From September 6th to 8th, the China Tourism Industry Exposition 2019, co-hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Tianjin government, was held in Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center. At the opening ceremony, Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the Tianjin Municipal CPC Committee, Luo Shugang, minister of Culture and Tourism, Zhang Guoqing, mayor of Tianjin, and Wang Xiaofeng, a member of the Party Group of Culture and Tourism, were present. Vice Mayor Cao Xiaohong presided over the ceremony.
Luo Shugang noted that the integrated development of culture and tourism has entered into a new era. We need to uphold Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to shape tourism with culture and spread culture through tourism. At the same time, we need to promote the integration of culture and tourism as possible to unlock the potential of cultural and tourism consumption. This Expo features the elements of culture, tourism and technology and highlights tourism equipment manufacture and product display, offering a broader platform through trade fairs and forums. He also hoped that friends from home and abroad could achieve sharing of quality resources and better leveraging their comparative strengths by virtue of exchanges and cooperation to promote vibrant cultural and tourism industry.
Zhang Guoqing said that the Expo themed “Promoting the Integration of Culture and Tourism and Collecting Results of Industrial Development” offers systematic services including display, cooperation, trade and development. It will exert positive and far-reaching influence on high-quality development of tourism industry. Tianjin, as a famous city of history and culture, is home to a gathering of talents with rich tourism resources. Therefore, Tianjin will step up great efforts to develop all-for-one tourism and break new ground in various fields so as to foster new highlight and enhance city’s popularity.
After the opening ceremony, the guests also visited the exhibition zones for cultural innovation, cultural and tourism equipment, fine cultural and tourism products in China, as well as tourism group of Tianjin’s collaborative regions on poverty alleviation between the eastern and western regions. Besides, they also viewed the latest innovative products of tourism equipment manufacture, the application of smart technology in tourism and the integrated development of culture and tourism. The guests hoped to expand cooperation and unleash vitality of tourism development, thus boosting the upgrading of tourism formats, encouraging cultural and tourism consumption and promoting high-quality development of culture and tourism in the public interest.
The Expo consists of seven exhibition zones covering an area of 50,000 square meters. It has attracted nearly one thousand cultural and tourism enterprises from 30 countries and regions as well as 28 provinces (districts and municipalities) of China. During the exhibition, a series of events, including a promotion on Arxan self-driving tour, forum on innovative development of digital industry of culture and tourism, forum on development of cultural and tourism industry, lunch meeting for global industry of culture and tourism, forum on cultural and tourism development through new media, were held.
The opening ceremony was attended by heads of cultural and tourism departments in relevant provinces (districts and municipalities), representatives of the European Travel Commission and the Swiss Tourism Administration in China and foreign diplomats to China from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ice Land. The relevant leaders of Tianjin also attended the related activities.