WTCF Co-Hosts ITB Berlin Convention for the Third Time

On March 7, 2018, the 52nd Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin (ITB Berlin) was officially opened in Berlin, capital city of Germany. As the Co-Host of 2018 ITB Berlin Convention, World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) led a delegation to attend.

Mr. Li Baochun Executive Deputy Secretary-General of WTCF, is invited to deliver opening remarks as the Co-Host representative of ITB Berlin

At the opening ceremony of the convention, Mr. Li Baochun Executive Deputy Secretary-General of WTCF, was invited to deliver opening remarks as the Co-Host representative of ITB Berlin. In his speech, Mr. Li Baochun introduced WTCF and its latest development. He also illustrated the trends in China’s outbound tourism market and highlighted the latest research outcomes of WTCF.

After the opening ceremony, WTCF hosted two sessions. The first session’s theme was Introduction of Report on World Tourism Economy Trends (2018) and UNWTO/WTCF City Tourism Performance Research. The research was the latest research results of WTCF.

Song Rui, Specially Appointed Expert of WTCF Expert Committee, and Director of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), introduces the Report on World Tourism Economy Trends (2018)

Song Rui, Specially Appointed Expert of WTCF Expert Committee, and Director of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), introduced the Report on World Tourism Economy Trends (2018). Based on research and analysis on the total scale of the global tourism economy and other essential data, and following the idea of the “function of tourism in the world economic pattern”, the Report offers an insight on the profound research in four aspects: The Global Tourism Economy, Tourism Firm That Went Public, Science Changing Tourism, and Talent Building of the Tourism Industry, and predicted the eight trends of development of the world tourism economy in 2018. The prediction included the following aspects, such as the development of the global tourism economy; the pattern changes of regional development; the emerging economies’ tourism industry; the tourism development of BRICS; the relationship between tourism and the international service and trade industry; the global tourism investment; cities play an important role in the global tourism economy; and the global tourism companies that went public.

The Report indicated that in 2018 the growth rate of the world tourism market will continue to surpass the growth rate of the world economy. The total growth rate increase from global tourism market is expected to reach 6.7%, higher than the growth rates of the global GDP at 3.6% and 2.9%, which was predicted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank respectively.

Esencan Terzibasoglu, Special Advisor to the UNWTO Secretary-General, introduces the research outcome of the UNWTO-WTCF City Tourism Performance Research

Esencan Terzibasoglu, Special Advisor to the UNWTO Secretary-General, introduced the research outcome of the UNWTO-WTCF City Tourism Performance Research, which was jointly released by WTCF and UNWTO. The WTCF and UNWTO have jointly conducted the research project since 2015. The aim of the project is to achieve the information of cities through a set of criteria that can be used globally to benchmark tourism performance in urban cities, and provide evidence to the destination tourism managers for making policies. 15 cities participated in this research project, such as Beijing, Cape Town, Marrakesh, Buenos Aires, Hangzhou, Bogota, Sapporo, Seoul, Tianjin, Tokyo, Linz, Turin, Antwerp, Berlin and Copenhagen. Around 100 companies and professional audience came to the release conference, where they asked questions and made exchanges on the two released researches with WTCF.

The panel discussion themed with “New Trends and Driving Forces for the Chinese Tourism Market”

Ms. Esencan Terzibasoglu, as the moderator, hosted the following event with the theme of New Trends and Driving Forces for the Chinese Tourism Market. The panel guests included: Kaari Artemjeff, Marketing Manager (China & Russia) of Helsinki Marketing; Ralf Ostendorf, Director Market Management of visitBerlin; Dr. Song Rui, Specially Appointed Expert of WTCF Expert Committee, and Director of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Roger Qiu, GM of Europe, Middle East & Africa of Ctrip.com International Ltd.; and Tony Jin, Product Director of Caissa. The panel guests exchanged their ideas on “What are the special characteristics of the Chinese tourists for an urban destination in Europe?”, “What are the main features of the tourism products (or experiences) that they are looking for?” and “What is the new characteristics of Chinese Group tourists?”, and they explained and discussed the latest phenomenon and trends of Chinese tourists of outbound travel market from different aspects.

WTCF has co-hosted ITB Berlin Convention, which is the leading tourism fair and travel trade show in the world tourism industry, for the third time since 2016. This year’s ITB Berlin has attracted over 10,000 enterprises from more than 180 countries, and up to 180,000 individuals visiting 26 exhibition halls.