Dai Bin | High speed rail connects farther distances, tourism creates a more beautiful life - CCTV Finance 2023 year-end speech

Invited by CCTV Finance, Dai Bin, President of China Tourism Research Institute, participated in the "Confidence in the Front, Linking Vitality - CCTV Finance Year End Lecture" and delivered a speech titled "High speed Rail Linking Further Distances, Tourism Creating a More Beautiful Life". The full text is as follows.

Hello everyone, I am Dai Bin from China Tourism Research Institute. Today's topic is industrial chain. After listening to the speeches of several academicians on cutting-edge technologies such as chips, high-energy cosmic rays, and liquefaction machinery, as a tourism scholar, I feel sincere admiration and full of confidence in the future of comprehensive development of mass tourism. Tourism is a fundamental right of the people and an enduring way of life for humanity. Reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles has been a fine tradition of the Chinese nation since ancient times. The realization of tourism rights, the popularization of lifestyles, and the modernization of traditions cannot be separated from the huge leap in the transportation equipment industry chain. The high-speed railway has made the distant scenery no longer distant, turned the inside and outside of the carriage into poetic scenes, and brought the dream of traveling to reality. High speed rail has changed the way tourism is conducted. In the era of green cars, people were "slow travelers, fast travelers", with difficulty in purchasing tickets, crowded boarding, and slow operation. 30 years ago, I took a train from Bengbu to Tianjin to study, which took me a day and a night. At that time, the travel experience was not as romantic as we imagined. The green car trip we imagined was a fashionable young person tasting food in a soft sleeper carriage, living in the beautiful music, and the scenery passing by outside the window becoming the scenery in the eyes of others. If we travel back in time to the 1980s and take a real railway trip, we will find that 'Lost in Time' is not a feature film, but a documentary. I finally bought a seat free ticket and got on the train. Every inch of space in the carriage was crowded with people. It was best to stand in the window of the restroom or lie on the floor under the three seater seat. The biggest luxury was that passengers with seats should not take off their shoes. Finally arrived at the destination, the extreme fatigue made many people hastily leave after taking a photo at the iconic attraction. In the era of high-speed rail, tourism is called "fast travel, slow travel". You can buy tickets online, swipe your ID card to enter the station, listen to music and enjoy the scenery outside the window, and travel from Nanjing to Beijing in just 3 hours. If you're willing, you can also have the delivery guy deliver the delicious food from the passing city to the carriage, emitting a strong aroma. When travel becomes free and comfortable, the sightseeing and experience of the destination also become more beautiful. High speed rail has greatly changed the psychological distance of tourist destinations. Places that used to feel so distant have now become urbanized. During this year's Mid Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, over 25% of tourists traveled by high-speed rail, second only to self driving tourism. More and more people realize that a strong and respected country must have large scientific devices such as the Shenzhou in space, the Jiaolong in the sea, and the Lasso and Tianyan; A modern and civilized country will definitely allow its people to ride high-speed trains freely like wind, to pursue everyone's poetry and distant places. High speed rail has changed the tourism scene. In the past, trains were a means of transportation, emphasizing the fastest speed and highest cost-effectiveness to transport the most passengers to farther distances, playing the role of a ferryman. Today, high-speed rail has become a tourism experience space and an integral part of tourism products. Many people know about the "Orient Express" because of movies, and about "Pride of Africa", one of the world's top ten luxury trains, because of writer Bi Shumin's "Thirty Thousand Miles in Africa". Now, we also have our own five-star hotels running on the railway tracks, such as the New Oriental Express, Xueguo Express, Hulunbuir Express, and so on. A colleague from the local railway bureau told me that a few years ago, when they were developing products with tourism agencies, they were very worried about whether the ticket price of around 50000 yuan could be accepted by the market. The market has proven that such concerns are completely unnecessary: tourists who spend 50000 yuan to purchase are not just a train ticket, but a new experience of a wonderful life traveling by high-speed rail. The diversity and personalized demand, together with the train complex in countrymen's bones, make the high-end high-speed rail become the new favorite of the tourism market. I once inspected the Hulunbuir train at Hailar station, and the luggage compartments were mostly classic models from Louis Vuitton, Rimowa, and Bottega Veneta. This indirectly proves that 'high-speed rail tourism lacks not demand, but products'. While high-speed rail changes tourism, tourism also promotes the extension and innovation of the high-speed rail industry chain. The Harbin Dalian high-speed railway, which travels through the stunning winter and summer scenery, the Danda high-speed railway, which is the most beautiful coastal railway line in Northeast China, the high-speed Shanghai high-speed railway, which runs through the classic north-south routes, the Hefei Fuzhou high-speed railway, which runs through the picturesque countryside, and the Guizhou Guangxi Guangdong high-speed railway, which is counted one by one, have often become hot selling products for major travel merchants during summer and holidays. This summer, railway departments in various regions have also launched tourism based ticket products. For example, the Beijing Tianjin Hebei Seaside Tour product includes one second-class seat ticket for each of the three routes: Beijing South Tianjin, Tianjin Beidaihe, and Beidaihe Beijing, priced at 299 yuan. It is hard to imagine that the railway sector would have such market-oriented innovative measures without a tourism city as a node and a tourism market as a pivot. The high-speed railway has changed the pattern of tourism. With the completion of the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network, mountains are no longer high and seas are no longer far away. The vast western region, more low line cities, and remote rural areas have become new popular tourist destinations due to the arrival of tourists. High speed rail has cultivated new driving forces for the economic and social development of revolutionary old areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas, and underdeveloped areas with inconvenient transportation, and has raised new hopes for a better life for the people. After the opening of the Guinan High speed Railway, the Yaoshan Ancient Village, located less than half an hour's drive from the Libo County High speed Railway Station in Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, welcomed tourists from all directions. A new village history museum, characteristic homestays, and handicraft workshops were built, and a large-scale live performance with the theme of "Yaoshan Yao People" was held every night. There are many similar cases, and more data shows that high-speed rail has not only changed the spatial pattern of tourist sources and destinations in the era of comprehensive development of mass tourism, but also promoted the modernization process of the tourism industry, providing practical possibilities for the development of more regions and high-quality employment for more people. Of course, the opening of high-speed rail is only the first step in the construction of tourist destinations and the high-quality development of the tourism industry. Governments at all levels need to spend more energy to construct and promote a tourism image that adapts to the development of the times, improve tourism infrastructure and public services such as transportation, communication, distribution, and interpretation, introduce financial and industrial capital, cultivate market entities, and continuously enhance the satisfaction of high-speed rail tourists and the sense of gain of urban and rural residents along the high-speed rail. The prosperity of the tourism industry requires innovation in the high-speed rail supply chain, and the market-oriented high-speed rail also requires the extension of the tourism industry chain. An era of "high-speed rail tourism" that belongs to the people and is full of vitality has arrived! Author | Edited by Dai Bin | Reviewed by Xue Shiyi | Source by Yang Liqiong | Reproduction by China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) Please indicate the author and source