Qingdao Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2018 Exclusive Interview: Tuniu Plans to Make Travel Easier

Tourism promotes the all-round economic development of destinations


As a fast-growing new modern industry in the world, tourism plays an important role in promoting the economic development of destinations:



I Tourism development promotes destination employment. As a comprehensive service industry, tourism inevitably needs a lot of direct and indirect practitioners while developing rapidly, and manpower cannot be replaced by AI for some jobs even though technology has developed constantly. Therefore tourism development can create jobs for destinations, ease employment pressure to some extent, and improve local residents' income and family income.


II Tourism development promotes the economic development of destinations. Take the Maldives for example, Tuniu's Maldivian product SKU has exceeded 2,000 units, covering over 100 Maldivian islands and all flights from China to Male. One out of four Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives reserves tourism products through Tuniu. As an economic activity, tourism will generate some economic revenues for destinations. Tourism activities include six elements: "food, accommodation, transport, travel, shopping and entertainment", tourists' consumption during their stay in destinations is economic revenues from outside. Tourism development promotes the development of relevant enterprises and sectors in destinations, and improves the economic benefit of destinations.


III Tourism development leads to infrastructure improvement. Tourism development drives the economic development of destinations and economic development helps improve infrastructure in destinations. Tourism development calls for perfect transportation, medical, health and communications infrastructure which can not only improve local living environment, but also attract tourists and enhance tourist satisfaction with destinations. 


Increase in Tourists promotes people-to-people exchanges among different areas


In 2017, China registered 500.1 million domestic tourists, up 12.8 percent year on year and 270 million inbound and outbound tourists, up 3.7 percent year on year. Such a large tourist volume can promote relations among people and regions. People from different areas learn about cultural features and lifestyles of destinations through communication in travel. 


Building destination channels to provide fragmented resources

As a leading enterprise in the online leisure tourism market, Tuniu has so far offered tourism lines departing from 420 cities for reservation, and established 220 offline stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities, to provide consumers with online and offline new tourism retail service. Besides, Tuniu has built destination channels to provide consumers with fragmented destination tourism resources, thereby helping consumers experience destinations in depth and more individually. In 2017, Tuniu initiated over 150 activities in association with tourism authorities around the world, to effectively enhance the influence and popularity of destination markets. In the future, Tuniu will continue to organize activities with tourism authorities worldwide. By constructing and perfecting the destination service network, Tuniu will duplicate its advantage in places of departure to provide consumers with more destination products and services, which will be the core competitiveness of Tuniu.