Tourism and Transportation Advantage

In this section we are going to talk about the advantages brought by the Belt and Road initiative in terms of tourism and transportation. The first transpiration advantage is the international flights. Every week there are 4200 direct flights connecting China with 43 countries of One Belt and One Road. The second traffic advantage is trains. China and related countries have opened 356 international passenger and cargo transportation routes. The third traffic advantage is sea transpiration. Sea transport services have covered all countries along the One Belt and One Road.

According to the data provided by the previous National Tourism Administration, China has concluded various visa-free agreements with 46 countries and regions along the belt and road of One Belt and One Road, and 19 countries and regions along the belt and road have facilitated the arrival visa for Chinese citizens. Now let’s look at the tourism cooperation platform for OBAOR. At present, many tourism cooperative platforms are available for One Belt and One Road. Some of these are the 9th APEC Tourism Ministers Meeting held in 2016.

The theme was “Strengthening Interconnection and Promoting Asia-Pacific Tourism Cooperation”. In May 2017 the world-renowned OBAOR International Cooperation Summit Forum was successfully held in Beijing. In June 2017, the second China-Russia-Mongolia Tourism Ministers’ Meeting was successfully held in Germany.

In September 2017, the OBAOR Round Table Meeting of National Tourism Ministers was organized in Chengdu, China.

In May 2018, the Tourism Minister from the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization participated in the SCO Tourism Cooperation Seminar. Again In May 2018, China International Tourism City Mayor Forum was held in Zhengzhou within China.

All these platforms has further facilitated the development of OBAOR initiative.

Now let’s look at the tourism marketing campaigns of OBAOR.

From 2015 to 2017, the theme of Beautiful China-Silk Road Tourism Year was launched as a global promotional campaign. Later on, a number of tourism years have been organized with countries and regions along the OBAOR.

OBAOR also strengthen cultural exchange and enhanced tourism brand of Silk Road. Now let’s see what’s about tourism planning of OBAOR. Since China put forward the OBAOR initiative, the national tourism department has launched a series of implementation measures for this purpose.

Strategic planning of the cooperation in the tourism development of the silk road economic belt and the 21st century maritime silk road was made in December 2014.

The 13th Five-Year Plan for tourism development was raised in December 2016. It proposes to establish a One Belt and One Road meeting mechanism for tourism ministers from countries and regions.

In June 2017, the general administration of sport and the previous National Tourism Administration jointly formulated the One Belt and One Road action plan of sports and tourism development under the One Belt and One Road initiative.

Now let’s summarize what we have covered so far.

China’s OBAOR initiative is important for sustainable growth of the tourism industry, and also for the transformation of inbound, outbound and domestic tourism in China.

Thank you for being with me on this session.