【Record】Forum II: New Normal of Tourism amid COVID-19

Time: 13:30-14:55, 5th, September

Moderator: Song Rui, WTCF Expert, Director of the Tourism Research Center, CASS

Keynote speaker: Gloria Guevara, President & CEO of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (Video)

Guest speaker: Luis Diego Monsalve, Ambassador of the Republic of Colombia to China

Tom Mehrmann, President and General Manager at Universal Beijing Resort

Yasuda Tsuyoshi, Chief Rept. of JTB Corp. Beijing Office

Gao Zhiquan, Vice President of CYTS

Shu Zhan, Director of Tencent Culture & Tourism Research Institute

Song Rui, WTCF Expert, Director of the Tourism Research Center, CASS, presided over the forum.

Moderator: Good afternoon, all distinguished guests. In the best season of Beijing, which is also the most suitable season for travel, I especially welcome you all to come to our World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development sponsored by the World Tourism Cities Federation. Especially thank you all for participating in the second forum, which may last 70 minutes this afternoon, about the new normal of the tourism under the background of the pandemic. There will be a keynote speech, and five guests will participate in the our forum.

As you all know, COVID-19 stands for Corona Virus Disease 2019. In fact, the full impact of COVID-19 on our human life, on our economy, and on tourism was noticeably felt in 2020. There is still uncertainty as to what the future will be like, and whether it will have a profound and long-term impact on our economy and our industry.

As far as I can remember, in June, the World Bank made a prediction that COVID-19 would be the biggest crisis that humanity has faced since World War II. The International Monetary Fund also predicted that it would be the worst economy depression, or economy recession, since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As you all know, tourism has the basic features of personal mobility and a certain degree of aggregation. What will happen to tourism due to the influence of the pandemic, what preparations should or have been made for our enterprises, our industry, and our destinations, what the trend of the future will be like, and what are some of the expectations from our practitioners' perspective, all of these will be discussed and shared with everyone this afternoon in our forum.

First of all, we'd like to welcome Gloria Guevara, President & CEO of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), to deliver a video keynote speech. Please look at the big screen.

Moderator: I believe you, like me, have learned a lot from Gloria Guevara's 10-minute speech. We all must have understand the following three important points:

First of all, tourism is very important. Tourism has become the largest industry in the world. We often cite a figure called "two 10%", which means its contribution to GDP is more than 10%, and tourism directly and indirectly employs more than 10% of the total population, so it is very important for the economy as a whole.

Second, the pandemic has had a huge impact on tourism. Different agencies have different projections. As you can see, the World Tourism Organization predicts a 58 to 78 percent drop in global international tourist arrivals by 2020. Of course, the World Tourism Cities Federation is also doing research and prediction accordingly. The specific figures may vary from institution to institution, but there is a consensus that the tourism industry has been greatly affected by the current shock, and the affection is even unprecedented.

Third, in the face of such an unprecedented impact, tourism operators can do a lot. I remember that the World Tourism Cities Federation has been actively planning since February, from the recovery guide for the industry, including this series of results that were released this morning, and as Gloria Guevara mentioned, there are many things that we can reach a consensus. For example, we need to strengthen cooperation, which is also a theme of this meeting. That includes, for example, providing a travel experience as seamless as possible, and strengthening standards and norms, especially in terms of safety. We need to make better use of technology to deal with the impact of the pandemic. I believe that what I have just said and the following forum, should give you a lot of inspiration.

Next, Let's welcome five guests to participate in the live discussion. They are:

Mr. Luis Monsalve, Ambassador of Colombia to China

Mr. Tom Mehrmann, President and General Manager at Universal Beijing Resort

Mr. Yasuda, Chief Rept. of JTB Corp. Beijing Office

Mr. Gao Zhiquan, Vice President of CYTS & President of Aoyou.com

Shu Zhan, Director of Tencent Culture & Tourism Research Institute

It's my great pleasure to have a talk with you. We have about three simple segments in this section. The first one, can you tell me in one or two minutes about you and your organization and what you expect to be involved in this conference?

