Du Jiang's Speech at the 2023 China Tourism Science Annual Conference

On the morning of April 23rd, the 2023 China Tourism Science Annual Conference was held in Beijing. The theme of this year's conference is "Strengthening the Construction of the 'Three Major Systems' and Promoting the Deep Integration of Culture and Tourism". Du Jiang, member of the Party Group and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, delivered a speech with the following main contents.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the China Tourism Research Institute and the 14th anniversary of the founding of the China Tourism Science Annual Conference. Over the years, the China Tourism Research Institute and the national tourism academic community have achieved fruitful results in academic research, theoretical construction, and data processing around the center and serving the overall situation. Talent cultivation and team building have also made significant progress. We look forward to your greater achievements in the new era and new journey.

The theme of this year's China Tourism Science Annual Conference is "Accelerating the Construction of Tourism Discipline System, Academic System, and Discourse System, Promoting the Deep Integration of Culture and Tourism Development". It is a specific measure to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It is hoped that through discussions and exchanges, a batch of high-level and systematic theoretical achievements will be formed to better promote the high-quality development of the tourism industry. Taking this opportunity, I would like to share three opinions. 1、 Guided by Chinese path to modernization, building a new era tourism discipline system Tourism academia has been concerned about and studying the construction of tourism discipline since the 1980s. The tourism industry has undergone earth shaking changes in terms of industrial scale, industrial structure, development environment and governance system. The construction of tourism discipline also needs to adapt to the changes in the external environment and internal conditions, focus more academic resources and research forces on theoretical construction, respond to major practical problems in tourism development in the process of Chinese path to modernization with a high sense of political responsibility and high-level professional ability, adhere to moving from practice to practice, and construct new theories for a new era in the same practice. The tourism industry has strong economic attributes and a high degree of marketization, as well as strong social attributes. It plays an irreplaceable positive role in improving people's living standards, enhancing national quality, and promoting common prosperity in both material and spiritual aspects. The basic task of disciplinary construction, such as determining the nature of tourism activities and tourism industry, defining their connotations and extensions, establishing specialized and systematic concepts, categories, and propositions to reveal the essence and laws of tourism activities and tourism industry, is more complex and arduous. Whether it is the continuous expansion of the extension of the tourism industry, the continuous enrichment of the connotation of the tourism industry, the phased transition of industrial functions, or the innovative development of supporting basic disciplines, all require us to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct the system structure of traditional tourism disciplines, and constantly innovate and adjust the disciplinary spectrum structure of tourism studies. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that "from now on, the central task of the CPC is to unite and lead the people of all ethnic groups across the country to build a strong socialist modernization country in an all-round way, achieve the second centennial goal, and comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese path to modernization." Chinese path to modernization is the strategic guidance and work guide for the comprehensive development of mass tourism, the integrated development of culture and tourism, and the construction of the modern tourism industry system. It is also an inevitable requirement and new driving force for the construction of the tourism discipline system, academic system, and discourse system. The construction of tourism discipline should be based on the support of existing disciplines such as economics, geography, management and history, keep pace with the times, and continue to inject knowledge reserves and professional support such as informatics, environmental science, sociology, communication and education that can carry the construction of modern industrial system and the comprehensive functions of tourism, promote the integration of culture and tourism with discipline integration, and help Chinese path to modernization with new thinking of tourism. 2、 Supported by practical logic and value rationality, the construction of a tourism academic system with Chinese characteristics has been carried out since the 1980s. With the continuous efforts of generations of tourism scholars, China's tourism research has gone through stages of introduction, application, and conscious theoretical construction, and has initially formed a number of achievements that support industrial practice and tourism education, laying the foundation for the construction of a tourism academic system with Chinese characteristics. From the perspective of research foundation, there are over a thousand tourism universities and research institutes, as well as more than ten thousand middle and senior level teaching and research personnel in China, producing a large number of academic achievements every year. As of now, there are over 760000 articles on tourism related topics on China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), with over 45000 articles published in 2022 alone. These theoretical research achievements have become a solid foundation for the construction of China's characteristic tourism academic system. From the current situation of the industry, the comprehensive contribution of the tourism industry to China's GDP in 2019 reached 10.94 trillion yuan, accounting for 11.05% of the total GDP. There are currently over 45000 travel agencies, more than 8300 star rated tourist hotels, over 14600 A-level tourist attractions, as well as continuously growing tourist resorts, nighttime cultural and tourism consumption gathering areas, tourism and leisure cities, and neighborhoods. With the recovery of the tourism market and the comprehensive acceleration of industrial revitalization, more factors and momentum are accumulating, and more business formats are being created. The development of tourism and related industries provides fertile soil for the construction of the theoretical system of Chinese characteristic tourism, and provides solid support for the positive interaction between academic system construction and industrial innovation. From the perspective of construction achievements, the interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary tourism discipline system centered on tourism management is constantly improving. In recent years, in addition to the traditional tourism management and hotel management majors, there are also six tourism majors, including sports tourism, tourism geology and planning engineering, exhibition economy and management, and tourism