Promoting the Globalization of World Tourism Cities — Los Angeles Declaration of WTCF

The WTCF Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2017 is held in Los Angeles, USA on September 19th, 2017, under the theme Impact of Globalization on World Tourism City Development. We, WTCF members from 128 cities and 65 institutions of 62 countries and regions across the world, have conducted discussions and reached consensus on a wide range of major issues concerning globalization and tourism city development. We believe that globalization is the most important trend of development in the world since the 1980s and the basic characteristic of today’s world. It plays a significant role in promoting trade prosperity, investment development, personnel exchanges and technology dissemination.

Tourism is an important means for communication of human civilization, playing an irreplaceable role in promoting friendly exchanges among people of different countries and regions. The tourism industry and globalization, which are interdependent, integrated and mutually reinforcing, together form a community of common destiny. The robust development of world tourism industry plays an important role in leading and adjusting the future globalization. With its industrial chain extended to all sectors and areas in the world, the tourism industry has a strong pulling effect on global economic growth. The tourism industry is both a propeller and a beneficiary of globalization. Against the backdrop of sluggish global growth, tourism is emerging as the most dynamic source of strengths for the world economy.

Cities are both the major destinations and major tourist sources of world tourism. They carry the important function of tourism hubs. We attach high importance to the role of tourism cities as the connecting points for world tourism development and encourage tourism cities to engage in broad-based and in-depth cooperation to promote protection and utilization of tourism resources, launch more diversified and high-quality tourism products, boost the brand visibility of tourism cities, strengthen building of tourism infrastructures and service facilities, and achieve sustainable development of world tourism industry.

In keeping with the strategic focus of advancing globalization and promoting coordinated development of world tourism cities, WTCF would like to put forward the following initiatives:

1. Establishing a more prosperous world tourism market. Tourism cities should actively explore multilateral cooperation mechanisms to promote all-round opening of tourism markets and resources in various countries and help more tourism cities become world famous tourism destinations. With the goal of building a new international architecture of win-win tourism cooperation, WTCF calls for the efforts to open up channels for tourism resources and markets, strengthen brand promotion, achieve the full circulation and effective utilization of tourism resources and factors across the world and promote coordinated development of world tourism market.

2. Improving world tourism comprehensive services. We should give attention to the role of tourism cities as the hub and pillar, strengthen the building of ecological environment, infrastructure and tourism service facilities of cities, and improve the accessibility of tourism cities in the areas of inter-continental tourism, regional tourism and in-depth tours. We should develop the broader hospitality industry such as commercial, accommodation and catering industries that can meet the diversified needs of the public and the new generation of tourists and expand the overall capacity of tourism cities. We should encourage the building of smart cities, expand the coverage of information network and promote the diversified travel modes.

3. Promoting coordinated development of world tourism. We should support the relevant cities to explore their local tourism resources and unique cultural tradition, and develop distinctive tourism products suited to diversified tourist needs. We should leverage the role of WTCF as a media platform, and step up the publicity of tourism brands. We should promote civilized tourism, abide by local laws and regulations, and respect local cultural traditions and customs. We should respect the normal life of local residents, promote the coordinated development of tourism and non-tourism, and reduce the adverse effects of excessive tourism. We should actively promote internationalization of tourism businesses and direct more capital and technology to the emerging tourism destination. We should connect to the Belt and Road Initiative and other international cooperation mechanisms, and speed up the building of tourism corridor and node cities.

4. Providing more convenient and efficient tourism services. We should encourage the relevant countries to establish management systems that meet the needs of public tourism, further relax restrictions on border entry and exit, improve the mechanisms for mutual certificate recognition and promote the facilitation of tourism visa. Tourism cities should deliver services in more commonly used languages, improve the system of tourist signs, and promote the internationalization of tourism services. We support tourism cities to leverage the role of modern science and technology in driving tourism, and employ multiple technologies including the internet to develop tourism reception services suited to the needs of individual tourists. We should make full use of WTCF’s data platform to provide services for world tourism cities to make scientific decisions.

5. Strengthening the safety and security of world tourism. To address the public concern of safety and security, we encourage relevant countries and tourism cities to actively carry out multilateral cooperation and explore the establishment of regional mechanism for tourism safety and security. We should focus on strengthening the exchange and communication of tourist safety information, and providing open and transparent safety information as well as timely and effective travel alerts to tourists. We should support the establishment of a multi-party system for quick dispute settlement, and foster a safe and orderly inter-regional tourism environment. We should strengthen public order and tourism market management in tourism cities, set up a tourism insurance and rescue system, and improve the emergency service system of tourism cities.

6. Ensuring the effective protection of tourism resources. We should scientifically manage the tourism development and promote the sustainability of various tourism resources. We should properly solve the ecological and environmental problems caused by massive tourist flow, and encourage scientific tourism development with consideration of tourism carrying capacity. We should promote low carbon and environmentally friendly travel mode with public transport as the main body. We should adopt the development model of sharing economy, vigorously consolidate idle resources in cities, and strive to enhance the comprehensive utilization of urban tourism resources.