Luis Monsalve, Ambassador of Colombia to China

Luis Monsalve: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I'm Luis Monsalve, Ambassador of Colombia to China. After coming to China, I had a very, very good experience. For the first 10 months, I traveled around China and learned a lot. Our world has changed a lot since January. Over the past few months, I've seen once again how much China has to offer the world. For example, In the past few months, I've been traveling to different provinces, and in the next month or two, I'll also be traveling a lot in China. And the fact that we're able to see this country, and that the rest of the country is indeed recovering from the pandemic, is a great example that China can show the world how to better manage the pandemic. I am also looking forward to hearing from other panelists today.

Not just in my country, but for Latin America as a whole, the situation is difficult. We are not in a very good economic situation, and now the pandemic has made it worse, so of course we are looking forward to recovering from the impact as soon as possible. All the governments, all the institutions, all the businesses, the travel industry, the hotel industry, everybody is working very hard to establish all kinds of codes of conduct and new codes of practice, to prepare for the recovery and the rebound. In the region of Latin America, some countries have fewer cases, while others have a lot. Countries with fewer cases are beginning to welcome international visitors again, but those with a severer situation may not be able to do so for a while. Thank you again for giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to hearing from all of you today.

Tom Mehrmann, President and General Manager at Universal Beijing Resort

Tom Mehrmann: Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to introduce myself to you very briefly. I'm Tom Mehrmann, President and General Manager at Universal Beijing Resort, which is a theme park being established in Tongzhou, Beijing Municipal Administrative Center.

We have had excellent cooperation with Beijing Tourism Group and other partners to establish the project. The project has been going on for nearly 20 years, but over the past four years, its construction has stabilized and it will open in 2021.

We think the most critical thing in our industry is timing. Timing is also important in our lives and in our careers. No one can plan for or foresee the dramatic crisis we are facing now, but we know that there are always opportunities in a crisis. So we hope that we could take the opportunity to choose a very good time to open our theme park. We know that in this process, we will grasp the opportunities offered by the rebound of China's domestic tourism. So we want to be ready for everything.

For example, we have heard from President Xi Jinping's speech that we will have a digital revolution, and we will have a new normal. We're going to create a great experience for everyone who comes to the park, and we hope that this represents a new normal. I'll talk about this in detail in a keynote speech later and answer questions from you.

We are representatives of an industry and this pandemic we're seeing now is an unprecedented and dramatic change for our industry. I'll take your questions later.

Yasuda Tsuyoshi, Chief Rept. of JTB Corp. Beijing Office

Yasuda: I'm going to challenge myself today to speak in Chinese. Hello, everyone, I'm Yasuda from Beijing Office of JTB Group. It is my honor to attend this meeting. I hope to listen to the speeches of other guests, study earnestly and gain something. Founded in 1912, the JTB Group is 108 years old this year. In 1963, our company was separated from the business department of Japan Communications Corporation, a financial legal person, and privatized to establish Japan Travel Bureau. JTB is the prefix of the Company's English name. It is Japan's largest company in the tourism industry, and it is also a large world-famous tourism group company. As the main body of the enterprise, the tourism business is centered on Japan, Europe and the United States and it has also entered emerging markets in recent years. In China, centering on Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, it is committed to developing travel business, exhibition business and consulting business. As a group, we have more than 100 companies and 27,000 employees around the world. I joined the company in 1990, and first operated all over Japan. After the establishment of JTB Tours Shanghai Co., Ltd., in 2006, I became the first general manager. Then I served as the director and president of JTB Affiliated Company in Japan. Thank you very much!

Gao Zhiquan, Vice President of CYTS & President of Aoyou.com

Gao Zhiquan: Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I come from CYTS Holding Co., Ltd. My name is Gao Zhiquan. It is 40 years since CYTS was founded in 1980 by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China under the guidance and support of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In 1997, CYTS became the first listed company in China's travel agency industry and entered the capital market.

In 2018, according to the group reform plan deployed by the CPC Central Committee, CYTS was transferred to China Everbright Group. Therefore, we are now CYTS Tours Holding Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Everbright Group.

We can use three labels to summarize our enterprise. First, we now call it the industry-finance combination, because when we are assigned to Everbright Group, a financial enterprise, and we believe that industry-finance combination will be the biggest advantage of CYTS in the future development. Another label is O2O, because under the rising tide of the Internet, CYTS is relatively the early one in the travel agency industry to use the Internet, and in the aspect of O2O, we've found our own way in online and offline integration.

Thirdly, we are also a well-known trademark in China. These three labels can show what CYTS is like.

