Recently, the "8·9·00 Concept Meeting," themed "Technology Empowerment and New Trends in Mountain Tourism," was successfully held in Xingyi City, Guizhou Province. As one of the supporting events of the "International Conference of Mountain Tourism and Outdoor Sports 2024," this forum attracted numerous industry leaders, young talents, and cultural scholars from the 80s, 90s, and 00s generations to discuss the future industry trends of mountain tourism and the significant role of the newer generations, exploring market opportunities for promoting high-quality cultural and tourism integration in the new era from a youthful perspective.
"8·9·00 Concept Meeting"
The "8·9·00 Concept Meeting" is a platform tailored by the International Mountain Tourism Alliance for the newer generations to exchange ideas and experiences, aiming to stimulate youth wisdom and creativity around cultural tourism trends amidst new development backgrounds. The Vice Chairman and Executive Secretary of the IMTA defined four keywords for the "8·9·00 Concept Meeting": "thoughts, topics, space, and creativity." Thoughts represent the collision of ideas, topics focus on societal concerns, space encompasses the dimensions of reality and trends, and creativity is the value of mutual learning and practical support. This salon-like youth forum sparks interest and resonance among both ordinary youth entrepreneurs and successful young talents. With its own voice and display space, it is destined to become a vibrant and interactive platform for aspiring new generations.
Activating Youthfulness: Sparks Fly in Intergenerational Dialogue
A row of high-quality tea breaks were set up, and guests posed for photos with creative signboards. The Think-Share Forum opened in a comfortable and casual atmosphere, with a relaxed, open, and harmonious exchange environment that better aligns with the personality traits and needs of young people. It complements and interacts with the IMTA's Annual Conference, making content dissemination and audience coverage more diverse and precise.
Watch an immersive 4D performance show, hike and climb for a cup of cliff coffee. Young people are not only becoming an important consumer group for cultural tourism but also bringing a steady stream of fresh creativity to the development of mountain tourism. The "8·9·00" of this Think-Share Forum precisely positions youth groups of three age brackets and represents the progressively more active and innovative thinking of the newer generations in cultural tourism. At the event, guests from various industries exchanged ideas and broadened their horizons through fascinating topic sharing and interactive sessions, jointly contributing to the development of a new landscape for mountain tourism.
Zhang Anqi, Manager of Guizhou Bloom Farm Agro-tourism Commercial Complex
Taiwanese girl Zhang Anqi is the manager of the Guizhou Bloom Farm Agro-tourism Commercial Complex. She created the "Bloom Farm" ecological manor in Shibing County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, utilizing local mountain resources according to local conditions, turning originally difficult-to-cultivate stones in the soil into stone walls, roads, and landscapes within the park. The park aims to realize the full-chain industry model of "from farm to table" and innovatively applies the concept of "tertiary industry integration," providing young consumers with multiple enjoyments ranging from flower, vegetable, and fruit scenic spot tours, special product processing and sales, to ecological education and handmade experiences. In the exhibition area of the event, her rural agro-tourism products such as additive-free tea drinks were also well-received.
Luo Runzhou, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Hunzhi Culture
How to make others love your hometown in half an hour? Hunzhi Culture, with over 500 million readings across the web and more than 35 million followers, gives the answer: using comics to provide fun and lightweight interpretations of cultural tourism destinations, reducing the reading cost and dissemination threshold of new media. Luo Runzhou, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Hunzhi Culture, said that the marketing and promotion of mountain tourism should adapt to the reading habits and needs of young audiences. On the Internet and social media platforms, comics can more efficiently attract attention resources and form lasting impressions. Taking the team's new work "How Village Super Leagues Are Made" as an example, he provided a new breakthrough for the promotion of mountain tourism resources.
Emerging Formats and Colorful Innovations in Mountain Tourism
Cave exploration, canyon rafting, low-altitude gliding…… With the pursuit of diversified tourism experiences by the newer generations, mountain tourism and outdoor sports are more closely linked, and emerging formats are rapidly rising. Along with industry expansion and increased scale, various financial instruments are also being implemented in the development of mountain tourism, empowering the investment and financing field professionally and shining brightly.
