Dai Bin | How to cultivate world-class tourism enterprises? —— Closing speech at the 2024 China Tourism Group Development Forum

The 2024 China Tourism Group Development Forum was successfully held at the Beijing Gehua New Century Hotel from December 9 to 11, 2024. President Dai Bin delivered a closing speech entitled "How to Cultivate World-Class Tourism Enterprises". The full text is shared as follows:

With the strong support of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the joint efforts of the tourism industry, the 16th China Tourism Group Development Forum has successfully completed all schedules, achieved the established goals, and is about to close successfully. In the past two days, we have released the top 20 Chinese tourism groups in 2024, the top 10 pioneers in the tourism industry, and three series of cases on tourism investment and entrepreneurship, new quality productivity application, and cultural and tourism integration development. We have listened to the wonderful speeches of the main leaders of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the party committees and government leaders of relevant tourist cities, the heads of major tourism groups, and entrepreneurial and innovative entrepreneurs. The results of the forum have aroused widespread repercussions in the cultural and tourism industry, formed a consensus on accelerating the construction of a tourism power, and built a spiritual kinetic energy for cultivating world-class tourism enterprises.

Reconstructing the tourism industry

New thinking on high-quality development

The development of any cause and innovation in practice require ideological guidance and theoretical support. To cultivate world-class tourism enterprises, we should be guided by the construction of a strong tourism country, meet the people's new needs for a better life with high-quality supply, and lead the new development of tourism enterprises with outstanding innovation.

Become a company with values, and meet the new needs of a better life with high-quality tourism products. Tourism is a long-lasting way of life for mankind. To protect the people's tourism rights and interests, it is inseparable from the construction of the market system and the development of enterprises. "Those who can benefit the world without doing anything are businessmen." The prosperity of industry and commerce and the growth of enterprises must also obey and serve the tourism power and the happiness of the people. The so-called "the profit of merchants is what the world returns to." Throughout the ages, the concept of righteousness and profit has always been the core of business thinking in all fields of the national economy. From Konosuke Matsushita's business philosophy of "making national wealth like tap water" to Ford's "making more people afford cars"; from Thomas Cook's travel services for the public to Ritz-Carlton's "gentlemen and ladies"; from Mr. Chen Guangfu's founding of China Travel Service "serving national travel and obeying national needs" to Home Inn's "smile power" and 7 Days Inn's "sleep well every day", all of them have business ideas that transcend competition and are related to national strategies. Today's tourism is not only a business, a deal, or an industry, but also a magnificent career for all tourists to fight for a better life for the people. Enterprises without ideas and entrepreneurs without feelings will not go far. Today's tourism enterprises should have a high degree of cultural confidence and cultural awareness, proceed from the people's good life and tourism rights, consciously implement the global civilization initiative, and reconstruct the guiding ideology and discourse system of the modern tourism industry.

Become a thoughtful enterprise and serve the new strategy of building a strong tourism country with excellent business capabilities. Since the reform and opening up, the guiding ideology and development strategy of China's tourism industry have evolved dynamically. In the 1980s, in order to earn foreign exchange, the inbound tourism development strategy of "government-led and moderately advanced" was emphasized. In the mid-to-late 1990s, in order to stimulate consumption and cultivate new growth points for the national economy, a new pattern of market-led domestic tourism development was formed. In 2009, the State Council issued a document "to cultivate the tourism industry into a strategic pillar industry of the national economy and a modern service industry that the people are more satisfied with". In 2018, a new round of national institutional reforms promoted the integrated development of culture and tourism into a new stage. In May 2024, the central government held a national tourism development conference in Beijing. General Secretary Xi Jinping made important instructions on tourism work, focusing on improving the modern tourism system, accelerating the construction of a strong tourism country, and promoting the steady and long-term development of high-quality tourism. Various travel service providers, tourism accommodation providers, tourism retailers, tourist attractions and resorts, tourism groups and listed companies are the basic framework support of the modern tourism system. World-class tourism companies are an important manifestation of a strong tourism nation, and are the main force that can be trusted, relied upon, and supported in building a strong tourism nation.

