Dai Bin | Prosperous World Civilization Garden, Building a New Future of Global Tourism - China Central and Eastern Europe Tourism Exchange and Cooperation Concept

Ladies and gentlemen, this year's five-day Labor Day holiday ushered in a turning point for China's domestic tourism market since the COVID-19, and inbound and outbound tourism also continued the recovery process since the Spring Festival. During the five-day labor holiday, 274 million domestic tourists traveled nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 70.83%, and recovered to 119.09% of the same period before the epidemic on a comparable basis; The domestic tourism revenue reached 148.056 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 128.90%, and recovered to 100.66% of the same period before the epidemic on a comparable basis. According to data from the National Immigration Bureau, border inspection agencies across the country have inspected a total of 6.265 million inbound personnel, with an average of 1.253 million people per day, an increase of about 2.2 times compared to the same period of May Day last year and 59.2% of the same period in 2019. Beyond macro data, a short video on the internet can be unsettling for a long time. Driving on a tourist bus in Serbia, dozens of Chinese tourists sang the theme song of the former Yugoslav film Bridge, "That morning, I woke up from my dream/the invaders broke into my hometown... Ah, goodbye friends, goodbye, goodbye/whenever people pass here, they say/ah! What a beautiful flower". At that moment, full of memories are revived in deep affection, and the local drivers quietly wipe away the tears flowing down. These films, songs, literature, and arts have influenced generations of Chinese people, and also brought China and Central and Eastern European countries closer in psychological distance. Once conditions permit, everyone wants to see the Sarage that Walter has protected. Nest, the Meiquan Palace where Princess Cici stayed, CK Town and Prague Castle. Today, the footprints of Chinese tourists have covered every piece of land, including Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and the North and South Poles. Central and Eastern European countries were the fastest-growing and most promising destinations for Chinese outbound tourists in the decade before the pandemic. Table 1: The total number of mutual visits between tourists from China and Central and Eastern Europe from 2010 to 2019. Source: China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) With the enrichment of travel experience, more natural and historical cultural resources have entered the product manuals of travel agencies and the strategic lists of self guided tourists. The Pamahanon Millennium Monastery and Hot Springs in Hungary, Prague Castle in the Czech Republic, Madame Curie Museum in Poland, St. Elizabeth's Church in Slovakia, and the ancient city of Dubrovnik in Croatia, among others, have a wide range of popularity and reputation among young customers. When young people talk about Modric and the 'Grid Legion', Bohemian style art and cuisine, Hungarian hot springs, they are as familiar as discussing Sisters Who Make Waves, Strawberry Music Festival, Ningbo's seafood, and Yuyao's yellow croaker noodles. With the strengthening of bilateral trade, two-way investment, and cultural exchanges, every country in Central and Eastern Europe that has been seen in film and television works and mentioned by more and more tourists in online comments and guides will be included in the travel plans of Chinese citizens. From the recent online search volume, tourist post volume, and comment volume, it can be seen that niche destinations in Central and Eastern Europe are nurturing a large tourism market. Table 2: The total number of mutual visits between Chinese and Central and Eastern European countries in 2019. Source: China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) As a tourism with a different way of life, it not only attracts tourists with beautiful scenery, but also with a wonderful life on top of it. Looking back at the rapid growth of China's outbound tourism over the past two decades, it has gone through different stages of development, such as group card style tourism with "8 days and 10 countries", group shopping tourism with "buy buy buy buy", and deep experiential tourism with "slow and slow", and is now entering a new stage of personalized and diverse coexistence of "my itinerary is my own" and "deep experience of a better life". The unique natural scenery, historical culture, local customs, and distinctive cuisine of Central and Eastern European countries provide Chinese tourists with rich and diverse personalized choices. Coupled with stable and positive bilateral relations, efficient tourism promotion, and high-quality professional services, Chinese tourists' satisfaction with Central and Eastern European countries is relatively high among the 102 key monitored sample countries. Table 3: Satisfaction and Ranking of Chinese Outbound Tourists to Some Central and Eastern European Countries in 2019. Source: China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) In recent years, the number of inbound tourists from Central and Eastern European countries, especially those related to trade, investment, education, technology, and cultural exchanges, has been steadily increasing. Since 2012, China's trade with Central and Eastern European countries has grown at an average annual rate of 8.1%, and China's imports from Central and Eastern European countries have grown at an average annual rate of 9.2%. As of now, the scale of bilateral investment between China and Central and Eastern European countries is close to 20 billion US dollars. The China Europe freight train is flourishing, with 16000 trains running throughout 2022, a year-on-year increase of 9%. The construction of the China Europe land sea express line is also actively being promoted. Just this week, the Ningbo Budapest regular passenger route operated by China Eastern Airlines officially opened, laying a more favorable foundation for the expansion and quality improvement of the tourism market. We have noticed that scenic spots, cuisine, shopping, hot springs, accommodation, and the beautiful life they carry have become the main influencing factors for Chinese tourists to visit and consume. Agriculture, logistics, trade, and investment are the new driving forces for the continuous growth of tourists from Central and Eastern European countries visiting China. At the same time, we also note that museums, art galleries, theaters, intangible cultural heritage, ethnic culture, and folk customs, as well as the different regional civilizations they carry, still affect the basic elements and underlying logic of international exchange. Since ancient times, the Chinese people have a tradition of reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles. Traveling abroad is especially desirable. The journey of exchanges and mutual learning between different civilizations has brought not only visible consumption and employment growth, but also invisible improvement of living standards and comprehensive quality. Ladies and gentlemen, on May 5, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 epidemic no longer constitutes a "public health emergency of international concern", which means that the world has taken a critical step towards ending the COVID-19 pandemic, and the world tourism industry is entering a new stage of prosperity and development. According to the latest World Tourism Barometer released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization, global tourism reached 235 million in the first quarter of this year, and global tourism has recovered to 80% of pre pandemic levels, while the European region can reach 90% of pre pandemic levels. As the market gradually recovers, we have also noticed that world tourism is facing new challenges. The global tourism supply chain needs to be accelerated for repair, and