Jointly Building World-Famous Mountain Tourism Destinations – Initiative of Dialogue among World Famous Mountains 2023
On September 15, the “International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA) Annual Conference and Dialogue among World Famous Mountains 2023” opened in Xingyi city, Guizhou province. IMTA members, renowned international organizations, relevant national cultural and tourism departments, leaders and officials from Guizhou Province, professional tourism organizations and enterprises, world-famous mountain and mountain tourism destination institutions, and other esteemed guests more than 200 people gathered in Xingyi, Guizhou. The conference focuses on the themes of "Mountain Tourism Resource Innovation and Destination Construction" and "World Famous Mountains Empower the Wellness of Mountain Tourism." It aims to to discuss the protection, innovative utilization and development of mountain resources with a broad frontier vision and an open and sharing mentality.
In "Dialogue among World Famous Mountains 2023", the International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA) launched the initiative of "Jointly Building World-Famous Mountain Tourism Destinations".
The following is the full text of the initiative:
Jointly Building World-Famous Mountain Tourism Destinations – Initiative of Dialogue among World Famous Mountains 2023
Mountains have always been closely related to the human survival and civilization, and famous mountains serve as the beacon of our spirits and emotions. Famous mountains, with profuse natural and cultural resources, is the core of mountainous areas and a key stage for mountain tourism. At the new stage of development, the tourism sector changes every day, so building world-famous mountain tourism destinations is a proposal that is in line with the new development tendency and significant to the high-quality development of mountain tourism. “Dialogue among World Famous Mountains” is an important brand for IMTA to play its leading role, facilitate healthy, green and sustainable mountain tourism, which is also a platform for everyone to join hands in building world-famous mountain tourism destinations. Therefore, we hereby make the following proposals:
First, raising the awareness of world-famous mountain tourism destinations. We must first abandon the out-of-date notion of “relying on and consuming resources of famous mountains.” Instead, we should give full play to the distinctive resources and cultures of each mountain, and develop products that give tourists a sense of experience and achievement, and meet their demand of cultural tourism. In addition, we ought to build a world-class service system and consumer guide led by science, promote world-famous mountain tourism towards the high-quality, convenient, and safe path, and build sustainable destinations that are in line with the global standard, fully functional, distinctive, well-planned, and equipped.
Second, establishing a mechanism of evaluating world-famous tourism mountains. An authoritative resource classification system and evaluation standards drive famous tourism mountains' potential. Therefore, we need to participate in compiling and adopting global standards, such as the Classification and Evaluation System of World Famous Tourism Mountains, to develop products in a high-quality and orderly manner. At the same time, international organizations, famous mountains, and tourism experts need to work hand in hand, to establish more innovative, open-ended, and sharing standards, improve the world-famous mountain tourism system, and jointly facilitate the construction of world-famous mountain tourism destinations.
Third, jointly building the destination partnership. To jointly build world-famous mountain tourism destinations, we must take on a systematic and comprehensive mindset with broad perspective, long-term vision, and open-mindedness, to build, share and reap fruit together. By naming sister mountains and partner mountains, we can share experience in constructing the destinations, establish a destination community, and eventually build a sharing system where we complement each other’s advantages, share resources, seek win-win results, and progress hand in hand.
Last, staying on the path of sustainability. World-famous mountains enjoy advanced and “green” resources, with profuse experience in resource preservation and sustainable development, which can be applied to exploring new patterns of mountain tourism development. In addition, we could turn to new ideas, technologies, and patterns to develop premium ecological products and give full play to the leisure and recreation functions of famous mountains to initiate “traceless” activities like forest wellness, natural education, ecological experience, and outdoor sport. In so doing, we aim to achieve ecology-first, economic and intensive, and green and low-carbon development, contributing to the local economic growth and people’s wellness and welfare.
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong
Editor Ⅱ: Wu Dan
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