management and service education, in the undergraduate major directory of ordinary colleges and universities. These majors involve three disciplines: management, education, and engineering. The expansion of majors has solidified the disciplinary foundation of tourism theory research, broadened the disciplinary perspective, and responded to the needs of industrial practice. On the one hand, the construction of a tourism academic system with Chinese characteristics should adhere to the practicality of research. The practicality of tourism discipline is strong, and academic research must be oriented towards practice, adhering to the unity of problem orientation and goal orientation. In the past, China's tourism development theory and academic research paradigm were mainly introduced from developed countries in Europe and America. With the deepening development of mass tourism and the comprehensive integration of the tourism industry into the national strategic system, tourism academic research and theoretical construction should be rooted in contemporary China's tourism development practice, dare to propose and be good at proposing concepts, propositions, and theories based on Chinese experience, and contribute Chinese wisdom to the innovation of world tourism academia. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out the need to promote the deep integration of culture and tourism development. The "14th Five Year Plan for Cultural and Tourism Development" proposes to build a modern tourism industry system, a modern cultural and tourism market system, a system for cultural exchange and tourism promotion with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, as well as the development of mass tourism, smart tourism, green tourism, and civilized tourism. These issues are the focus of industrial practice and tourism work, as well as the innovation of tourism theory with Chinese characteristics and the task of tourism academic research. On the other hand, the construction of a tourism academic system with Chinese characteristics should adhere to the scientific nature of research. To adhere to the scientific nature of tourism research, we must adhere to the objectivity and progressiveness of research. Tourism research should be based on practice to discover real problems, engage in real knowledge, and reveal objective laws of development. Tourism research should adhere to the standardization and progressiveness of methods. Both the proposal of innovative ideas and the countermeasures and suggestions of applied research should have solid theoretical support. 3、 Guided by the principles of populism and openness, the construction of a Chinese characteristic tourism discourse system must and should be guided by the principle of populism. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "the people's nature is the essential attribute of Marxism. The Party's theory is the theory that comes from the people, for the people, and for the benefit of the people. The people's creative practice is the inexhaustible source of theoretical innovation." The people's standard runs through the whole process of the CPC leading the Chinese people to create a better life and build a harmonious society, highlighting the core value of China's social construction and social governance. People's nature actually includes the sinicization, popularization, and modernization of tourism development theory. In the new stage of comprehensive development of mass tourism, only by "speaking for the people", promoting the practice of the tourism industry through tourism theory construction and disciplinary development, promoting the wider realization of national tourism rights, and continuously providing high-quality tourism products and services to the people, can we truly promote the popularization and realization of people's tourism rights, and tourism development can better meet people's aspirations for a better life. Tourism scholars should also make good use of inbound and outbound tourism to tell the story of China, use world-class tourist attractions and resorts, national tourist cities and districts, and make good use of the achievements of national cultural park construction to showcase a beautiful China, contribute to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, and provide tourism solutions. The comprehensiveness of the tourism industry and the practicality of tourism research determine the openness of the tourism discourse system. The disciplinary system, academic system, and discourse system are inseparable. In terms of tourism, the academic system reveals the essence and laws of tourism activities and the development of the tourism industry, while the tourism discourse system is the manifestation and language carrier of the academic system. In the same disciplinary field, the relationship between academic systems and discourse systems can also present complex situations between different systems and schools of thought. The focus and difficulty of the current construction of tourism discourse system still lie in the lack of subjectivity and originality in tourism academic discourse, relatively insufficient accumulation of independent knowledge, and the construction of systematic disciplinary theories and conceptual foundations. The tourism research paradigm and theoretical system, education system and discourse system of the United States and Europe still dominate. Tourism studies have undergone cross disciplinary integration with different disciplines such as geography, history, economics, management, and sports. However, there is still a lack of standardized and stable research paradigms, methods, and tools. Research groups from different disciplinary backgrounds also have different academic expressions and discourse constructions, which is a practical problem facing the construction of academic discourse systems. Therefore, we need to have a broader mindset and vision, absorb classic theories, contemporary knowledge, and their discourse expressions from philosophy, social sciences, humanities and arts, nature, and engineering fields, in order to continuously enrich the practical tourism discourse system. The construction of the discipline system, academic system and discourse system of tourism with Chinese characteristics in the new era needs to be based on the era mission and development requirements entrusted to tourism by the construction of Chinese path to modernization. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism will work with education and related industry departments to actively promote the construction of tourism disciplines and the cultivation of professional talents that meet the needs of industrial development. We will continue to promote new platforms for tourism theory innovation and technology research and development, such as cultural and tourism industry think tanks and key laboratories of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. We will continue to carry out special work such as recommending cultural and tourism innovation achievements, initiating macro decision-making projects for culture and tourism, and selecting outstanding achievements. We will work together to promote the construction of the new era tourism discipline system, academic system, and discourse system, promote the deep integration of culture and tourism, and advance the construction of the modern tourism industry system and high-quality development of the tourism industry.