the recovery speed of tourism resources such as aviation, high-speed rail, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and small transportation cannot keep up with the pace of tourism market recovery. The insufficient supply and uneven development have led to high costs of cross-border travel. The absorption of incremental human capital and the enhancement of existing human capital, especially the return of experienced employees and the training of new entrants, are also practical issues that must be addressed. This requires tourism departments of various countries to accelerate the construction of human resource systems that meet new demands, adapt to new market business models, and establish governance systems for cross-border cooperation. Travel agencies, tour guides, restaurants, cafes, duty-free shops, trains, taxis, and other institutions that directly provide services to tourists are still unable to fully adapt to the new digital and affinity needs of international tourists in terms of language, payment, communication, and other aspects. Chambers of commerce and industry associations in the fields of investment, trade, and services also need to accelerate their pace of innovation in the following areas: building and standardizing a multilingual identification and guidance system for high-frequency tourism scenes and related guide equipment; Improve the financial settlement, departure tax refund, and mobile payment environment for overseas tourists before, during, and after their travels, and enhance the convenience of electronic payments and foreign currency exchange; Improve the convenience of tourists using mobile networks and social media at their destination. Visa, immigration, port, finance, commerce, and taxation departments of various countries need to adopt more open policies to meet the new needs of cross-border tourists for convenience, efficiency, and quality. Enhancing the attention of government departments, public institutions, and various sectors of society to the tourism industry, actively promoting policy coordination and implementation related to personnel mobility, cross-border shopping, and the construction of tourism market entities, establishing intergovernmental tourism work mechanisms, coordinating national tourism agendas and strategic goals, and creating a business environment and policy system more conducive to the high-quality development of the tourism industry are all practical issues that governments around the world need to face and effectively solve. War, terrorist attacks, public health incidents, as well as international relations and domestic policies, such as some countries imposing exit taxes and implementing differential policies for tourists from different countries and regions, have all affected the recovery and sustainable development of the world tourism industry to varying degrees. How to continuously improve the modernization level of the global tourism governance system and governance capacity guided by tourism rights has become a practical issue that the global tourism industry should focus on. To this end, departments such as culture and tourism, diplomacy, immigration, and police should enrich their policy reserves, strengthen cross departmental communication and cross-border cooperation, create more bilateral exchange mechanisms and multilateral dialogue platforms to ensure the safety of international tourists' lives and property, and provide timely and effective judicial and administrative remedies for tourists in health protection, travel rescue, and service complaints. The development of the global tourism industry has never been smooth sailing, but it has always been moving forward. Safeguarding people's tourism rights and promoting comprehensive human development should be the common values and fundamental principles of global tourism development. Governments of various countries, including China and Central and Eastern European countries, especially in the cultural and tourism sectors and the tourism industry, should move towards the same goal and actively assume common but differentiated responsibilities in order to enable humanity to walk more freely on this blue planet. Both tourists and the tourism industry should respect the diversity of world civilizations. During the journey of reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles, communicate and interact more with local residents and enterprise employees, striving to achieve equal dialogue, mutual respect, and mutual tolerance. Whether it is cross-border delivery, natural person movement, or commercial presence, tourists should adhere to the principles of consultation, co construction, co creation and sharing, and use cultural exchanges to transcend cultural barriers, cultural mutual learning to transcend cultural conflicts, and cultural inclusiveness to transcend cultural superiority. Both tourists and the tourism industry should advocate and promote the common values of all humanity. Tourists have the right to share world natural and cultural heritage, experience different cultures and beautiful lives, while local residents also have the right to pursue modernization of economic and social development. The two are mostly consistent, but may also differ in specific time and space. In order to ensure the sustainable development of world tourism, we should have a broad mind to understand the understanding of different civilizations on the value connotation, and deeply understand that peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom are the common pursuit of people of all countries. Both tourists and the tourism industry should promote the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional cultures from various countries in the process of modernization. Cultural heritage is a landmark of civilization evolution, a fundamental resource for tourism development, and a core attraction for tourists to visit. Tourists' visits help people all over the world value traditional culture more. Tourism investment and market innovation inject new momentum into the promotion of excellent traditional civilization. According to World Bank data, the main destinations visited by international tourists are still 80 high-income economies, with over 130 low - and middle-income economies accounting for 27% of international tourist arrivals in 1995 and only 36.6% in 2019. Promoting the flow of tourists from developed countries and regions to developing countries and regions, and advancing the deep integration of culture and tourism in developing countries and regions, should be a priority goal of the world tourism community. Both tourists and the tourism industry should promote people from all over the world to know each other and work together to promote the development and progress of human civilization. Innovate bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms for international tourism, enrich cooperation mechanisms such as the China Central and Eastern European Countries Expo, mutual tourism years, and the Asian Tourism Promotion Program, and exchange market data and industry information in a timely manner. Promote governments around the world to implement more convenient and efficient tourism policies, no longer seeking to maintain a trade surplus in services with any country at any time, but placing safety and quality as more important goals. Tourism is a fundamental right of the people and an enduring way of life for humanity. The people's aspiration for a better tourism life is our goal of struggle. Tourism can bring growth in consumption, investment, and employment to destinations. It can also promote cultural exchange and equal dialogue between different regions, civilizations, and ethnic groups. Tourism can make greater contributions to the prosperity of the world's civilization garden and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. Tourists from all over the world unite and strive for a more civilized, safer, and higher quality new world of tourism!