Become a company with a sense of the future, and lead the new development of the tourism industry with outstanding creative ability. The tourism industry has gone through the stage of "enclosing mountains and waters to collect entrance fees, and eating dividends from huge crowds of people", and has also gone through the era of "using tourism as a name, but doing real estate" or turning tourism into a financial industry. The tourism industry is moving from a natural growth model based on resources and factor input to a high-quality development model driven by product research and development and innovation. As mass tourism enters a new era of comprehensive development, the consumption stratification and demand upgrades highlighted by diversity, personalization, and quality, the supply-side structural reforms caused by cultural creation, technological innovation, and strategic investment, and the increasingly strategic position of tourism in the national governance system fully demonstrate that the time is ripe for the tourism industry to move from tradition to modernity, and the conditions are in place. In the face of changing needs, ubiquitous resources, and cross-border friendly businesses, tourism groups must cultivate a modern industrial system with new quality productivity such as culture, technology, education, and talents with greater wisdom and patience.

In the strategic process of improving the modern tourism system and building a tourism power, tourism groups must have a strong sense of history and confidence in their capabilities, as well as a clear sense of crisis and innovative ideas. Following the path of tourism development with Chinese characteristics, China has formed the world's largest domestic tourism market and has become the largest source country and main destination for international tourism. Thanks to the growth of demand and the promotion of policies, China has formed a tourism industry system with travel service providers represented by travel agencies and tourism platforms, tourism accommodation providers mainly composed of star-rated hotels and branded hotels, tourism reception providers supported by tourist attractions and resorts, and new formats such as sea cruises and inland cruises, tourist trains, tourist charters, car rentals, and tourism performances supporting each other. It has also formed the first echelon of the national tourism industry represented by the top 20 tourism groups. At the same time, the problems that have plagued the industry for many years, such as being a group but not a group and being big but not strong, have not been systematically solved. In the process of building a tourism power and cultivating world-class tourism enterprises, we also need to respond to the following challenges from both theoretical and practical aspects: Is there an IP with global influence and its continuously iterative product spectrum? Is there a strong marketing promotion, channel management, technical support and quality control capability? Do they have stable and high-quality R&D cooperation institutions, professional suppliers and channel distributors? Do they have long-term cooperative relationships with world-renowned legal and financial advisory institutions? In particular, do they have global market influence, brand appeal and topic-setting power? In the long run, we also need to pay attention to the tourism group's overseas investment and revenue share, as well as the recognized global ranking of its special business segments in the global hotel, travel agency, theme park and resort industries.

Expand the tourism market

New space for sustainable growth

Deeply cultivate traditional tourism needs such as inbound, group, tour guide, sightseeing, and routes, lead Chinese services, and cultivate classic formats. The modern tourism industry started with Thomas Cook's train tour group, and China's modern tourism industry is marked by inbound groups in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi, Guangzhou, and the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. Today, although the proportion of group tourists in the travel population continues to decline, the absolute number is still growing. For travel agencies, tourist attractions, tourism retail and other formats and products such as tourist trains and tourist performances, the sightseeing groups organized and received by travel agencies are still the most worthy of attention. Whether it is China Travel's "East of the Forbidden City" during the epidemic, Spring and Autumn Travel's "Urban Micro Travel Architecture Can Be Read", or Ctrip Group's Shanghai inbound free half-day tour in the recovery and prosperity stage, Guangzhi Travel's Baiyun Mountain Mingchun Valley Scenic Area, and Utour and "Only Zhouzhuang" and other entrepreneurial and innovative projects, they all provide exemplary cases for the classic reconstruction of traditional travel agencies and tourist attractions. As more young people from small towns, new elderly people, and young people studying abroad join the ranks of first-time travelers, and as the demand for "new groups" such as MICE, business travel, and family travel grows, outbound tour operators, local tour operators, and tourist attractions may usher in a new round of development opportunities. The rebirth of demand is not a simple return to the traditional market, nor will it give compliance space to gray business models such as low-price customer solicitation, high-price group sales, induced consumption, and high-frequency shopping. As traditional industries expand in scale, their market share will further concentrate on leading companies with high brand reputation, high quality assurance, and high emotional relevance. By reducing costs through economies of scale and improving quality and efficiency through digital transformation, traditional companies have greatly increased the possibility of classic reconstruction. It is worth noting that the national tour guide qualification examination, which was held half a month ago, had a record high of 310,000 applicants. An industry that cannot attract young people has no future. The intervention of new forces will bring infinite vitality and endless vitality to tourism entrepreneurship and innovation.

