Jointly Creating Prosperity Through Integrated Development: World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development 2023 Kicks off in Beijing

On September 2, the World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development 2023 (hereinafter referred to as the "Conference"), hosted by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, kicked off at the China National Convention Center in Beijing. This Conference is one of the ten summit forums during the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services. Themed "New Trends, New Business Format, New Consumption: Jointly Creating the New Prosperity of Culture & Tourism," the Conference aims to drive world tourism cities to embrace new trends, seize new opportunities, adapt to new business formats, contribute to new forms of consumption, and work together to usher in a new era of shared prosperity with an innovative mindset, distinctive decisions, and creative practices. It features four sections: the opening ceremony, the mayors' dialogue, the research release, and thematic speeches. Around 400 representatives from approximately 30 countries and regions gathered to participate in person at the event.

Yin Yong, Mayor of Beijing and Chairman of the WTCF Council, delivers a speech.

Sima Hong, Vice Mayor of Beijing and Executive Vice Chairman of the WTCF Council, presided over the Conference's opening ceremony. Yin Yong, Mayor of Beijing and Chairman of the WTCF Council, delivered a speech.

Yin highlighted in his speech that the global tourism industry has experienced a significant rebound and robust growth this year. As a key global tourist destination, Beijing welcomed 150 million visitors in the first half of the year, generating a revenue of over CNY 270 billion in its tourism sector. These figures indicate a year-on-year doubling in both metrics. Beijing's tourism industry has effectively recovered to pre-pandemic levels and is now entering a new phase of comprehensive and accelerated recovery, both in terms of supply and demand. In his speech, Yin introduced a four-point initiative to city members and tourism practitioners. The first point emphasizes the leading role played by better philosophy in meeting people's needs for a better life. The second point focuses on leveraging digital and intelligent technologies to develop new tourism business formats constantly. The third point calls for seizing the opportunity to integrate culture and tourism, fostering a new consumption model where culture shapes tourism development while tourism promotes culture. The fourth point underscores the importance of cooperation among cities for harnessing new opportunities within the global tourism market.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, former President of the Republic of Croatia, delivers a speech.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, former President of the Republic of Croatia, brought attention to a significant statistic in her speech that 80% of global tourism activities are concentrated in cities. She emphasized the pivotal role of the WTCF in using tourist cities as platforms for progress. She particularly highlighted its successful efforts in guiding world tourism cities' development and facilitating multilateral exchanges among them. Grabar-Kitarović expressed her unwavering confidence in the future development of the WTCF. She also shared her expectations for establishing a friendship bridge based on mutual trust and cooperation between more tourism cities in Croatia and China. In her speech, Grabar-Kitarović called for collective efforts to overcome the geographical obstacles and forge a mutually beneficial path towards a brighter future for the world tourism industry

José Luis Sanz Ruiz, Mayor of Seville, Spain, delivers a speech.

José Luis Sanz Ruiz, Mayor of Seville, Spain, greatly appreciated the role of technology in driving the new development of tourism. During his speech, he shared Seville's practices in tourism, such as establishing a Smart Tourism Office, developing a Tourism Intelligence System , and collaborating with universities to develop the overall synthetic tourism activity indicator . He also shed light on a new approach to sustainable tourism development, which is tapping into new groups of tourists and providing diversified services.

Pansy Ho,  Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF), delivers a speech.

According to Pansy Ho, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of GTEF, the entire tourism ecosystem has changed, and it is necessary to pay more attention to innovation and promote the emergence of new consumption trends. She proposed to fully explore the capacity of cities and create different modes through innovation. In her opinion, WTCF can serve as a platform for leaders from various countries to strengthen their cooperation and exchange information on current trends, new travel modes, and actions that can bring new opportunities and boost cultural tourism.

Wang Xudong, Member of the CPC Leading Party Members Group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, and Director of the Palace Museum, delivers a speech.

Wang Xudong, Member of the CPC Leading Party Members Group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, and Director of the Palace Museum, stated that the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. It requires not only practical measures, but also spiritual strength, sincerity, and a righteous heart to solve the prominent contradictions and problems we are facing. "The convening of this Conference will further deepen the deep understanding among tourism cities around the world, consolidate the foundation of cooperation, expand cooperation fields, and jointly create a better future for tourism cities in the world."  

The Conference

During the session of mayors' dialogue, Jantirar Abay Yigzaw, Vice Mayor of Addis Ababa from Ethiopia, Khalid EI Fataoui, Vice Mayor of Marrakech of Morocco and President of the Chinese-Moroccan Friendship Association, and Gao Wenqi, Vice Mayor of Changsha from China had an in-depth discussion on the "Innovation-Driven Consumption Growth of International Tourism Cities", talking about the new concepts of the innovative development in tourism cities and sharing new measures for promoting innovative consumption in international tourism cities.

In 2023, with a strong recovery in the demand for outbound travel, global tourism is witnessing explosive growth while posing new challenges to the development of city tourism. In order to provide intellectual support for promoting the revitalization and prosperity of the world tourism industry, two significant academic research outputs, World Tourism Cities Development Report (2022) and Quantifying Tourism in City Destinations: Towards a Global Database of Urban Tourism , were released at the Conference.

In addition, during the Thematic Speech Session, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Director of Macao Government Tourism Office of the Macao SAR Government, Patrick Bontinck, CEO of visit.brussels from Belgium, Wang Wei, Senior Vice President of Trip.com Group, Liu Yanxiang, Vice President of Meituan, Chen Xiaoyun, Vice President of POP MART, Li Xiaowan, General Manager of Baidu Information Distribution Platform, Jiang Ying, Co-Founder and President of Scenery Culture, and Guido Brettschneider, CEO of TUI China Travel Co., Ltd. also held discussions on and actively contributed to topics such as cross-sector integration development, exploration of new development opportunities, AI assistance in tourism industry development, and prospects of tourism industry development.

The host of the Conference, WTCF, was initiated in Beijing in 2012. It is the first city-oriented international tourism organization in the world, guided by its core vision of "Better City Life through Tourism", aiming to establish a platform for its members to reinforce cooperation, exchange experiences, build consensus, and jointly promote the prosperity and development of the tourism industry. After years of development, WTCF has made the tourism industry more attractive, service-oriented and influential. Starting with 58 founding members, it now has a total of 242 members, covering 85 countries and regions, which is known as one of the world's fastest-growing international tourism organizations.