China working on the Strategic Plan for its Tourism Development for 2011-2015

A high level delegation led by Wu Wenxue, Director-General of Department of Planning and Finance of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) met with the Secretary General Dr. Taleb Rifai at the UNWTO headquarters. The main purpose of this visit is to seek advices and techincal input from UNWTO on China’s 12th Five Years Plan for Tourism.  

During the meeting Dr. Rifai emphasized the sound relationship between UNWTO and China led by the frequent hgih-level exchanges. He shared his insights on the global trends and outlook of the tourism sector and indicated that “in the first eight months of this year, the number of international tourist arrivals exceeded the record achieved during the same period of the pre-crisis year 2008, and international tourist arrivals are projected to increase between 5%-6% in 2010. Despite the obvious recovery led by the economic turn-around, tourism industry also faces diverse challenges such as new tax policy on tourists, currency turbulence, and unemployment issues.     

Wu gave exciting figures of tourism performance of China in 2010. He said “the total number of domestic travel in 2010 is estimated to be 2.12 billion person-times, an increase of 12-13% compared with the previous year. The domestic tourism receipt in the year totalled 1.15 trillion RMB”. Despite the economic difficulty in major source markets such as USA and Europe which dragged the international travel flows, the number of international tourist arrivals to China in 2010 is estimated to amount to 2.5 million with positive increase over the year before.

In order to ensure long term sustainable growth, CNTA is compiling China’s 12th Five Years Plan for Tourism. This plan is currently under review by various concerned government departments, academic institutions, and relevant stakeholders. The interim version of the Plan was passed to UNWTO officials during the meeting for suggestions.

Representatives from different departments of UNWTO shared their opinions and comments on the plan. Xu Jing, Director of Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific, emphasized the importance for China to position tourism development strategically as a means of poverty alleviation. He also stressed that it is the critical time for China to readjust the mode of tourism development from quantity to quality.

The collaboration with China on UNWTO Global Observatories of Sustainable Tourism Scheme and UNWTO Knowledge Network initiative was also discussed.