On September 22, Xingyi of Guizhou province staged the opening ceremony for 2016 International Mountain Tourism & Outdoor Sports Conference. The opening ceremony was honoured to have guests including CNTA Chairman Li Jinzao, Party Secretary and Director of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Guizhou Chen Min'er, Deputy Party Secretary and Governor of Guizhou Sun Zhigang, CPPCC Chairman of Guizhou Wang Fuyu, Vice Minister of the General Administration of Sport Cai Zhenhua and Deputy Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development Ou Qingping, and chaired by Vice Governor of Guizhou Lu Yongzheng.
Li Jinzao addressed the opening ceremony by saying that, "Tourism started late in China but enjoys fast growth and strong momentum. China has been ranked the world's biggest outbound tourism market for four consecutive years, contributing over 13% to the global tourism revenue per year on average. In 2015, China made 4.1 billion domestic travels and received over 120 million inbound tourists, and the Chinese tourism industry contributed to over 10% of the economic aggregate and employment. As a comprehensive industry, the tourism industry gains unprecedented position and role in economic and social development and its contribution to world peace is recognized as it never was before."
He added, "China is a mountainous country and two thirds of our land is covered by mountains. Thus China boasts rich mountain tourism resources, with mountainous natural and cultural heritage sites, mountainous national scenic zones and mountainous 5A scenic zones exceeding over 50% of their respective category. Recent years have seen remarkable progress of mountain tourism in China, with a large number of mountain tourist destinations gaining worldwide reputation. How to protect the ecological environment while seeking tourism development, how to promote the integrated development of tourism and other industries and how to mobilize local residents to contribute to tourism development are all worth our deliberation and research."
He stressed that, "The abundant, diverse mountain resources form a good source for tourism development. We shall take the initiative to incorporate mountain tourism into the Belt and Road Initiative and launch cooperation with other countries along the Belt and the Road in this regard; put the concept of holistic tourism into practice, break the barriers that separate scenic zones from non-scenic zones, mountainous areas from non-mountainous areas, and urban areas from rural areas, and make overall planning and integrated management; uphold the concept of "tourism plus", and vigorously develop sports/fitness tourism, forestry tourism and agricultural tourism based on local resources in mountainous regions and the countryside; give full play to tourism's role in social and economic development and poverty reduction, creating jobs and improving local livelihoods; carry the Toilet Revolution further and improve public services; better protect and utilize mountain resources for sustainable development.
In his remarks, Governor Sun said, "Guizhou is reputed as a 'province of parks', with beautiful sceneries everywhere, distinct advantages and huge development potentials. It's proud to have not only amazing mountainous landscape, but also a harmonious society composed of a great variety of ethnic groups. In recent years, practicing the five development concepts of 'innovation, coordination, green, open and sharing', Guizhou has implemented the mountain tourism strategy, vigorously built up the brand of Guizhou as a province of parks and mountain tourism, diversified the business forms of mountain tourism, enriched the cultural connotation of mountain tourism, improved tourist services and promoted smart tourism. Thanks to these efforts, local tourism industry is doing better and better. In the first half of this year, the number of tourists and the tourism revenue it received increased by 39% and 41%, respectively."
According to Cai Zhenhua, "The General Administration of Sport has done a lot to promote the fitness for all campaign in recent years: implementing the national fitness for all strategy, encouraging local governments to develop sports tourism and outdoor sports in light of their reality, promoting the integration of sports and tourism, culture, health and Internet, and incorporating sports into the 'mega health' and 'mega ecology' plan. All these have stimulated people's passion for sports."
According to Ou Qingping, "The CPC Central Committee and the State Council highly values tourism for poverty reduction which is a key part of the strategy of precise poverty alleviation. The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and CNTA have been earnestly honouring the decisions made by the central government, and made rural tourism for poverty reduction one of the top 10 projects for precise poverty reduction. In 2014 the pilot project was launched and in 2015 rural tourism improvement and rural tourism for poverty reduction were carried out nationwide, producing significant progress and effects. Local governments have, centring on the national precise poverty reduction strategy, increasingly recognized and leveraged tourism's role in poverty reduction, rolled out a range of supporting policies and measures and explored modes and good practices of tourism for poverty reduction that can be promoted nationwide. Local practices have shown that: rural tourism for poverty reduction is a strong engine behind the structural reform of the supply side and also an effective means to fight poverty."
Together they listened to keynote speeches made by former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, former Zambian President Rupiah Bwezani Banda, and Xu Jing, UNWTO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.
The conference attracts over 3,700 participants including Chinese ministerial officials, former state heads of foreign countries, experts and scholars at home and abroad, heads of tourism organizations and sports organizations, tour operators, investors, sportsmen and journalists.