At this meeting today, I have said on many occasions that every step taken after the pandemic is the first time since the pandemic. It is a great honor to be invited by the host organization to discuss with you the development path of post-pandemic tourism. It is also the first time since the pandemic.

I would like to call the recovery of tourism enterprises from now on, from the beginning of the pandemic, or in the post-pandemic era, the post-war reconstruction. We said Wuhan launched a war of defense and containment, and China has organized a people's war against the pandemic. Tourism enterprises, as the hardest hit area of this "war", are now facing the arduous situation of post-war reconstruction. Therefore, I hope to learn better ways of post-war reconstruction through such exchanges.

What's more, through such a conference and such a forum, we can boost the determination of consumers and make our due contribution to the high-quality development of China's tourism enterprises.

Director of Tencent Culture & Tourism Research Institute

Shu Zhan: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Shu Zhan. I come from Tencent Research Institute, Public Strategy Research Department of Tencent Group. In recent years, I have been engaged in the practice of digital travel industry, as well as industrial planning and related industrial research. Among them, I have done some important and typical ones. In one project, I lived in Yunnan for more than two years and cooperated with the government of Yunnan Province in the project of "Tour to Yunnan by Using a Mobile Phone ". During this project, my footsteps covered all the mountains and rivers in Yunnan. Moreover, we cooperated with the World Tourism City Federation and Helsinki City, and had cooperation in the digital cultural tour of Helsinki. These two cases are typical, leading, representative and researchable both at home and abroad. These are some of the things I've been happy with over the years.

Back to the topic, today is also a special day. First of all, I am from Wuhan. During the pandemic this year, I was stuck at home for almost half a year. Today I have a lot to say. I have two main purposes for attending this meeting. One is to meet my old friends in the industry. It may be the first time for me to meet them offline after the WTCF Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019. Secondly, Tencent has been committed to making data toolboxes and digital assistants. We would like to have a look and discuss together, in the new normal period after the pandemic, where will our tourism industry go? What kind of opportunities do we have? What are the pain points? What can Tencent do for you? What can it bring? Thank you very much!

Moderator: Thank you for your brief introduction. As you may have noticed, the guests we have invited are from destination countries, theme parks, tourism groups and digital tourism companies. Mr. Gao just mentioned the "first time". I think China International Fair for Traide in Services will be the first large-scale international trade and economic activity in China since the outbreak of COVID-19. Today's meeting is also the first international forum on tourism. I think we probably have a lot of ideas to share.

So let's go to the second round, and you can see, we have a timer here. When each of you is in the second round, I'm going to give each of you two questions, and you will have about five minutes to answer this question. If I run out of time, I might get blamed.

The first question is for our Ambassador. Thank you for joining us today. As far as we know, Colombia is one of the most important tourist countries in Latin America, and tourism also plays an important role in your national economy. As far as we know, Colombia is still at the stage of selective isolation. So what is the impact of the pandemic on tourism in your country?

Secondly, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Colombia. As far as I know, when Xi Jinping, then Vice President of China, visited Colombia 11 years ago, he announced that China had listed Colombia as a destination for Chinese tourists. What do you think of the future prospects of China-Colombia tourism cooperation?

Luis Monsalve: Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to say that the current state of tourism, which we have talked about over and over again, has been greatly affected. As we know, tourism is very, very important to our economy. It's important for economies all over the world, but especially for my own country, and in situations like this, with this global pandemic, we're going to see some of these inevitable consequences. People have to be isolated from each other, we can't travel across borders, and of course tourism will be affected. In my country, we have a population of 15 million, and we are the third largest in Latin America following Brazil and Mexico. We have rich and diverse tourism resources in the Caribbean and in many inland places. For example, there are mountains and amazon jungles, and there is a good biodiversity of plants and animals, so many people will come here for tourism, go to the seaside, and go to the mountains to see our plants and animals.

There is a lot of travel experience in Colombia, and at the end of March, we closed our borders, meaning there is no way to fly internationally. From August, we are beginning to lift the lockdown now, and the international flights will resume next month. Maybe in September, October, they will resume. Now many foreign tourists could not come to Colombia. Two million people are out of work right now, in hotels and other catering business. These two million jobs have been severely affected. The unemployment rate has gone from 9 to 10 percent to 15 to 19 percent. What would the future be like? First of all, we believe that the pandemic as a whole will decline, as it does in Latin America as a whole, and that things will get better. There may be a vaccine in the future, and there is a lot of work being done in Colombia to deal with this outbreak as much as possible. For example, we have a lot of guidance on biosecurity. We are now starting to use biosecurity stamps like this. The overall situation is good.

