2017 Asian Tourism Industry Annual Conference Kicks off, WTCF Deputy Secretary-General Yan Han Delivers a Speech and Is Awarded Tourism Contributor of the Year

On August 31st, the “2017 Asian Tourism Industry Annual Conference”, launched and hosted by 21st Century Business Herald and College of Tourism and Service Management of Nankai University, was grandly held in Shanghai. This annual conference paid close attention to the new direction and opportunities that the cooperation and development of the tourism industries of the Asian nations have under the Belt and Road Initiative. WTCF Deputy Secretary-General Yan Han delivered a keynote speech on the challenges that the tourism cities along the Belt and Road face at the main forum.

Deputy Secretary-General Yan Han thinks that the Belt and Road connects the world’s most important tourism source areas and tourist destinations. According to the statistics of the China National Tourism Administration, 80% of the world’s cultural heritages are found along the Silk Road, with more than 60 nations and 4.4 billion people involved. In the next five years, China will contribute 150 million visitors to the nations along the Silk Road, and attract 209,000 visitors from these countries. The tourism consumption transactions will surpass $300 billion during the process. Therefore, WTCF actively proposes that the Belt and Road has an important strategic meaning in the building of the Corridor Cities and Node Cities, and in the boosting of the world tourism development. The next task will mainly focus on increasing the building of node cities, fostering boutique tourist routes, and setting up multi-dimensional cooperation platforms. The land Silk Road is based on the building of railways and airports, and the Committee of Cruise Industry will make its own contribution to the maritime Silk Road. In addition, building the Belt and Road tourism free trade zone and fostering leading tourism enterprises is also part of building up the investment platform. When talking about innovation, Mr. Yan Han thought that we should begin with the development of the service model, tourism market standard system, and promotion of cities along the Silk Road to promote the visa facilitation, sea port construction, and the establishment of tourism reception system, which is decentralized and free enough. At the same time, we should promote the ability to provide personalized tourism services, and utilize the function of WTCF Expert Committee to study the features of Belt and Road tourism.

Mr. Yan Han was interviewed by journalist from TBO. During the interview, he analyzed the Chinese tourism from two aspects: outbound tourism and inbound tourism. He shared his opinion on the consumption structure of outbound tourists and the breakdown of the population, as well as and how to optimize and promote tourism by using big data. Under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative, he also point out how cities along the Silk Road can reveal their own characteristics when participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

During the meeting, the 2nd Red Coral Award of Asia Tourism was unveiled. The Red Coral Award was established by the 21st Century Business Herald and College of Tourism and Service Management of Nankai University in 2016 and data supported by Diagaid Marketing Research. It objectively evaluates the performance of each segment of Asian tourism market by analyzing and studying the consumption data of Asian tourism market, organizing online surveys and interactive voting among the tourists, and collecting the opinions of experts from the tourism industry, institutional experts, investors and media groups. Mr. Yan Han was awarded the Asian Tourism Contributor of the Year.