Facing the sinking tourism market such as low-tier cities, county central towns and rural residents, serving national leisure and guiding demand upgrades. Tourism has become the most promising consumption growth space for urban and rural residents after solving the "two worries and three guarantees". In the comprehensive development stage of mass tourism, tourism consumption has formed a strategic situation of gradient transfer from high-tier cities to low-tier cities, and from central towns to rural markets. According to the 2024 holiday tourism market monitoring of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Data Center, the travel rate of rural residents during the National Day was 18.4%, and the number of tourists accounted for 11.5% of the number of domestic tourists during the holiday. Emerging market customers have a natural dependence on travel agencies, economy hotels, and natural and cultural heritage tourist attractions, which plays a role in bottoming out and expanding tourism consumption. For tourism groups, listed companies and entrepreneurial and innovative enterprises, it is an indispensable market opportunity to open up new markets such as rural tourism, mountain tourism, and ethnic tourism, and develop new formats such as travel agencies, tourist homestays, and rural vacations. Since the "National Day Golden Week" in 1999, along with the market expansion and consumption upgrade of mass tourism, economy hotels such as Home Inn, 7 Days, Hanting, and Dongcheng, travel agencies such as Spring Airlines, Utour, and Caesar, online travel platforms such as Ctrip, Tongcheng, Qunar, and Mafengwo, theme parks such as Haichang Ocean Park, Chimelong Safari Park, and Qingming Shanghe Park, as well as tourism performance projects such as Impression, Encore, and Eternal Love have been cultivated. Although central and local state-owned enterprises such as China Travel Service, OCT, BTG, Jinjiang, and Shaanxi Tourism have also launched innovative brands with high growth potential such as Happy Valley, Jinjiang Inn, and Song of Everlasting Regret, original brands with market influence are rare. With the new round of market sinking and consumption upgrades in the comprehensive development of mass tourism, as well as the construction of world-class tourist destinations in the process of urban renewal and rural revitalization, more small but fine, small but beautiful, and small but warm project construction and brand growth opportunities will be brought to investment institutions and market entities, which should not be ignored.

Emphasis should be placed on emerging tourism markets such as self-driving, sojourn, vacation, and study tours, promoting the coupled growth of industrial capital and transportation infrastructure enterprises, and accelerating the layout of new tourism formats. Whether it is weekends, holidays, summer vacation, or ice and snow season, whether it is national roads, highways, grasslands, or borders, the decrease in tourist buses and the increase in self-driving cars are obvious trends. Self-driving tourists account for more than half of the total number of tourists during the Spring Festival, Labor Day, and National Day. While extending the "post-auto" chain, the self-driving tourism market is also nurturing new tourism formats and new talent needs, such as car rental, motels, RV self-driving camps, and off-road adventure route planning and team leader navigation talents. In the past year, self-operated platforms such as Yihi, Hello, and Shenzhou and third-party platforms such as Didi, Ctrip, and Fliggy have focused on the layout of national car rental networks. With the growth of users and the increase in member activity, it is entirely possible for head car rental companies to replace traditional tourism companies and become the new chain leaders of the tourism industry chain. In the modern tourism system, it is always tourists who define the tourism industry, not the tourism industry that defines tourists. According to the 25% standard line of the United Nations Tourism Organization for the tourism industry, that is, no less than 25% of the products generated by tourists' consumption are tourism industries or industries with strong tourism relevance. In the annual selection of the top 20 Chinese tourism groups, the China Tourism Academy uses the sample companies' tourism-related revenue accounting for 50% of the total revenue as the judgment standard for tourism groups. Looking at the development path of China's tourism industry from small to large and from weak to strong since the reform and opening up, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the tourism industry has never had a natural direct force or a permanent main force. Whoever can provide tourists with high-quality products and services and whoever can effectively use new quality productivity to reduce costs and increase efficiency is the direct force and main force of the tourism industry, and the emerging market facing new demands is the natural fertile ground for tourism entrepreneurship and innovation.

Tourism groups and listed companies should also focus on railways, aviation, shipping companies, highway construction and operators. The entry strategy for the tourism industry is moving from product innovation and market cooperation to a new stage of strategic layout. China Yangtze River Shipping Group, Chengdu and Lanzhou Railway Bureau Group, Hainan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Qingdao Airport, and China Communications are no longer traditional tourism suppliers, but important components of the tourism market. In the future, the operating income and profit contribution of transportation companies in the infrastructure field will increasingly come from tourist consumption, or the contribution of tourist expenditure to the company will increase, and they will become the reserve force of world-class tourism companies.

