Smart Tourism: Road to City Innovation and Development The Opening of World Tourism Cities Federation Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019

The 8th Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, co-hosted by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and Helsinki, inaugurated September 3rd in Helsinki, the most functional city in the world. The summit follows the theme of “Smart Tourism: Road to City Innovation and Development”. The summit includes a number of segments including Opening Ceremony, Keynote Speech, Theme Forum, Board Meeting, Special Dialogue, Press Conference, Exhibition Display, Travel Fair, etc. It attracted more than 500 delegates from nearly 100 cities of 56 countries. 37 mayors from cities around the world attended this global tourism event as well as heads of international organizations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

In the opening ceremony, Jan Vapaavuori, mayor of Helsinki, delivered a welcoming speech. Zhu Shanzhong, executive director at the UNWTO, and Vladimir Norov, Secretary-General of SCO, addressed respectively. Wang Hong, executive vice chairperson of WTCF Council and vice mayor of Beijing, said in her speech, “As the world's first global international tourism organization with tourism cities as its mainstay, the WTCF will actively build a multilateral cooperation platform for world tourism cities, vigorously promote the globalization, intelligence and integration of world tourism, and strive to build the world's tourist cities into the most attractive, influential and cohesive developmental sector in the world.”

Mr. Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of the City of Helsinki, made a speech

Ms. Wang Hong, Executive Vice Chairperson of WTCF Council, Vice Mayor of Beijing, made a speech

Mr. Zhu Shanzhong, Executive Director of United Nations World Tourism Organization, made a speech

Mr. Vladimir Norov, Secretary-General of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, made a speech

Mr. Song Yu, Secretary-General of WTCF,made a keynote speech

Publishing Academic Research Results to Support the Sustainable Developmentof World Tourism Cities

The summit follows the theme of “smart tourism.” Song Yu, Secretary-General of WTCF pointed out in his keynote speech, “WTCF attaches great importance to the significant impact of science and technology on world tourism.. Those tourism cities that view tourism as a leading industry can greatly improve the experience, service, management and marketing capability of those cities through the development of smart tourism.” Dr. Li Yunpeng, expert of WTCF and professor of Capital University of Economics and Business, published Global Report on Smart Tourism in Cities. The report focuses on the concluding experience of six member cities including Beijing, Chengdu, Madrid, Helsinki, Buenos Aires and Marrakech, and the exploration of two member institutions, Ctrip and Tencent, in helping cities develop smart tourism. Meanwhile, it also introduce the successful cases in which MIT's Perceivable City Lab provides technical supportfor smart city development through the usage of top-level engineering and mathematical models, while encouraging tourism cities to actively adopt technological innovations to meet the needs of tourists and citizens.

Admission Ceremony of WTCF New Members in the openning ceremony

Release of the Global Report on Smart Tourism in Cities by Dr. Li Yunpeng, WTCF Expert, Professor of Capital University of Economics and Business

The summit released Report on World Tourism City Development (2019) and announced the top 20 cities by comprehensive ranking and the 6 individual rankings of the 2019 World Tourism City Development. The comprehensively ranked top ten cities are New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Barcelona. Among the individual rankings, London tops the popularity list. New York ranks first in terms of industrial prosperity. Barcelona, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Paris lead the world in terms of city intelligence, travel convenience, economic contribution and tourism satisfaction respectively.

Focusing on Smart Tourism to Discuss the New Direction of World Tourism Cities’ Development

Currently, smart tourism has stepped into the stage of full implementation and wide application on a global scale. Concentrating on smart tourism, delegates deeply discussed the two-way drive between smart tourism and urban development during the Special Dialogues segment on topics including “Cities Innovative Practice of Smart Tourism”, “Resource Integration Energizes Intelligent Development of Tourism Destinations” ( i.e. Club Med) and“Smart Tourism City Development: Opportunities & Challenges”. Delegates were also invited to join in four Theme Forums to discuss hot spots and progressive questions on the world tourism industry with topics regarding the “Cultural Heritage & Creative Industry”, “Intelligent Tourism City Marketing”, “Connectivity and Tourism Growth”and “Technological Innovation & Sustainable Travel”.

Launching Multilateral and Practical Cooperation between International Tourism Organizations and Member Units

During the summit, the WTCF and the UNWTO signed the Memorandum of Understanding, states that both sides will cooperate in the evaluation, monitoring, sustainable development, destination tourism development in intelligent city andcity tourism experience sharing. The WTCF also signed a cooperation agreement with Samarkand in Uzbekistan. In November of this year, the WTCF Asia Pacific Tourism Conference will be held in Samarkand. WTCF also signed with Cote D'ivoire Ministry of Tourism for the upcoming Africa tourism conference in 2020.

WTCF and UNWTO have signed the Memorandum of Understanding

WTCF and Samarkand in Uzbekistan has signed a cooperation agreement

WTCF has signed a deal with Cote D'ivoire Ministry of Tourism for the upcoming Africa tourism conference in 2020

During the summit’s Travel Fair, 18 Chinese member institutions including Caesar, Zhongxin, Ctrip, Tuniu, China International Travel Service, China Travel Service and China CYTS Tour Holdings Co., Ltd conducted business negotiations with tourism cities, traveling salesmen and companies within the hospitality industry from Russia, Georgia, Finland and Estonia.

The summit’s Tourism Exhibition provided a platform to exhibit tourism resources and featured products for member cities and institutions such as Beijing, Chongqing, Sanya, Helsinki, Seoul, Wellington, Samarkand and World TourismFair.

The WTCF has continually strengthened its membership services by launching an Annual Service Member Project manual. The manual covers seven service measures including activity participation, exhibition display, publicity, industry training, research and consultation, investment and financing, and market cooperation.

As the sponsor of World Tourism Cities Federation Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019, the World Tourism Cities Federation, initiated by Beijing and organized voluntarily by many world-famous cities and tourism-related organizations, is the first global international tourism organization with cities as its main body. Since its establishment, the Federation has successfully held seven Fragrant Hills Tourism Summits. At the opening ceremony of this summit, the admission ceremony of 13 new members was held. Presently, members of the WTCF have grown from 58 at the very beginning to the current 218, covering 73 countries and regions on five continents.

Helsinki, one of the founding members of the WCTF, is the host city of this Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit. During the summit, Helsinki creates an atmosphere with cities’ characteristics to an extraordinary degree and its active exploration in smart tourism has left a deep impression on representatives at thesummit. 2020 World Tourism Cities Federation Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit will be held the Beijing, home to the headquarters of the WTCF.