In addition, we have taken a lot of measures, using a great many technical solutions. We also have a lot of outdoor activities, Colombia has a number of tourist attractions, and agri-tourism is quite popular. Actually these are outdoor tourism. It doesn't have to be in the city. It can be in the countryside. I think in the future foreign tourists will be able to learn about Colombia in a new way. They may be looking for a different travel experience.

As for China-Colombia relations, the distance between the two countries is relatively long, and it takes about 20 hours to fly there. In 2013, we began to have a good and improved relationship. We have a lot of tourists coming to China. Now there are 140 million to 150 million Chinese tourists around the world. We have a lot of new projects, and some of the eco-tourism projects are being promoted in the Chinese tourism market. I think in the future when we have vaccines and these biosecurity protocols, there will be a lot of Chinese people traveling abroad again. I think they want to experience something different and might not travel to the city. They may want to travel in nature, like ecotourism. We Colombia have many advantages in this. We also hope that Chinese tourists will come here for our eco-tourism. Thank you!

Moderator: We know that Colombia is a popular destination for Chinese tourists, and I hope that after the pandemic, more Chinese tourists will travel to Colombia. Now let’s welcome Tom Mehrmann. The pandemic has had a great impact on our tourism industry, including the theme parks. As we all know, the Universal Beijing Resort will open next year. How do you think the pandemic will affect our industry? What will the impact on theme parks be like in particular? That's the first question.

Second, when the Universal Beijing Resort opens, it will be the largest theme park in the world owned by Universal Studios. It will open next year. We are all looking forward to it, especially my daughter. Then I would like to know whether you have made relevant adjustments according to the pandemic in the construction and operation, as well as the future marketing. Thank you.

Tom Mehrmann: As for your first question, the impact of the pandemic on the industry, I think this is a very big impact. Some theme parks were closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and some of them haven't opened yet. The studio of my parent company Universal Theme Parks and Resorts in Hollywood is still closed and will probably be reopened in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year. Universal Studios in Florida is back in business, but it was closed for three months.

The tourism economy is very important to Florida, so the pandemic had a very serious impact on their economy, and they started to recover after the opening of Florida Universal Studios. Of course there is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of people will still be at home.

In China, I have been saying to some of my colleagues in the industry, I think China is probably the safest country, and I think this program is very good in China. But the overall impact on the global industry is huge. For example, the airline industry and the hotel industry have been affected. Now our industry is very resilient. We just heard about Colombia and Georgia, and destinations around the world are looking forward to the coming of tourists. We are also expecting a lot of visitors after the opening.

As for the second question, I think we are very lucky that we cooperated with the Beijing Tourism Group for our project, which is very good. It is very good to have such a good partner and cooperate with the government. Our cooperation is encouraged by not only the resumption of work and production of the project, but also a very safe recovery.

After our resumption of work and production, there were no confirmed cases at all. We have strict tests and pandemic prevention and control. In Beijing, we also test the body temperature of all our employees every day. And by doing that, we've got 20,000 employees back in the workplace across the country, and we've actually been able to save a lot of money on the budget. That's what we've been doing in this outbreak. From my point of view, a good partnership is very important, and China is very pragmatic and responsible in restarting the economy, especially in Beijing. What we can see is also very good progress, and our project is now in the new normal. We hear that all the world is talking about the new normal. There also were a lot of people talking about it in the keynote speeches this morning. They said that we need to have a reservation system, and contactless services when you're buying and entering the parks. These are all the forms different from before. It is very important to reduce the gathering of these people. Our group will do this work and embrace the new normal. Until we have a vaccine and everything returns to normal. Then there will be a good new normal for pandemic prevention and control. I think it's very important for our theme park.

I am very confident that this will be the case in China and I am very confident that the tourism industry in China will recover very soon. We will see people going back to domestic tourism first, then international tourism. It is very important in the capital of China, and it is very important for us to restore the entire tourism industry in our capital. Thank you.