Guide outbound tourism from the primary demand of sightseeing and shopping to a better life and cultural experience, and accelerate the layout of overseas markets. Tourism enterprises and service brands with global competitiveness and world influence are closely related to the economic and social development level, industrial and commercial development level, cultural influence and outbound tourism market size of the country. This is true for Japan Transport Corporation, Germany TUI, France Accor, and the United States Disney and Universal. Coordinating the two international and domestic markets, making good use of both international and domestic resources, and occupying the commanding heights of the global tourism competitiveness pattern and discourse system with cross-cultural communication capabilities are objective laws that are not subject to human consciousness, and are also the only way for my country to cultivate world-class tourism enterprises. In the past 20 years, we have also tried to acquire hotels in the UK and third-party hotel management companies in the United States, and set up travel agency branches, visa centers and airline ticketing agencies overseas in the form of commercial presence. From the perspective of strategic evaluation, due to the lack of commercial competitiveness and cultural influence, the expected results have not been achieved. With the enhancement of comprehensive national strength, the improvement of living standards and the enrichment of international travel experience, more and more people are going abroad and walking freely on this blue planet. Compared with 20 years ago, outbound tourists have begun to look at the scenery and scenes of overseas destinations with a level eye, and strengthen cultural exchanges with overseas destinations with a confident, equal and inclusive attitude. In this process, they will also look back at the innovative achievements of domestic hotels, catering, shopping, cultural entertainment and smart tourism, and bring the consumer preferences and brand trust cultivated over the years to overseas, thereby bringing us an increasingly expanding market space for cultivating world-class tourism companies. In this sense, outbound tourism is a natural extension of domestic tourism, and overseas destinations are the strategic space for tourism groups to become world-class tourist destinations, and are also the decisive place for international tourism industry competition.

Cultivate modern tourism

Integration and development of new business forms

To cultivate world-class tourism enterprises, we must combine them with national strategies such as building world-class tourist destinations, world-class tourist attractions and resorts, and world-class tourist routes. Enterprise development requires mass production of standardized products, long-term adherence to quality services, and more importantly, strategic traction in project investment, product research and development, and expanded reproduction. In the process of accelerating the construction of a tourism power, we have noticed that tourist leisure cities and blocks, tourist villages, tourist attractions and resorts, national parks, national cultural parks, tourist transportation infrastructure, tourist public services, and tourist routes have received unprecedented attention. Judging from the tourism development conferences held by various provinces and cities this year and the policy documents issued, whether it is tourism image promotion, tourism market cultivation or tourism project construction, they all attach great importance to the role of tourism groups and listed companies, and have carried out institutional innovation, market innovation and technological innovation in cooperation models. The cooperation between Zhongwei City and tourism enterprises such as China Travel Service in projects such as Shapotou Scenic Area and Yellow River Suji, the cooperation between Shaoguan City and Ya'an City and Xiangyuan Culture and Tourism in the field of scenic area investment and construction, and the deep involvement of tourism enterprises such as Nanjing Tourism Group, Hangzhou Business Travel, Guangzhou Lingnan Business Travel, Shanghai Shendi, and Beijing Shouhuan in the construction of urban tourism destinations have directly promoted the high-quality development of the deep integration of culture and tourism. In the process of project construction, through the general contracting of leading enterprises and the subcontracting of related enterprises in the industrial chain, it can not only expand the market share and enterprise scale of tourism groups, but also help to extend the tourism industry chain and cultivate the modern tourism industry ecosystem.

In the long run, world-class tourism enterprises are created through global market competition, not protected by industrial policies, and certainly not cultivated by giving money, projects, or brands. Great companies must be oriented to consumer terminals and grow by providing consumers with high-quality products and services to choose from. If enterprises want to go far and entrepreneurs want to stand tall, they must allocate more resources and energy to market tracking, technological innovation, and product iteration, rather than government lobbying and commercial public relations. We must also pay attention to the monopoly trend of platform enterprises, and be wary of the former dragon-slaying boy growing up to look like what he once hated. In the process of building a tourism power, the government will not allow any enterprise to abuse its market scale advantages, technological advantages, and data advantages to suppress market competition, nor will it allow any enterprise to seek power that it should not seek. In the near future, it will be very necessary and completely feasible to promote the construction of an anti-monopoly judgment mechanism by the business, price, market supervision, and tourism departments.

