Travelweekly China: 2016 World Tourism Cities Federation Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit was Successfully Held

The 2016 World Tourism Cities Federation Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit was successfully held in Chongqing, from 19th-20th, September, 2016. The summit contained various contents including: opening ceremony, general assembly, the first meeting of the second council of WTCF, forums, meetings of various committees, tourism presentation, tourism market place, tourism investment fair and so on. During the summit, the Chongqing Declaration of World Tourism Cities Federation was released. And the host cities of 2017 and 2018 WTCF Fragrant Hills Tourism Summits were selected by voting. About 400 guests from 89 cities and 47 institutions and representatives from 6 international organizations attended this year’s summit. Member attendance exceeded 78%.

On the morning of 19th September, the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2016 kicked off in Chongqing, China. The theme of the summit is “Shared Economy and Development of World Tourism Cities”.

Huang Qifan, Mayor of Chongqing Municipal Government, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. Wang Anshun, Chairman of the WTCF Council & Mayor of Beijing Municipal Government, Du Jiang, Deputy Director of China National Tourism Administration, Tegegnework Gettu, Deputy Secretary of the United Nations, Dr. Mario Hardy, Chief Executive Officer of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA); Pansy Ho, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the World Tourism Economic Forum, gave speeches at the ceremony respectively. Xu Jing, Director-Executive Secretary of the General Assembly and the Executive Council read a congratulatory message from Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General of the UNWTO. The new members’ Initiation Ceremony was held during the opening ceremony. New members including Madrid and St. Petersburg has joined the WTCF family. The inauguration ceremony of the Committee of Investment—WTCF’s sixth sub-committee—was also held during the ceremony.

At the member meeting, Cheng Hong, Deputy Chairman of the WTCF Council, reviewed the progress of the first session of Council in the past years. Members of the second session of the Council were selected at the meeting and Mr. Song Yu was selected as WTCF Secretary-General. Chongqing Declaration of World Tourism Cities Federation was also declared at the meeting to better promote the concept of shared economy and a better development of world tourism cities.

The First Session of the Second Council Meeting was held during the afternoon. Wang Anshun was selected as Chairman of the WTCF Council, and Cheng Hong was selected as Executive Deputy Chairperson. WTCF Secretary-General, Song Yu, presented the 2016-2017 Annual Work Plan to the council, followed by the 2017 and 2018 WTCF Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit bid cities’ presentations. Los Angeles and Qingdao were voted as host cities of 2017 and 2018 summit respectively.

Signing Ceremonies were also held at the press conference. WTCF signed strategic partnership agreements with Tencent Technology, Travel Channel and iQIYI. Additionally, Chongqing Municipal Tourism Administration signed a MOU with Washington DC Tourism Bureau, Airbnb and other institutions. WTCF created a platform to promote collaboration and offer cities a wider range of cooperation opportunities between two cities, organizations and cities, and two organizations.

As the first meeting of the second Council was being held, the Expert Committee, the Committee of Tourism-Related Business, and the Investment Committee Council respectively convened their own annual work meeting. The committees summarized the work of the current year and made plans for the following year. The agenda for Sep 20th includes three theme forums and an investment fair.

Meaningful discussions on hot topics related to “Shared Economy,” including “Shared Economy and Chongqing’s Building an International Tourism Destination, Shared Economy: City Resource Allocation and Region-based Tourism, Innovation and Transformation of Tourism Industry in Shared Economy Era,” will be expected. Meanwhile, the meeting of the Committee of Cruise Industry, Tourism Promotion Meeting and Tourism Investment Fair will be held. During the forum, academic research reports will be released, including Market Research Report on Chinese Outbound Tourist (City) Consumption.

More than 20 famous tourism enterprises and related institutions from China and abroad will attend the Tourism Investment Fair during the summit. According to data, 80 cooperation projects have been gathered for this fair and the intended investment capital is expected to be 107.13 billion RMB, about 16 billion USD. As the Tourism Trade Fair is scheduled be held at the same time, WTCF has invited 30 buyers and 75 sellers. It is predicted that there will be three rounds of matching negotiation and one round of free negotiations. The trade fair will organize Chinese buyers and sellers engaging in outbound tourism and inbound tourism to conduct one-to-one, face-to-face business negotiation, and maximize cooperation opportunities.

On the night of September 20th, 2016, the World Tourism Cities Federation Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit came to successfully conclusion at Chongqing Yuelai International Convention Center.

The closing ceremony was started with a two-minute retrospective of the summit. Tan Jialing, Vice Mayor of Chongqing Municipal Government, delivered a speech at the Closing Ceremony. On behalf of Chongqing, she thanked the guests and the media for attendance. She once again invited people to come to Chongqing: “Chongqing is a city full of vigor and opportunities and we hope that visitors from all over the world come to Chongqing for sightseeing or investment cooperation.”

Cheng Hong, Executive Deputy Chairman of WTCF and Vice Mayor of Beijing Municipal Government said at her speech, this year’s summit was strongly supported by international tourism organizations including the United Nations, UNWTO, WTTC, PATA and World Tourism Economy Forum. More than hundreds of news media from the world reported this summit, which helped elevating the influence of WTCF.

The ceremony of handing over the flag handing ceremony was held. Liu Qi, Director of Chongqing Tourism Administration handed the WTCF flag back to WTCF Secretary-General Song Yu. Song Yu then handed the flag to Ernst Wooden, President and CEO of Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, the hosting city of 2017 Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit. Mr. Wooden accepted the flag and delivered a speech.

Chongqing Traditional Orchestra conducted fascinating performances with Ba-yu culture feature for guests, including Chinese folk music, Sichuan opera and acrobatics. The guests watched the performance while enjoying the Chongqing cuisine.

Thanks, Chongqing! Let’s cherish the beautiful memories and meet in Los Angles in 2017.