On may 29, Dai Bin, President of China Tourism Academy has delivered a keynote speech entitled "Post-Pandemic Consumption Trend of Mountain Tourism in China"at the 2020 International Mountain Tourism Day Online Forum.
As the President of China Tourism Academy and an authority research specialized in China’s tourism business management and economy of tourism economy, Dai Bin conducted that China’s tourism is now making steady recovery. Statistics show that the number of tourists during the May Day Holiday reached 53.5% of year-on-year level and that their travel radius was 50% longer than during the Spring Festival, which means that tourists were not only out and about but also more active in tourist destinations. Profound shifts are also afoot in tourism consumption, with and tourist behavior. More emphasis should be laid on tourists now attaching more importance to such factors as safety, health, environmental protection and tourist behavior, the integrated development of science and technology, culture the integrated development of science and technology, culture and tourism as we enter a new stage of work resumption with pandemic control measures in place. The development pattern of tourism is now evolving to a new phase where culture leads and science underpins innovative tourism development that benefits both tourists and local residents. Besides, Dai also expresseed his expectations for mountain tourism market: “People working in tourism-related areas must keep their confidence in tourism development. More opportunities are likely to await mountain tourism, and both people and businesses in the tourism sector should demonstrate more resolve and invest more resources in market and product research and development.”
The following is the full text of the speech:
Ladies and gentlemen，
As the second International Mountain Tourism Day approaches, let me offer my warmest congratulations to the members of International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA) as well as all my colleagues who care about development of mountain tourism. Since the establishment of the IMTA, a great deal of fruitful work has been done in advocating healthy travelling styles, promoting international cooperation in the development of mountain tourism and enhancing industrial innovation. The pandemic has also had a great impact on tourism, including mountain tourism. I would like to take this opportunity to share my three ideas and three opinions with my colleagues in the industry.
First, how do we evaluate the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism industry? Let's start by casting our minds back. On January 24th, the first day of the Chinese Spring Festival, we promptly adjusted our working mindset. The industry shifted its focus from thriving markets and ensuring supply to shutting down scenic spots, prohibiting travel in groups, to prevent and control the pandemic. Since then, organized tourism activities had been greatly reduced and even grounded entirely to a halt.
On March 12, the Chinese government resumed intra-provincial tourism in some provinces according to the pandemic situation and the conditions of resuming work and production in various regions. That is to say, since March 12, China's tourism has turned towards a new defensive stage of resuming work under prevent and control measures.
A series of data shows that during the recent May Day holiday, Chinese tourism restarting under prevent and control measures is entering into a new stage. We can see that the whole country the number of domestic tourists, has reached 115 million within five days, recovering 53.5% compared to last year. Domestic tourism revenue has totaled 47.56 billion yuan (about $6.7 billion), a 36.7% recovery compared to last year. I can also share some more detailed data with you, it’s quite interesting. For example, where did these people come from and where did they go? How long did they stay and how did they get there? Here are some figures that I can share with you. The average domestic trip distance was about 136 kilometers. People stayed out for around 40 hours on average. More than 60% of tourists went on self-driving trips, or drove by themselves with family. Another interesting statistic we should take note of is the radius of travelers' destinations. For example, a tourist from Beijing took a self-driving tour to Hebei province with his family. They visited a scenic spot there, Yuntai Mountain for example. So what was the radius of movement at Yuntai Mountain? This year during the Labor Day holiday, the average travel radius of tourists at their destinations exceeded 16 kilometers which is 50% higher than during the Spring Festival. It means that tourists not only went out, but were also more active at their destinations. So, judging from the statistics, after China's tourism industry has entered a new stage of resuming work under prevent and control measures, consumer confidence is rebuilding, and the development of the tourism industry is gathering momentum again.
Looking back on the outbreak, tourism has been greatly affected, but we should be aware that there are four "did nots" that deserve our attention.
Firstly, the tourism industry did not experience large-scale business failures and workers' unemployment. Since the beginning of the Chinese lunar year, central and local governments have been researching the problems faced by tourism enterprises. A notice was issued soon after that stated governments had decided to refund 80% quality bonds temporarily to help travel agencies overcome difficulties. Later, central and local governments published a stream of related documents, introducing measures to help enterprises, including finance, monetary and taxation policies.
Secondly, there was no serious change in public opinion about tourism. As we know, tourism has been a part of people's daily lives, and it affects all aspects of economy and society. Although tourism serves as terminal consumption, it also strongly boosts to the economy of a city, and is closely linked to economic development. Changes in the tourism industry often become a ladder of social development and a bellwether of national policies. So, in the past few years, we have also witnessed some conflicts between tourists and tourism enterprises, or conflicts between tourists and local destination suppliers, like sky-high prices of yellow croaker, seafood and so on. It made us feel that in this pandemic lasting more than 100 days, there was no similarly serious blip in public opinion. Such a result has not come easily. Beyond that, tourist satisfaction is still relatively high.
So thirdly, major tourism disputes did not take place. On January 24th, the priority of tourism development was adjusted. Reducing so many travelers all of a sudden it is like pressing the pause button on the fast-growing tourism industry. So how did so many tourists come back home? There were problems of numerous cancellations and changes in travel agencies, airlines, scenic areas and hotels which needed to be solved. According to the monitored data tourist satisfaction was as high as 84.8% during the Spring Festival. Judging from the situation over the past 100 days, the data has always been above 80% which means tourist satisfaction scored higher than 80. The data showed that tourists understood the decision made by governments, and agreed with the actions of enterprises.
The fourth is that we did not see large gathering of tourists increasing the spread of the virus. This was also not easily achieved. Tourism is often closely related to the mobility and gathering of people. We can say that without travel, tourism would not exist, or tourism is premised on the spatial movement of people. In this sense, the development of tourism is closely related to the safety and stability of nature and society. During this pandemic, there was no pandemic outbreak caused by the development of tourism. This was a truly difficult task.
So like I said, in the past 100 days or so, achieving these four “did not” and two “recoveries” within these major timelines has not been easy for the tourism industry. In retrospect, how did we achieve major results in this period, the four "did not" and two "recoveries"? First of all, it is due to the Chinese tourism system consistently implementing a series of important instructions proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping regarding pandemic prevention and control as well as cultural and tourism development. What's more, the system always puts people's physical safety and health before all else, and resolutely carries out a series of work arrangements on pandemic prevention and control from the State Council. At the same time, we also found that comrades on the tourism frontline, including travel entrepreneurs, travel agencies, OTA, hotels, scenic spots, airlines at all levels have made great efforts for the stable, orderly development as well as recovery and revitalization of tourism. And they also sacrificed a lot. In other words , they have contributed a lot to pandemic prevention and control and the resumption of work and production.
Of course, in this process, we also noticed that the tourism industry has been a focal point for international organizations such as the IMTA, tourism associations, the media and other social sectors which is an important driving force and guarantee that tourism can stabilize and gradually recover.