UNWTO Hosts Training Seminar on Ice and Snow Tourism in Heilongjiang Province, China

• Asia and the Pacific
• 5 Feb 2020

More than 120 participants from different prefectures of Heilongjiang Province, China, took part in a special UNWTO training seminar on winter tourism and on making the sector open to everybody.

Experts from UNWTO are currently working alongside the Heilongjiang Provincial Culture and Tourism Department to finalize two different plans for the regional tourism sector. The Heilongjiang Provincial Inclusive Tourism Development Plan aims to grow the regional tourism sector in an inclusive manner between 2020 and 2030.

Alongside this, the Ice and Snow Tourism Development Plan is aimed at consolidating the province’s status as a leading seasonal tourism destination and will also run between now and 2030.

To ensure a strong start to the partnership, a special training seminar focused on the strategic recommendations and pilot projects for both Plans was held on 14 January 2020 in the provincial capital of Harbin. Among the participants were senior tourism officials and private sector representatives, as well as experts from UNWTO.

With the feedback received during the seminar, UNWTO is now finalizing the overall tourism planning strategy for the province as well as the specific plan for ice and snow tourism. Both of these will then be officially presented to the Heilongjiang Department of Culture and Tourism

World Tourism Organization Joins Asia-Pacific Sector Leaders To Address Overcrowding In Urban Destinations

• Asia and the Pacific
• 29 Oct 2019

Guiling, China, 29 October 2019 - The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and the People’s Government of Guilin (China) held the 13th UNWTO/PATA Forum on Tourism Trends and Outlook in Guilin from 17 to 19 October 2019. Over 170 participants from 23 countries/regions came together to share their knowledge and experience around the theme ‘Beyond Gateways: Dispersal policies, capacity management, and rural tourism’.

UNWTO Executive Director Manuel Butler said at the Opening Ceremony, “today we gather in the Chinese city of Guilin to present our latest tourism research and to discuss dispersal policies, capacity management and the efforts to better understand and prevent the phenomenon of overcrowding is some urban destinations.”

“Guilin is deeply committed to the sustainable development of tourism, and through this forum the city has become a prominent center for the exchange of tourism knowledge in Asia and the Pacific”, Mr. Butler added.

International tourist arrivals in Asia and the Pacific grew 7% in 2018 to reach a total of 348 million, one fourth of the world’s total. Asia recorded the strongest growth in international arrivals in the period 2000 to 2018, much of which has been fuelled by China, the world’s top source market. Chinese citizens made about 150 million international trips in 2018.

During the Keynote Session on sustainable tourism, Vincent Nijs from VisitFlanders (Belgium) discussed the transformational power of tourism in the context of a new future vision for tourism, including how flourishing destinations find a positive balance for the traveler, host and place.

Among the topics discussed at the Forum were the applications of big data to tourism measurement and dispersal policies, the integration of tourism with culture and creative industries, policies for managing sustainable tourism growth, capacity management and rural tourism.

The event counted with the participation of Amadeus, Telefonica, the World Bank, PATA, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Los Angeles Convention and Tourism Board, the Guanxi University as well as research and policymakers from different countries in Asia and the Pacific and the world.

The Forum has become over the last 13 years a reference platform on global and regional tourism trends.