Moderator: Mr. Yasuda, how do you do? As a tourism enterprise with a history of more than 100 years, JTB has always been respected by Chinese tourism counterparts. I have two questions for you. First, from the perspective of a comprehensive tourism enterprise, how do you judge the impact of the pandemic and the development trend of tourism in the next few years? In addition, due to the impact of the pandemic, the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games may still be uncertain. From the perspective of tour professionals, what are your expectations and suggestions for tourism related to major events in the coming period?

Yasuda: First of all, I'll answer the first question. We can say that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a direct impact on our travel industry. Our company's mission is to promote communication and creation. In the current situation of limited mobility, both our company and the entire travel industry are going through a rough patch. Tourism involves a very wide range, including restaurants, hotels, dining halls, souvenirs and local specialty shops. The entire industry chain has been impacted beyond imagination. For the Japanese tourism market, with the response measures for COVID-19 now in place, travel is catching on, and there is a gradual recovery in the number of tourists taking short-distance trips. In July, the Japanese government launched "Go To Travel "and will soon launch "Go To Eat" in September. We hope that these policies will first drive the recovery of Japan's domestic tourism. As for the resumption of Japan's outbound tourism, it remains to be seen. Judging from the prevention and control of COVID-19, the pandemic is still expanding in some countries. We expect a vaccine and a cure to be developed as soon as possible. Hopefully, a year from now, the market will be back to normal.

On the second question, the general principle should be to promote economic recovery while focusing on prevention and control. Since June, Japan's professional baseball and football leagues have resumed playing. In July, the traditional sport of Japan Sumo Contest was also held. Japan stipulated that large-scale activities with "three close", namely closed space, closed place and close contact, should be canceled. Under the premise of good prevention and control work, various activities will be gradually resumed. In the post-COVID-19 era, online activities promote new communication between virtual reality and reality. Communication needs to be felt by people's five senses, and virtual tourism can't utterly replace offline tourism. In the end, reality is still the "king". We are trying to integrate virtual reality and reality by using modern technologies, so that the hybrid communication integrating virtual reality and reality could be realized.

As for the Tokyo Olympics, as far as things are concerned, the quadrennial event has attracted a lot of attention. For the expectation of the audience and the athletes who have made great efforts for it, as well as the relevant staff who have worked hard for the preparation of the Tokyo Olympic Games, we all hope to successfully hold the event and pass the baton of the Olympic Games to Beijing, which will host the Winter Games. That's all I'm going to say.

Moderator: Thank you, I believe everyone here, like me, would have a sense of respect and esteem. You mentioned "three close" just now, which I have heard for the first time. I don't know if anyone here has heard of the "three close" related activities. You mentioned the reality is "king", and hybrid communication is very important, which are both of great enlightenment to everybody. Thank you.

Mr. Gao, just now you mentioned this year is the 40 anniversary of CYTS. We who are engaged in tourism for many years all know CYTS well. The CYTS started from a travel agency. Especially in the early stage, CYTS is simply a youth team managing inbound tourism. According to what you just now introduced, the development of the enterprise has been very comprehensive and diversified. I checked the scenic spot operation, tourism services, integrated marketing and smart hotels. It is already a very comprehensive enterprise. However, in such a sector like tourism services, the AoYou of CYTS you led, I presume that it should be a core. As you all know, the AoYou of CYTS has always been focused on overseas travel, with the domestic market as an important supplement. However, in the context of the pandemic, it is still a very difficult time for outbound travel. Domestic tourism is recovering slowly and has become the main market for many enterprises. This morning, I also mentioned that many of those who used to do overseas business have also turned to domestic business. So my two questions are as follows:

First, what do you think of the current development of the domestic tourism market and what role can travel agencies play in it?

I don't know whether my second question is proper or not. What are your suggestions on outbound tourism in the future? What kind of plans does your business have? Thank you.

Gao Zhiquan: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The topic given to me by the moderator is a very challenging one. From the perspective of CYTS, we should call it "4+3" mode. One part is integrated marketing, tourism services, scenic spots and smart hotels. We have integrated marketing that many of you know about, because it's an independent sector. The other part is scenic spots, which have recovered well in August. We have two scenic spots, Wuzhen and Beijing WTown. Wuzhen has recovered by about 80%. In August alone, Beijing WTown should be at or slightly above the level of the same month last year.

