On November 17th-19th, the 2020 International Mountain Tourism Alliance Annual Conference opened in Guiyang. The Conference is concentrated on the theme of "The Path of Mountain Tourism Development in the Post-COVID World". During the annual conference, the participants focused on this major topic, and discuss depth in how to promote the revitalization and quality of mountain tourism after the pandemic, and provide thoughts guidance and practice support for global mountain tourism management and promotion of global tourism industry.
This Annual Conference is hosted by the International Mountain Tourism Alliance. UNWTO, WTTC, PATA, GTEF, WTA, WTCF, ASEAN-China Centre, WCCO and other well-know international organizations and associations provided powerful support.
The Address at Opening Ceremony
Lu Yongzheng, Member of the Standing Committee and Director of Publicity Department of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee
Distinguished Chairman Dominique de Villepin, Vice Chairman Shao Qiwei, Director Zhu Shanzhong, Secretary-General He Yafei, and Director Xie Jinying.
Ladies and gentlemen，
We’re glad to present 2020 IMTA Annual Conference with leaders and guests from all walks of life in this special time when the international community fights against COVID-19 and strives to recover economy. First, on behalf of the CPC Guizhou Committee and Guizhou Provincial Government, I hereby send my sincere respect and gratitude to our friends, old and new, who are dedicated to promoting international mountain tourism, and to those who are concerned with Guizhou’s progress in tourism.
This annual conference themed “The Path of Mountain Tourism Development in the Post-COVID World” combines actual meeting and online livestreaming. Being with us are specialists of the tourism sector who will probe into the future direction of mountain tourism by responding to practical concerns, and contribute to the revitalization of world tourism. Four years have passed since founding, IMTA has still been expanding its international presence, and becoming a setter of mountain tourism benchmark that takes the lead in building industry standards; an intermediary of resource investment and cooperation that facilitates reasonable resource deploy worldwide; a platform for product expansion that bridges supply and demand; an institute for tourism development research that shares opinions and experience; as well as a platform of cultural communication between China and the west that helps optimize the political and cultural context of the tourism sector.
COVID-19 is the most severe challenge to global public health since World War II, rocking the way how global economy runs and how the world operates, and posing a grim threat to each country’s governance capacity. Since the advent of the outbreak, people have been temporarily forbidden to gather and travel. Tourism, as an industry extremely sensitive to external factors, stands among the first victims to COVID-19 as both the number of tourists and total revenue of tourism plummeted worldwide. According to APEC, world tourism revenue in 2020 will drop by 60 to 80 percent; and the UNWTO estimates a 70 percent drop in world tourism output value. Facing such a tremendous situation, Guizhou Province and the CPC Guizhou Committee paid close attention, and took the most timely, thorough and strict measures of prevention and control, and also implemented stronger yet humane polities. As a result, we have had zero new local case since February 17, and the actions we took helped coordinate and promote both pandemic control as well as economic and social recovery. From Q1 to Q3 this year, Guizhou’s GDP enjoyed a 3.2 percent of year-on-year growth, ranking among the top in China for 39 quarters in a row. On top of that, we facilitated the revitalization of tourism by taking the lead in China to orderly open scenic areas to the public, initiating policies and measures on bailing out relevant organizations, especially travel enterprises, and issuing coupons on cultural tourism consumption. By doing so, we received a total of 86.096 million visitors in October, reaping 86.73 billion yuan of revenue, accounting for 90.6 percent and 80.5 percent of performance last year, respectively, a solid proof of how strong and full of potential tourism in Guizhou is.
In the post-COVID world, everyone would value their life, health, and safety more, and pay closer attention to making their ecological environment safer, making their life healthier with higher life quality. Guizhou province, as a kingdom of mountains, enjoys an outstanding mountain ecological circle, unique mountainous climate, profuse resources and profound culture. And these edges will surely stand out after the pandemic. On top of that, Guizhou will center around building itself into a world-class mountain tourism destination and an apex domestic destination for wellness holiday, in a bid to make local tourism better geared to international standards and attract more visitors to enjoy the beautiful, safe and healthy mountain tourism here.
As the initiator of IMTA, Guizhou will join hands with IMTA in promoting the revitalization of mountain tourism. World tourism can be referred as the wind vane for global economic recovery, and tourism itself has become a key index to measure people’s life quality, as well as a life worth pursuing and even a normal lifestyle. Force majeure like COVID-19 may temporarily curb people’s need to travel, and greatly damage the tourism sector, but could never stop people from exploring and pursuing freedom. We’re so glad to see consumers’ confidence is picking up again, the innovative momentum is gathering, preferential policies are showing effect, and a new international framework of cooperation is forming up. We hope IMTA members join hands in building a multilateral mechanism for information exchange and matching, innovating how to cooperate and coordinate in world tourism, enhancing risk control, and making inbound tourism more convenient. In a word, we should build up a new reciprocal framework for domestic and international tourism development.
We will promote high-quality development of mountain tourism with IMTA. Just as jade needs to be polished, one needs to go through trials and tribulations to be strong. Throughout the history of mankind, tourism sits alongside with risks yet never falls in the grips of failure; in each success experience is accumulated, triggering iteration and upgrade of the industry. Revitalizing tourism after pandemic is by no means moving the industry back to the good old time, but upgrading and transforming towards the future, as well as innovating or reconstructing the industry structure. We hope IMTA members recognize the tendency and proactively embrace changes, and forge new opportunities amid risks. For that, we must advertise for green and healthy tour, initiate wellness products and services that meet consumer demands, market tendency, and mountain tourism edges, and lead high-quality and sustainable development of tourism via combining culture, technology, finance, and creativity. In short, we will help promote the innovative development of IMTA. The chilly winter of world tourism is also when international organizations pool intelligence, reach consensus, and join hands. The COVID-19, at the same time, poses a challenge to how IMTA operates. For that, IMTA has pooled intelligence, experience and strength from government agencies, tourism departments, guilds, tourism enterprises, experts and scholars, bound to providing leading concepts and practices for the management of global mountain tourism, and even the prosperity of world tourism. Mr. Hu Heping, Minister of Cultural and Tourism, pays great attention to the IMTA, and hopes IMTA could march ahead even further in innovating operation mechanism and expanding international influence.
As a major mountain tourism province and the initiator of IMTA, Guizhou will spare no efforts in creating a sound environment for development, efficiently combine IMTA annual conference with International Mountain Tourism & Outdoor Sports Conference, Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference, and other events, so as to better attract and serve members, and to make IMTA even more reputed and authoritative. We also hope IMTA could expand the influence of its brand events like “International Mountain Tourism Day” and “Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World,” seek in-depth cooperation in setting standards for mountain tourism, project development, and building creativity base in IMTA headquarters.
As winter passes, the future looms on the horizon. We believe after the baptism of both COVID-19 and consumption upgrade, tourism will eventually go through the “darkest hours,” and into a new stage of ecological, healthy, sustainable and high-level development.
Finally, I wish the annual conference a success. And wish all of you have a great time in Guizhou.
