Yunnan Attends Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit to Share Development Achievements of Smart Tourism

The WTCF Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019 was held in Helsinki, Finland from September 3rd to the 4th. Promotional events during lunch were held during the summit. Liu Huibo, deputy director of Foreign Exchange Cooperation Office of Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, promoted Yunnan province’s resources and shared achievements that Yunnan has achieved in recent years via smart tourism.

Liu Huibo, deputy director of Foreign Exchange Cooperation Office of Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism was introducing the tourism resources in Yunnan

Yunnan is located near the border region of southwestern China with four seasons and pleasant weather. It boasts diverse natural landscapes such as plains, hills, alpine valleys, rivers and lakes. Liu Huibo introduced Yunnan’s various folk customs, splendid history and civilization. Festivals including the Water-Sprinkling Festival of the Dai people, the Torch Festival of the Yi people and the Third Month Fair of the Bai people, demonstrate the multi-ethnic cultural features of Yunnan province. Historic locations like the Yungmou Man Site and the Chengjiang Animal Fossil bring tourists the feeling of passing through ancient and modern times to appreciate the novelty of Yunnan. In recent years, the province has been exploring the area of smart tourism. It has cooperated with Tencent to establish an ‘all-for-one’ smart tourism digitalized platform——an app entitled “Travel in Yunnan with One Mobile” This platform covers tourists’ needs including food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment in Yunnan. Also, it assists the local government in comprehensive management of the tourism industry.

The Yunnan exhibition stand set up during the summit

Wen Shuqiong, counselor of Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, was recently interviewed by a journalist from CRI Online. She said that resources and technology are the key elements of smart tourism development. Currently, Yunnan is in the process of setting up digital platforms like “Travel in Yunnan with One Mobile” to provide an all-dimensional tourism service for travelers to satisfy different people’s needs by way of “internet + tourism”. For example, Yunnan offers various intelligent identification technology for tourists of different age groups. Tourists can choose scanning a QR code or facial recognition to get travel information. She also pointed out that the tourism industry of Yunnan province has transformed from a hurried and cursory sightseeing tour to personalized in-depth travel at present. She hopess that Yunnan tourism industry can provide tourists with more diversified and personalized product services through the “wing” of intelligence so as to promote the innovative development of Yunnan tourism.

Since the WTCF was founded, it has devoted itself to promote win-win cooperation between popular destination cities and international tourism organizations in order to boost this global industry. “As an international institution, the WTCF has a global vision and consideration from an international perspective. Therefore, we take more foreign tourists’ needs into account when producing services and products”. Wen Shuqiong also mentioned that Yunnan continues to learn from the feedback of other members of the WTCF in its ongoing endeavor to improve the tourism industry. As for the Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, she pointed out that it offers an international stage for Yunnan to recommend what it has to offer to the world. She expects that this promotion will improve the international popularity of Yunnan tourism and share its beauty across the world.

During the summit, a Yunnan exhibition stand was set up to provide delegates with an opportunity to get a closer look at local tourism products.