On September 21st, "World Forum on Tourism Economy - Macau 2023" opened in Macau. Mr. He Houhua, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the General Assembly of the World Forum on Tourism Economy, Mr. He Yicheng, Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region, Mr. Zurab, Secretary General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, Mr. Hu Heping, Minister of Culture and Tourism of China, Mr. Zheng Xincong, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Macao, Mr. Liu Xianfa, Commissioner of the Commissioner Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in Macao, Mr. Zhang Xu, President of WFTEE, and officials from Italy, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Maldives and the Philippines attended the opening ceremony.

Hu Heping said in his speech, this year, with China's epidemic prevention and control achieved a major decisive victory, China's economy and society to resume normalized operation, tourism recovers strongly. Tourism is an important engine to promote employment, safeguard people's livelihood, stimulate consumption and boost the economy, we should adhere to the people-oriented, in-depth promotion of mass tourism, adhere to the innovation-driven, accelerate the cultivation of intelligent tourism, adhere to the concept of "Two Mountains", explore the development of green tourism, and adhere to the opening up of the cooperation to create a better future for tourism. China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism is willing to take this forum as an opportunity to join hands with other countries to create a more open and inclusive environment for tourism development, continuously expand the opening up of the tourism sector to the outside world, steadily improve the level of facilitation of people-to-people exchanges, and continue to optimize the quality of inbound tourism services.

During the forum, Hu Heping also had in-depth discussions with He Yicheng on supporting Macao to enrich the connotation of the World Center for Tourism and Leisure, and to build "a base for exchanges and cooperation with the mainstream of Chinese culture and the coexistence of diversified cultures"; and met with Italy's Minister of Tourism, Mr. Santangeli, who came to China to attend the forum, and exchanged views on deepening the tourism cooperation between the two countries.

Founded in 2012, the World Tourism Economy Forum is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China and organized by the Secretary for Economy and Finance of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government, with the United Nations World Tourism Organization as a partner. This year's Forum invited Italy as a partner country and Shanghai as the guest city, with the theme of "Vision 2030: Unleashing the Potential of Tourism, Revitalizing the Economy and Promoting Development". More than 1,200 guests from multinational tourism authorities, associations and tourism enterprises were invited to participate in the discussions on strengthening world tourism economic cooperation and promoting sustainable development of tourism.