But in terms of tourism services, the travel agency still is a hard hit area. In the past, CYTS had a pattern of "inbound tourism + domestic tourism + outbound tourism", but the weight was different. The "inbound tourism + domestic tourism" accounts for nearly 30% of the weight, and 70% of the weight came from Chinese citizens' outbound tourism. This pandemic brought about an industry-wide shutdown, and the impact is huge. The tourism within the province reopened in April, and interprovincial tourism reopened in July 14. But outbound tourism still has a long way to go. For an enterprise like us, the challenges we face are enormous.

During the Spring Festival, we did stop production but did not stop work, because after January 26, all the outbound tour groups, with a large number of people in them, could not go abroad. We were facing a large number of refunds, and we had to appease the guests and do other work. All these took a lot of time. Of course, our whole industry is facing the same problem. In the face of such a situation, CYTS should adjust its work and business layout. We now basically focus on the domestic market. We now focus on two areas. One is the field of recreational vehicle, and the other is the red tourism areas. There will be a big event recently. Please pay close attention to us.

The second question is what role tourism companies, especially travel agencies, will play in this pandemic and what role we will play in the future. This pandemic is unprecedented, but so are the opportunities for our traditional tourism business. As we all know, in the past few years, there have been several major events in the world with global impact, such as the turmoil in the Middle East, swine flu, and SARS in 2003. All of them had a huge impact on tourism, but the impact was instantaneous. For example, for the unrest in Egypt and Libya in the Middle East, we can simply take back overseas Chinese people, and we will be fine. I can choose not go to Libya, and choose to go to other places.

However, there is one point that is still fresh in your mind. During these processes, the safety of customers was greatly guaranteed and interests of customers were maximally protected during travel organized by travel agencies, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Think about the suspension of domestic and independent travel on January 24, and the suspension of outbound travel on January 26. Our term is "package tour 7 + 9", the two I summed up as organized tours. All tourists went abroad in the organized tour, and they safely returned to the destination on February 5, on February 7, or some time later. They were in good health, and their whole trips were almost uninfluenced. This is the advantage of organized tours. Travel agencies play a huge role in this.

In the past, we have been emphasizing one thing, that is, high-quality development. Our tourism is individualized and liberalized. However, individual tourists and liberalization in our tourism do not mean high quality. Therefore, after the pandemic prevention and control becomes normal, tourism enterprises will face greater opportunities in this process, whether at home or in the world, or in the future when opening up to outbound tourism. I think the most important thing in the normalization of pandemic prevention and control is safety. The most important aspect of pandemic security is that it is preventable, controllable, predictable and traceable. Under such circumstances, the pandemic can be prevented, controlled, predicted and traced. Only organized travel can guarantee these four points.

Therefore, under the normalization of pandemic prevention and control, it is necessary to meet the needs of consumers and the general public for travel. Organized travels may also become much more common, at least until the lockdown is lifted.

Therefore, I think tourism enterprises will play a bigger and bigger role in the future. Of course, we are having a hard time now. Whether we can survive now is a very important issue. What's more, whether it's a destination in Colombia, Universal Studios, or JTB in Japan, can they do business without the intermediary role of tourism companies? So travel companies should have confidence in themselves. But facing the future, we must have the ability to improve ourselves from products to services to adapt to this new normal.

Therefore, in the new situation, it is not that our tourism enterprises have closed down and disappeared completely. I think there are still many opportunities for us. It is time to show our wisdom and ability.

The second question is about Chinese outbound tourism in the future. As for this, I think the safety amid the pandemic and the safety of Chinese tourists in the international situation are two issues we must pay close attention to. From the perspective of pandemic prevention and control, it is favorable to start with the reopening of safe states. It is impossible to stop globalization. If countries don't open their borders, there will be no communication, and everything will just stay online. Like what Mr Yasuda said just now, the virtualization path, the globalization without the involvement of all senses, is not comprehensive.

Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Gao. One of your opinions has just made a very deep impression on me. I think it is also worth thinking about by all of you, especially by the travel agency companies, including the practitioners. That is, individual tourists and liberalization. In the past, we used to think that this is a trend in the future, which must be related to high-quality development, or it must be an inevitable manifestation of high-quality development. In fact, it is not inevitable. Just now, Mr. Gao said that against the backdrop of the normal pandemic prevention and control, the most important thing for a tourist is not whether he goes with a group or on his own. The most important thing is what value you can offer him. I think this is a problem particularly worth thinking about for our enterprises.

