This undated photo shows overseas tourists watching a fountain display featuring metal dragons at Chishan Scenic Area in Rongcheng, Shandong province. (LI XINJUN / FOR CHINA DAILY)
Tourism industry veterans on Tuesday called for greater efforts to expand the China's inbound tourism market while emphasizing the need to promote environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) practices to ensure sustainable development.
They made the remarks at the 2023 Trip.com Group Global Partner Summit, which was held in Singapore.
China witnessed a strong tourism rebound in the first half of the year, following the removal of its COVID-19 restrictions, which has shown a “wonderful story” of recovery to the world, said Jane Sun, chief executive officer of leading online travel agency Trip.com Group.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, issued 30 measures in late September to boost tourism, which covered those aimed at attracting more foreigners to visit the country. The measures included improving services for international travelers, enhancing visa processing efficiency, and increasing the number of international flights
Apart from that, “we are excited to find that inbound tourism is being accorded greater importance in the country from political, business and academic sides”, opening up a large room for imagination for its growth, she said.
According to the World Tourism Organization, international tourist arrivals reached 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels worldwide in the first quarter of this year. The figure for the Asia-Pacific region, however, was lower, at 54 percent.
Another set of data show that contribution of inbound tourism to the Chinese economy was much lower than that in many other countries. International tourism took up roughly 12 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product in 2019, while 7 percent of Spain’s economic output was generated by the segment in the same year.
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Meanwhile, revenue from foreign tourist arrivals only accounted for 0.5 percent of China’s GDP in 2019. “There is huge potential for growth of inbound tourism in the Chinese market. If we could raise that percentage to 1.5, then it will bring in at least 1.3 trillion yuan ($177.8 billion),” Sun said.
She identified some obstacles that have hindered its growth, including visa application issues, digital payment difficulties, and language barriers, but noted that “we have seen that relevant departments are taking actions to address the problems, for example, launching optimized visa policies.”
The State Council, China’s cabinet, issued 30 measures in late September to boost tourism, which covered those aimed at attracting more foreigners to visit the country. The measures included improving services for international travelers, enhancing visa processing efficiency, and increasing the number of international flights.
Zhang Rungang, vice president and secretary general of China Tourism Association, said Chinese tourism has already become an important force in the global tourism industry and continues to show promising prospect for development.
READ MORE: Efforts urged to boost inbound tourism market
He highlighted the importance of achieving higher-quality tourism development by deepening integration between culture and tourism, accelerating digital transformation, enhancing low-carbon practices and fostering international exchanges and collaboration.
James Liang, co-founder and chairman of the board at Trip.com Group, believes promoting practices is key to the industry’s sustainable development.
He said the company will continue to innovate from the ESG perspective by introducing quantitative low-carbon standards for hotels. Those with low-carbon accreditation will have wider exposure and more traffic on the company’s online platform.
“We will pour more capital and resources to popularize low-carbon hotels to help the industry achieve the 2030 carbon peaking and the Paris Agreement goals,” he said.
