On December 13th, the 2020 China Tourism Group Development Forum was held in Beijing. Hu Heping, minister and secretary of leading party group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, attended and delivered a speech.
Hu Heping stressed that currently, we were at an overlapping point of the “two centenary goals” and were about to step on the journey of building a socialist modern country. China would face a more complex and constantly changing international and domestic environment where new challenges and opportunities for tourism existed. As a result, we needed to realize that people’s new expectation for happy lives expanded new space for tourism expansion and brought new requirements for high-quality development; that distinctive advantages of tourism meant it had a solemn mission, so we needed to construct a new development structure; that the rapid development of science and technology offered new driving forces and demands for innovative development for tourism and tourism must be vital in improving the level of social civilization and in playing a more important role. In a complex environment, the government needed to have a clear idea of the relationship between safety and development as well as not to break the bottom safety line.
Hu Heping came up with several requests. The government needed to implement the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee; to be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era; to construct a modern tourism system with high-quality development as a theme and with reform and innovation as driving forces; to focus on the implementation of increasing product supply, developing mass tourism, promoting smart tourism, pushing the integrated development of culture and tourism and enhancing market management. There were also new requirements for tourism companies. Entering a new era, they needed to be cultivators and practitioners of cultural confidence by being led by culture. They needed to enable tourism to be an unforgettable spiritual tourism and cultural tourism by improving it’s spiritual meaning and cultural quality, so as to experience Chinese cultural and enhance cultural confidence. They needed to be promoters of mass tourism to make full use of initiative and creativity. They needed to change the inadequate and unbalanced supply of tourism products as well as to enrich product supply and to improve service level. They needed to improve abilities by science and technology by being the first to engage in smart tourism and by pushing product innovation supported by digital and smart technology, so as to have strong tourism and relating companies with strong scientific and technological capabilities. The aim was integrated development and mutual enhancement of “tourism+” and “science and technology+” to realize leaping development of tourism.
The forum was co-hosted by China Tourism Academy and China Tourism Association and the theme was “cultural leading and scientific and technological innovation”. In the forum established the “China Tourism Group Development Report 2020” and activities including the innovation projects, dialogue between young entrepreneurs and integrated development cases of culture and tourism. Wang Hong, vice governor of People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, and Duan Qiang, chairman of China Tourism Association, attended and delivered speeches. The key speech was given by Wan Min, Chairman of the board of China Tourism Group. More than 700 people attended the forum, including those from large tourism groups and tourism enterprises, people in charge of research institutions and heads of Cultural Exchange Organization of Presenting China to the World.