The last guest is Dr. Shu from Tencent Tourism Industry Research Institute. We are all familiar with it in our daily understanding that your organization has done a lot of work for digital culture and tourism. What is striking about digital culture and tourism during the pandemic is that it is not completely online now. Now the online and offline activities are more integrated, or more closely integrated. Including the reservation of tickets, including a lot of smart tours. I remember that there is a special term "cloud tourism". From your professional perspective, is "cloud tourism" a temporary measure or a long-term trend? That's the first question.

My second question is, digitization is a trend, but in terms of digital services for tourism, where do we still need to improve? Or what is the development space for the future? Just these two questions. Thank you!

Shu Zhan: Thank you. Let me talk briefly about some of our own thoughts on these two issues. The first question is about the so-called "cloud tourism", which we prefer to consider as some phenomena and forms of business in the whole cultural and tourism industry in the process of digitization. When we look at the situation before the pandemic, after it, and after it entered a new normal, indeed, the pandemic has brought about great changes in our life, production and the culture and tourism industry. But we also found that it greatly accelerated some of the digitization processes in the whole industry. Not only cloud travel, but also cloud live broadcast, cloud exhibitions, and even the cloud Canton Fair.

We can also see that Tencent participated in the whole pandemic period, from the health code to the reservation code, to the issuance of cultural travel vouchers. The number is amazing. For example, Tencent's Health Code, which we know has been online for less than 100 days, has covered 1 billion users and has been used more than 120 billion times.

There's a lot of stuff on the cloud, and we found out that these technologies and some of these concepts were mature before the pandemic. There's been a lot of exploration, and a lot of cases, including technologies like AR and VR that we've talked about, but there was really not a single opportunity for it to go viral. During the pandemic, due to the limitation of time and space, people developed a way to communicate with each other, conduct business activities and experience tourism through the "cloud". In our opinion, such a form and digital habit, including what the moderator has mentioned just now, is not only a pure online thing, but also highlighted a very strong integration and instrumentalization with the offline world. We believe that this trend will last for a long time, and will not be gone like a gust of wind. However, it does not mean that we will replace offline tourism experience with the "cloud" approach. It will make the two better integrated and give birth to some new experiences and new models. This is our basic view and judgment.

Second, where else will change and possibilities come from? In fact, during the pandemic this year, we did a survey together with Director Song for the very first time. Frankly speaking, I was quite satisfied with the survey. The reason for our satisfaction is that, in addition to the very professional grasp of the Tourism Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in all aspects of the academic model, we have really applied big data in detail. Our findings can stand up to the test. In this survey, we can find that people have high expectations on the use of digital technology and how to travel easily and safely. The public also pays great attention to the transformation of our smart tourism scenes.

Moreover, people's expectations for leisure, health, and study tourism are very high, and this is a trend that we see.

In addition, from the perspective of the development of digital culture and tourism, we can see the top-level planning level of digital culture and tourism. At present, digital culture and tourism platforms are being built all over the country. However, there is still much room for improvement in the operation of such platforms and the cultivation of new forms of business, new species and even new consumption habits. We also hope that, with CYTS, JTB or Universal, including countries and cities where we have many destinations, we can jointly make more explorations in these fields. Thank you, moderator.

Moderator: Thank you. Exactly as what Dr. Shu said, digitalization is not just for an enterprise, not just for a product level, but also a very important concept for public services, especially for the building of destinations. Maybe I'm too strict as a scholar, so the time that I just gave you was extremely limited. At present, we have relatively enough time. In the final round, can each of you use three key words to summarize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on us and the response of our industry?

Luis Monsalve: Resilience is the first, hope is the second. The future is filled with potential for us, and we will have a brand new future. The pandemic has an enormous influence, of course, but we humans are resilient. We will find a solution, including vaccines. At the same time, we should coexist with the pandemic. We now can gather here to make a good assembly like this. Life will continue in the world. This is what I hope. I hope in the next few years we will remember, this is a very difficult time, but we still can restore all these.

Moderator: Resilience, hope, future. Now let's welcome Tom Mehrmann.

