The 7th Western China Tourism Industry Expo (WTE) & 2021 Chongqing International Culture & Tourism Industry Expo (CICTIE) will be held at the Chongqing International Expo Center from June 11 to 14. Attendees include over 10 foreign agencies and international organizations in China and thousands of exhibitors from nearly 30 provinces (municipalities) of the country. They will showcase their strengths and the charm of culture and tourism.
Cultural products on the exhibition, photo provided to iChongqing
The event is expected to unveil the booming culture and tourism industry in Chongqing and western China. But, then, how does Chongqing accelerate its improvement of the modern culture and tourism industry system? Zhu Mao, Deputy Director of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Culture and Tourism Development, accepted the interview.
Two exhibitions
Zhu said: "It's the first time for the WTE and CICTIE to be jointly held. However, this does not mean that we just combine the themes of the two exhibitions. We actually devote to stimulating regional cooperation and development, exploring cultural connotation, and cultivating new types of business, following the principle of incorporating everything possible in the event. Adhering to the government leadership, market-oriented operation, and enterprise participation, we would like to help the event play a greater role."
Districts and counties of Chongqing bring their products to the venue, showing beautiful mountains and rivers and splendid cultures in the city. "This event is far more than a platform to promote and exhibit the prosperity in Chongqing's culture and tourism industry, but a window to highlight the city's efforts to develop the industry and fruits harvested during the process," said Zhu.
Craftsman of wood engraving on exhibition hall during CIICE and WTE, photo provided to iChongqing
Being quality-centered
Zhu noted: "To demonstrate new progress in the building of a new development pattern, industries are the foundation and projects the lever. Mistakes in identifying the two will result in the dysfunction of development engines and hardly-seen upgrade of development effects."
Standing at the new development stage, Chongqing has been putting into practice the new development philosophy and building a new development pattern. Helped by improving the quality of comprehensive cultural tourism and that of the cultural tourism development, the city, has advanced the construction of the modern culture & tourism industry at a faster pace.
Guest speakers from the county and other provinces shared their insights on cultural and tourism development, photo provided to iChongqing
First, Chongqing tries to play a great part in implementing major strategies and continuous building development platforms. For example, it thoroughly studied the Bashu Cultural Tourism Corridor industrial sector and, along with Sichuan, put forward to develop ten special industrial clusters and competitive brands. Besides, the city promoted the inclusion of "Bashu Archaeology" and "Xinanyi (Southwestern Barbarians) Archaeology" in the National Cultural Heritage Administration's "China in Archaeology" project; participated in the construction of Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet Area Red Army Culture Park.
Chongqing catalyzed the coordinated development of "One Area and Two Clusters." It will intensify the efforts in the culture and tourism integration enhancement project along the "Two Rivers and Four Riversides," strive to create a cluster of scenic spots and a cluster of tourist resorts along the Three Gorges Golden Waterway of the Yangtze River, improve the tourism quality of cruises along the Yangtze River, sightseeing and adventures along canyons, relaxing vacations around lakes, ecological healthcare in mountains and folklore experience in the primitive countryside of the Three Gorges. Moreover, it will center on the three themes of Wujiang Gallery, Wuling Scenery, and ecological healthcare to pool resources for, refine, upgrade and beautify the new benchmark of culture and tourism integration in southeast Chongqing.
The city will keep giving full play to the roles of culture, countryside, hot springs, the Three Gorges, and the reputation as the Mountain City. Efforts will be made to improve an array of influential premium scenic spots and resorts and build a number of municipal- and national-level resorts, national 5A tourist attractions, national all-for-one tourism demonstration areas, as well as large cultural tourism complexes.
Second, the city will increase efforts to attract investment and accelerate the implementation of major projects. According to high standards, it will plan investment promotion projects, facilitate such featured cultural tourism projects as the 3,000-year cultural tourism town, the ancient capital of Ba State, and Phoenix Mountain Village to improve the standards of preliminary planning for successful investment attraction.
Finally, more efforts will be made in both supply and demand to stimulate cultural tourism consumption effectively. We held the 5th Chongqing Cultural and Tourism Consumption Promotional Season and have gradually developed a long-term mechanism of fiscal subsidies by governments, resource allocation on platforms, and discounts by enterprises. As a result, Chongqing has topped the Western Cultural Consumption Index list for two straight years.
Data show that in 2020, the city implemented 72 municipal-level major cultural tourism projects with a cumulative investment of 16.7 billion yuan, which injected strong impetus into the subsequent development of the cultural tourism industry. "Moreover, through continuous transformation and upgrading, the cultural tourism industry in the city has gradually stepped onto the blue ocean market with broad prospects and high profits," said Zhu.
Develop comprehensive cultural tourism
"We will embark on a new journey as there are better opportunities, even better environment, and stronger momentum for high-quality development. Therefore, we should work hard and forge ahead in an innovative and enterprising spirit so as to well carry out the projects, expand and strengthen the industry, and further revitalize the regional cultural tourism economy," said Zhu.
Next, the city will leverage the growth driver of reform and innovation and focus on developing comprehensive cultural tourism to improve the quality and advancing culture and tourism integration to facilitate industrialization to push forward with the integrated high-quality development of culture and tourism and continuously meet the people's ever-growing needs for a better life.
Chongqing will vigorously develop such business forms as hot spring healthcare, relaxing vacation, and tourism homestay, implement the project of cultivating leading cultural tourism enterprises, encourage the development of such industries as animation, games, and e-sports and create local IPs; foster a number of key film and television bases, drive the development of the whole industry chain of film and television production, innovate digital cultural consumption scenarios, and facilitate the development of digital cultural industry platforms such as Chongqing cultural tourism on cloud and smart book town.
In addition, investment attraction serves as the first battlefield of economic work and provides important support to high-quality development. Therefore, the city will prioritize investment attraction to promote the development of the cultural tourism industry, strengthen the development of mechanisms, platforms, and teams, innovatively adopt the "eight models" of cultural tourism investment attraction with Chongqing's characteristics, and speed up the integrated development of culture and tourism.
"By 2025, we will strive to build Chongqing into a world-renowned tourist destination and a city with a strong culture that features distinctive urban charms, rich products, and business forms, fully-fledged services, safe and friendly environments, as well as energetic market entities," added Zhu.