Continue to promote the deep integration of cultural creation and tourism innovation, and accelerate the formation of a new development pattern of art sinking and tourism upward. Tourists who have gone through the era of seeing mountains, water and scenery hope to meet more humanities and see more outstanding literary and artistic works and cultural exhibitions during their trip. This requires cultural relics institutions and art groups to create performances, exhibition planning and market promotion with people as the center. This requires the cultural confidence of entrepreneurs and the cultural consciousness of tourism practitioners, and to sincerely identify and practice the integration idea of ​​"shaping tourism with culture and highlighting culture with tourism". The top 10 Chinese tourism pioneer forces released at this forum are typical samples of tourism innovation promoting cultural creation, and are also a concentrated display of people-oriented artistic creation in the field of tourism. Holding high the banner of "world craftsmanship", Tao Wenlv Group has long insisted on holding cultural activities such as Taoranji, Spring and Autumn Fair, Taoyang Temple Fair, etc., introducing artists from all over the world to co-create, and also attracted tens of millions of tourists to visit. Anaya Group, which has become a creator of contemporary literary and artistic life, not only has the lonely library by the sea and projects in Beidaihe, Sanya, Jinshanling, but also holds poetry festivals, drama festivals, and Hailang Film Week, and invests in films such as "My Motherland and Me", "My Fathers and Me", and "Hidden in the Dust", helping niche art to move towards public life. As the creator of the holiday complex "Ten Miles of Flowers", Xiangwai Culture and Tourism has positioned itself as an expresser of village aesthetics and an inheritor of local culture. Since 2018, from a series of tourism performance projects such as Impression, Encounter, and Drama Fantasy City created by literary and artistic workers for the tourism market, to cultural projects such as Silk Road Dream, Happy Coast, and Anren Ancient Town that the tourism group pays tribute to culture, culture and tourism are integrating and developing at a deeper level, wider range, and higher level.

Actively develop new productivity such as artificial intelligence, high-end equipment, and green energy to promote the effective improvement of the quality and reasonable growth of the development of modern tourism economy. In traditional concepts, tourism is a resource-driven and labor-intensive industry. With the growth of the tourism market, changes in tourism consumption, and the ubiquitous transformation of modern technology to production and life, the tourism industry has begun to move from tradition to modernity. This requires top-level design and development planning at the national level, the strengthening of the main position of scientific and technological innovation of enterprises, and the leading role of the first echelon of the national tourism industry represented by the top 20 tourism groups and the top 10 tourism pioneers. Cooperate with leading enterprises in the fields of scientific and technological research and development, equipment manufacturing, and energy development to jointly build joint laboratories, jointly develop new products, and jointly enjoy new tourism opportunities. Learn from the paradigms and experiences of the 40 best examples of tourism entrepreneurship and innovation, and rely on the advantages of the super-large-scale market of the tourism economy to allow more scientific and technological achievements to move from the laboratory to the market. We should focus on giving full play to the advantages of small, medium and micro enterprises and entrepreneurial teams in being close to the market, making quick decisions and building teams flexibly, and rely on urban renewal and rural revitalization to cultivate a number of small, exquisite, beautiful, and warm cultural tourism projects with a strong cultural atmosphere and high technological content.

We should pragmatically promote the strategy of strengthening enterprises with talents, and build the human resources support and sustainable development guarantee for world-class tourism enterprises. Improving the modern tourism system and accelerating the construction of a tourism power cannot be separated from high-level entrepreneurs, managers, professional and technical personnel and highly skilled labor groups. With the sinking of the market, the upgrading of demand and the transformation of the industry, the competition for high-level talents has become more fierce than ever before. The tourism industry has strong economic attributes and a high degree of marketization. Talents grow up more through market competition rather than following the traditional training path, and they are not accommodated by the traditional bureaucracy. Different types of talents have different requirements for interest protection, development orientation and career ideals at different stages of development. Tourism groups should implement talent classification and cultivation plans. The experience of tourism entrepreneurship and development in various countries around the world shows that small and micro entrepreneurial teams are often business schools for entrepreneurs and managers, and are also the reserve forces of high-end talents. No matter how big and strong the tourism group is, it must pay close attention to the R&D, production and marketing teams on the front line of the market, and discover and cultivate the strategic talents needed to build world-class enterprises. For the leaders of tourism groups, they must have the wisdom and ability of collective leadership and teamwork, as well as the mind and bearing of "getting one person to get the world".

This is an era that needs world-class tourism enterprises and will certainly produce world-class tourism enterprises; this is an era that needs tourism entrepreneurs and will certainly produce tourism entrepreneurs. This is an era in which all kinds of tourism talents have great potential and will make great achievements. Tourism practitioners across the country should unite and work hard to cultivate world-class enterprises, improve the modern tourism system, and build a tourism power!

Author | Dai Bin Editor | Liu Xin Source | China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) Please indicate the author and source for reprinting