Wei Heng, Founder of PlayPro Boat and Yacht Sports Club
"Let the story of every river cross mountains and seas" is the development tenet of PlayPro Boat and Yacht Sports Club, which is committed to developing integrated service products of "mountain + tourism + quality education" to meet the needs of modern urban people for sports and leisure consumption. Founder Wei Heng shared that water sports such as rowing, canoeing, and motorboating have gradually become popular among outdoor enthusiasts. The club has developed multiple mountain-water sports routes, including Guizhou's Wujiang River and Yunnan's Nujiang River, which encompass new mountain tourism play methods and experiences such as cave exploration and camping while rowing.
Yang Tian, East Asian History Writer
Wearing full protective armor and using unsharpened weapons for one-on-one or team battles, this sport called "Full Armor Combat" is, in the view of East Asian history writer Yang Tian, a highly internationalized competitive event that perfectly integrates martial culture, sports, and tourism. Amidst mountains, wilderness, vast skies, and clear waters, the clash of weapons fully displays the spirit of jianghu, and the cross-border integration of cultural tourism, history, and sports adds profound cultural connotations to mountain tourism, further enhancing its attractiveness to tourists.
Cao Cong, Investment Director of Bojiangg Capital
Cao Cong, Investment Director of Bojiang Capital, is an investment and financing expert and an investor in Moganshan homestays. From the perspective of capital operation, he analyzed the financing strategies of mountain tourism and the operational experience of mountain homestays, and introduced the current new trends and products in the development of mountain homestays. As an expert in public REITs, Yang Lei, through rich practical cases, demonstrated how to promote the sustainable development of mountain tourism projects through asset securitization, proposing solutions in aspects such as tourist number prediction, income valuation, and public opinion management, providing valuable financial insights for participants.
From Rural to Urban: Empowering High-Quality and Sustainable Development
As mountain tourism becomes increasingly popular among mass tourists and consumers, the industry scale continues to expand, gradually becoming an important driver for destination economic growth and rural revitalization. The continuous emergence of new formats in mountain tourism and the innovative development of tourism products are also changing the lifestyles of modern urban people, thereby significantly impacting the renewal and development of urban construction.
Peng Xixi, Rotating Chairman of Guizhou "Village Super League" Brand Management Co., Ltd.
As a phenomenal mass media event and cultural brand in the cultural tourism industry, the Village Super League has attracted the attention of countless football and travel enthusiasts, showcasing the mountain tourism resources of Rongjiang and Guizhou to the world, and effectively driving local prosperity and industrial transformation. According to Peng Xixi, Rotating Chairman of Guizhou "Village Super League" Brand Management Co., Ltd., "mobile phones have become new farming tools, data has become new agricultural resources, and livestreaming has become new farming work." Through a series of sports feasts, the Village Super League has vividly interpreted the Chinese modernization practice of "promoting culture, industry, tourism, and consumption through competitions." Data shows that the Village Super League has attracted nearly 5.2 million tourists, achieving a comprehensive tourism income of nearly 6 billion yuan.
Xu Li, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Big World
Xu Li, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Big World, believes that immersive performance scenarios break the boundaries of scenic space, bringing new vitality to the cultural tourism industry and mountain tourism. With its strong sense of participation and high degree of consumer involvement, it creates unique travel experiences for young customer groups. She pointed out that how to use digital creative means to create high-quality immersion, allowing tourists to feel the charm of mountains anytime and anywhere, and boosting mountain tourism consumption, is the key to improving and upgrading mountain tourism.
Pan Zirun (Canglang), Senior Researcher of Ancient Cities
Pan Zirun (Canglang), a senior researcher of ancient cities, focuses on the protection of ancient cities and buildings. Through a series of "negative examples" of overdevelopment and large-scale demolition and construction, he provides referable experiences and directions for how mountain tourism destinations can protect cultural heritage. He believes that only by taking protection as the foundation and realizing cultural inheritance can cultural tourism integration and development be achieved. This requires that in the process of mountain tourism development, not only should the local environment be maintained, and the interests and "nostalgia" of local residents be retained, but also long-term sustainable and benign development cycles should be achieved through means such as micro-renewals.
"8·9·00 Concept Meeting"
As the main force of the future society, the new generation not only has innovative thinking and keen market insight, but also is good at using the Internet and new technology to enhance the tourism experience and service quality, playing an indispensable role in the innovative development of mountain tourism. The successful holding of the "8·9·00 Concept Meeting" of IMTA is an important achievement of the International Mountain Tourism Alliance in grasping the trend of the times and actively embracing market changes. The event not only provided a platform for participants to exchange ideas and share experiences, but also injected new vitality and impetus into the innovative development of mountain tourism.
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
Editor Ⅱ: Wu Dan
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong
