based on natural and humanistic ecology is an ideal way to enjoy a health life and will be more popular in the future.
Our earth is facing the grim test of climate change. Scientists warn that if the average global temperature rises by over 2 degrees Celsius, the sea level will rise by 50 centimeters by 2050 and we will lose over 10 percent of species on the earth. The State of the Global Climate 2020 released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) highlighted accelerating climate change indicators and worsening impacts, extreme weather combined with COVID-19 was a double blow to the world, and climate change posed a risk to the Sustainable Development Goals through correlated extreme events in 2020. Undoubtedly climate change has brought a huge challenge to mountain tourism and world famous mountains. Mountain tourism is important part of global tourism. It is imperative for the mountain tourism community to jointly cope with climate change and adopt an effective strategy for green and low carbon development.
We are pleased to see that Nanchuan District, Chongqing Municipality has set a good example for us. From Nanchuan's favorable mountain ecology, biodiversity, livable and tourism & commerce-friendly urban look and path of green development led by the government, we can find a common direction for mountain tourism. This is why we chose Nanchuan for the "International Mountain Tourism Day" event.
Miancumu Peak at Meili Snow Mountain @Kim Ki Hwan
To call on the international mountain tourism community and all walks of life to achieve the vision of protecting and sharing famous mountain resources, we hereby issue an initiative in the special day-"International Mountain Tourism Day":
1. Applying resources of world-renowned mountains for the sustainable development of mountain tourism; drawing attention of the broader society on the protection and sustainable development of mountain resources; making the public more aware of the natural and cultural value of world heritage mountains.
2. Embarking on the path of ecology-oriented, green, low-carbon, and sustainable development. We must abandon the exploitation models that neglect, plunder and damage the nature, but strive for new mountain tourism models that help mankind and nature co-exist harmoniously. Tourism industry operators should pay close attention to ecological protection in planning and construction, product design, post-operation, and any other procedures, develop more premium ecological products that satisfy new consumer demands, proactively explore carbon neutral solutions for tourist activities, and guide tourists to develop sound habits of protecting the ecological environment.
3. Enriching business patterns of mountain tourism and revitalizing heritage resources. In detail, we must capitalize on the unique natural and cultural resources, local features, and landscapes of world heritage mountains, to design tourism products targeted at famous mountain adventure, culture experience tour, environment research tour, and public service tour. In doing so, we can revitalize the world-renowned mountains listed as world natural heritages in the new era, and popularize them among the general public.
4. Applying and promoting green, low-carbon technologies in mountain tourism. For that, we call on mountain tourism enterprises, research institutes, and relevant business entities to focus on R&D, applying green and low-carbon technologies, probing into how to reduce hotel energy consumption, save energy and reduce emission for vehicles, and recycle resources of scenic areas, in a bid to create demonstration tourist attractions of zero discharge.
5. Initiating positive and mutual-benefit interaction between mountain tourism and mountain protection. To be specific, we need to help and serve mountain dwellers via economic and social benefits of mountain tourism, help them learn more about the precious value of world heritages, encourage local communities to participate in preserving and developing natural heritages, so that every local resident can be an integral part of heritage protection and development.
Sunset Glow at Jiabang Town @Zhang Chengwu