Tom Mehrmann: The first one is flexibility. We need to be flexible. Companies need to be flexible. Companies that are flexible will be successful, because they can adapt to the situation and they can provide a good experience for tourists. In short, they can overly meet the needs of customers, which is very important.

The second word is innovation. The innovative companies are always the most successful ones, and they can successfully deal with the impact of the pandemic. They can innovate technology and have new ways to bring people back. We've just heard people say that as human beings, we need contact with people, and contact with nature, so we need a shared experience. This requires us to develop tourism in innovative ways.

The third one is digitalization. I heard from Tencent just now and Alibaba before. We have a very good partnership with both of them. That way our guests can interact with customers, use relevant data, and use digitization to take our business to a new height.

Moderator: Flexibility, innovation, and digitization.

Yasuda: The first word is stagnation. The development of the entire tourism industry has been stagnated due to the COVID-19. The second word is online. Going online is self-help production. The shift from offline to online is accelerating. The third one is the new normal. The new normal is a combination of the new normal of fighting against COVID-19 and the new normal of growing together with COVID-19 both online and offline.

Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Gao.

Gao Zhiquan: The first one I want to say is unprecedented. We are being challenged by an unprecedented pandemic. The last one is also called unprecedented, and we have unprecedented opportunities. The second is wisdom. We need to be wise in addressing unprecedented challenges and embracing unprecedented opportunities.

Briefly speaking, this pandemic has brought all our tourism industries back to the starting point, and we are back to the starting line. Talking about the education of children, we shall not lose at the starting line. Now, whether they are large enterprises or small enterprises, the bigger the enterprise, the severer the loss, and the heavier the burden. So we're all back to a new starting line. Now the race has restarted, we need to be smart to win the second half. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Gao. We can see it is a very optimistic and positive attitude. Dr Shu.

Shu Zhan: I think no matter what the pandemic is like, it reminds us that the way and mode of tourism we used to be familiar with are gone forever. We are ushering in a new era, no matter whether we are willing or not. I also have three key words here in the end.

The first key word is the same as what the president of Universal Beijing Resort said, which is digitalization. We hope that digital tools can bring new opportunities and development to our tourism industry before, during and after the pandemic.

The second word is long-term value. Through this pandemic, our tourism industry thinks deep and figures out what is the real long-term value, just like Tencent has been thinking about how science and technology could build a better world. The real tourism must give everyone a better life. Through the pandemic I hope everyone would think more about the long-term value.

The third word is collaborative innovation. After the pandemic, more tourism organizations, governments, destinations, tourism companies or technology companies, should join hands, share the same values, and make collaborative innovation in this industry.

Moderator: OK, thank you all for contributing 13 keywords. Two of them are repetitive, or consensus. One is digitization and the other is innovation. I think we have a little bit of time, so let me just briefly summarize.

Just now, through the dialogue with the five guests, we can probably understand the following points.

First, the impact is unprecedented. I used this key word of Mr. Gao. This impact has never been seen before in the history of tourism and since the birth of modern tourism, so its impact is unprecedented.

Second, safety is the first and foremost requirement. We can talk about prosperity, recovery and market rebound. The basic premise is that the pandemic shall be effectively brought under control. On the premise of regular pandemic prevention and control, we shall take appropriate anti-pandemic measures before going to travel.

Third, everyone can feel that we are very optimistic. We firmly believe that the market will recover. But the recovery is step-by-step, and it might take some time. At the beginning of the outbreak, some people had predicted that it must be step-by-step. The recovery must start from the surrounding areas and from the domestic, bit by bit, at a small scale and with low density.

Fourth, the prosperity of our industry may require our long-term joint efforts. We need to pay attention to the security standards and norms mentioned above, and the gradual change of our market. For enterprises, they need to change the market they used to focus on. They originally only concentrate on overseas markets, but now they shall begin to keep an eye on the domestic market. Originally they may receive more individual customers, but now the package tour might also see a recovery. Technological innovation is also crucial and embodied in many aspects, such as public services, enterprises, and the experience of tourists.

Fifth, partnerships. The president of the Universal Beijing Resort mentioned this just now. Especially in the context of the pandemic prevention and control, we need to cooperate with more and more departments in all aspects of travel, and we will cooperate with our partners in terms of more and more problems.

Finally, strengthening crisis management is more important and necessary than ever for our industry.

Okay, we are just in time. Thank you again for your brilliant insights.