Chongqing and Australia Sign MoU on Culture and Tourism

Chongqing - On February 3, the final of the "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition was held at Chongqing Window of International Culture and Tourism. At the event, the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Culture and Tourism Development, the Australian Consulate General in Chengdu, and Tourism Australia officially signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the Promotion of Culture and Tourism.

Adelle Neary, Consul General of the Australian Consulate General in Chengdu, and Andrew Hogg, Executive General Manager for Eastern Markets and Aviation at Tourism Australia, shared their insights about the further potential cooperation between Australia and Chongqing.

Qin Dingbo, Deputy Director of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Culture and Tourism Development, said in his speech that with rich culture and tourism resources, Chongqing and Australia are highly complementary and important tourist destinations tourist sources for each other. The "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition presented their abundant and distinctive culture and tourism resources. The memorandum will surely usher in a new stage of cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation between Chongqing and Australia and add a glorious chapter to their friendship.

Mr. Andrew Hogg, Executive General Manager for Eastern Markets and Aviation at Tourism Australia, said that Tourism Australia had been actively trying to maintain communication with the Chinese market and inspire Chinese tourists to travel to Australia. The "Chongqing Meets Australia" offers a valuable opportunity for China-Australia cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation. Through this competition, more Chongqing citizens will better understand Australia.

Adelle Neary, Consul General of the Australian Consulate General in Chengdu, said that the cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation between Chongqing and Australia have ushered in a new year full of possibilities. Under the framework of the MoU, the two sides will jointly develop their cultural and tourism relations. The Australian Consulate General in Chengdu will continue supporting events such as "Chongqing Meets Australia" in the next few years.

After the speeches, the final officially kicked off. After two rounds of fierce competition, Chen Xinyu, Wang Yule, and Zhang Xinyue won the championship and the second and third places, together with generous prizes from Tourism Australia and Dazu District Commission of Culture and Tourism Development, Chongqing. The rest were commended as outstanding contestants.

From the audition to the final, the "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition has attracted great attention from the people of Chongqing and Australia. Nearly 1,000 teenagers from 44 primary and secondary schools in Chengdu and Chongqing signed up for the competition. A special column was set up on the official Chinese website of Tourism Australia. More than 20 mainstream media continuously reported the event in Chongqing and Australia. Before the final, it was exposed more than 1 million times in the media.

Compared with regular English speech contests, the "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition has specially added theme promotion meetings, field promotions in districts and counties, and diplomats' visits to districts and counties. Featuring international culture and tourism, the event aims to help teenagers become friendly envoys for cultural exchanges and build a new bridge for strengthening people-to-people exchanges and promoting cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation between Chongqing and Australia.

Chongqing and Australia have a long history of friendly exchanges. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Australia set up a legation at Chongqing Eling Park, the country's first in China, and became an important symbol of the friendly exchanges between Chongqing and Australia. People-to-people exchanges between Chongqing and Australia have become increasingly close in recent years. In 2013 and 2017, Chongqing opened direct flights to Sydney and Melbourne. In 2018, Chongqing established the "Chongqing Culture and Tourism Promotion Center in Sydney" in Australia. In 2019, the "Beautiful China-A Land of Natural Beauty, A City with Cultural Appeal" Chongqing Tourism Promotion Conference was held in Brisbane. Nearly 80,000 Australian tourists traveled to Chongqing that year. In 2022, Chongqing and Australia jointly held the Australian Indigenous Art Exhibition and the "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition to boost all-around cooperation in culture and tourism. 

The competition attracted young people from Chengdu and Chongqing to actively participate in cultural and tourism exchanges between Chongqing and Australia and brought new opportunities for deepening cultural and tourism exchanges and mutual learning between Chongqing and Australia and collaborative culture and tourism promotion of Sichuan and Chongqing. 

The MoU puts forward new ideas, plans new measures, and makes further explorations, accelerating new prospects for cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation between Chongqing and Australia. The success of the final of the "Chongqing Meets Australia" Youth Promotion Officer Competition and the signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding on culture and tourism between Chongqing and Australia signals a good start for the cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation between Chongqing and Australia in 2023. It is also a concrete action of the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Culture and Tourism Development to take the "construction of Bashu Cultural Tourism Corridor" as the general starting point, build the Sichuan-Chongqing integrated publicity and promotion platform, and expand the domestic and foreign cultural and tourism market together with Sichuan.

(Zhou Wanting, as an intern, also contributed to the report.)