【Record】Mr. Chen Dong, Secretary-General of WTCF and Director-General of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism Delivers a Speech

Mr. Chen Dong, Secretary-General of WTCF and Director-General of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism

Chen Dong: Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the Tourism Investment and Financing Conference is an essential part of the World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development. The conference aims to conduct an in-depth study on the tourism investment and financing around the world in the context of the long-standing epidemic, so as to boost the confidence in recovering and developing global tourism and advance the reopening of the industry.

1. Grasping the Overall Situation of Tourism Recovery under Such Circumstances

Tourism is the most important industry of the world economy. According to The Report on World Tourism Economy Trends, over 12 billion trips were made in 2019 and the total income of the industry was 5 trillion dollars, which contributed 5% to the growth of the world economy. Employment in tourism accounted for one tenth of global employment.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments have closed their countries' boarders, limited people's movements, reduced people's social interactions, examined people's health in order to restrain the virus from spreading on a large scale. Tourism has nearly been shut down around the world. Reopening the global tourism orderly plays an important role in prospering the world economy.

The world now is undergoing an unprecedented challenge that we have never seen in a century. According to the international conditions since the outbreak, a few countries have advocated unilateralism and industrial relocation. Competitions among big powers have been intensified. Economic globalization has been impeded. In general, the international landscape should be adjusted.

The pandemic has influenced the world tourism. From this perspective, cutting-edge technology, such as the Internet, big data and AI, will be employed more widely. Travel featuring small groups, customized routes and low-density will become acclaimed. In addition, the way to organize an international trip, industrial form and management mode will see drastic changes.

The outbreak is a huge blow to the world tourism. However, core products, the service system and basic needs of the industry remain according to the trend of tourism investment and financing in the post-pandemic era. The overall trend that global tourism will grow in the long run isn't reversed. Tourism remains the preferred industry attracting investment in the era.

2. Building a Favorable Environment for Tourism Investment during the Pandemic

A favorable environment is vital to recover the tourism. The world tourism investment has maintained breakneck growth since 2005. Its average annual growth rate surpasses 5%. Moreover, the growth rate has achieved 13% as its top. In particular, the amount of investment and financing in tourism of the Asia-Pacific region in 2019 achieved 120 billion dollars, accounting for 38% of the world amount. All these have made up a huge boost for world economy.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has decreased the world tourism investment. It is predicted that tourism investment will see an over 50% decrease in this year when compared to last year. The world tourism will confront a larger challenge than that in the 2008 financial crisis. It is estimated that the foreign direct investment (FDI) will drop by nearly 40% in 2020 when compared to 2019. Profits of the world top 5,000 multi-national companies will be cut nearly 40% on average.

Increasing investment is vital to recover the tourism. In the context of the wild pandemic, the way to boost investors' confidence lies in balancing the epidemic prevention and control and tourism reopening, applying more decisive measures and basically restraining the outbreak. At the same time, we call on governments and tourism cities to support the industry more positively by tax relief, financial aid and financing guarantee, formulate a series of more specific tourism market access criteria, and create a more favorable external condition for investors to set foot in the tourism resources, market and the development and creation of products.

3. Advancing the International Cooperation during the Pandemic

COVID-19 has swept more than 200 countries and regions, influenced the industrial chain of the world tourism, impeded people's social interactions and international exchanges, and hit the tourism market's demands, supply, service system and investment.

The priority is to orderly restore airways, maintain necessary international exchanges and people's movements while we prevent and control the epidemic, so as to recover and develop the world tourism in the context of the pandemic. Tourism companies should strengthen their international cooperation to share the risks between upstream and downstream industries, form a benefit-sharing mechanism among cross-regional cities, and create an environment in which tourism companies can work together harmoniously when the influence of COVID-19 will last long.

Tourism cities should take the needs of global tourism development into consideration to integrate technology with the industry, and innovate products, types of business and modes in order to become the main driver for refreshing the world tourism in the post-pandemic era.

Tourism cities are the core carrier of the world tourism, the major investment entity and investment objective of global tourism. In 2019, 300 tourism cities around the world attracted over 500 billion dollars investment which accounted for 50% of the world tourism investment. The Tourism Investment and Financing Conference has rolled out 21 potential projects worth over RMB 15.7 billion. I, as the Secretary-General of WTCF which is Beijing-based, hope tourism cities and companies around the world would actively communicate and cooperate with Beijing, and continuously stimulate the recovery and development of the world tourism.

Dear guests, ladies and gentlemen, WTCF is an international tourism organization focusing on cities. Guided by the core vision of Better City Life through Tourism, WTCF is committed to advance the cooperation and development of the world tourism. WTCF is willing to conduct an in-depth analysis on the opportunities and challenges brought by COVID-19 with other international organizations. In addition, we will build a service platform for multilateral cooperation in the industry, and make positive contributions to help global tourism get rid of the pandemic's influence.

I wish the Tourism Investment and Financing Conference great success. Thank you.