戴斌 | 中美旅游交流的愿景与行动——在第14届中美旅游高层对话上的主旨发言

- Keynote Speech at the 14th China-US Tourism High-level Dialogue

I. 2016: Period of growth followed by stagnation

In 2007, China and the United States signed cooperation documents such as the "Initiative to Build the 'China-U.S. Strategic Cooperation Framework on Tourism'", jointly initiating the China-U.S. High-Level Dialogue on Tourism. The next year the two governments signed the Approved Destination Status (ADS) agreement, paving the way for organized group tours of Chinese citizens to the United States.

The mutual trust in politics, economic cooperation, and friendly atmosphere between China and the United States have significantly boosted two-way tourism demand and strengthened industrial partnerships. In 2014, both nations reached a bilateral agreement to issue 10-year valid visas to each other's business and tourist travel. That year, the number of Chinese citizens selecting the United States as their primary tourist destination exceeded 2 million for the first time, surpassing the count of American visitors to China.

In 2015, during President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States, China and the U.S. jointly declared 2016 as the "China-U.S. Tourism Year." This initiative led to over a hundred tourism exchange activities, significantly boosting tourism interactions between the two nations. By 2016, the number of tourists traveling between the countries surpassed 5 million. For the first time, over 3 million Chinese tourists visited the U.S., spending more than $30 billion on tourism.

Looking back, we deeply understand that without the guidance of the leaders from both countries, high-level visits, political mutual trust, and industry interaction, sustainable tourism exchange and high-quality tourism development would not have been possible; the frequent interaction among the people and within the tourism industry has effectively promoted people-to-people and cultural exchanges and mutual learning between our two countries.

II 2024: Building Confidence and Restoring Supply Chains

In November 2023, President Xi Jinping attended and delivered a speech at the United States Friendly Groups Welcome Banquet in San Francisco. We will invite 50,000 American young people to visit China over the next five years. The joint efforts of both countries' leaders, governmental support, and the interactions among young individuals have laid a robust foundation for the stable and growing cultural exchanges between China and the United States, boosting confidence in the growth of China-U.S. tourism cooperation.

Chinese tourists visiting the United States have consistently expressed high satisfaction, with ratings consistently above 80%. Similarly, American tourists visiting China have also expressed high satisfaction. On March 28 of this year, representatives from Lincoln High School where President Xi Jinping visited, left with cherished memories: "The Forbidden City is immense! We walked through its vast expanse. I captured images of many girls dressed in beautiful traditional attire," Both China and the United States play crucial roles as significant source markets, popular tourist destinations, and key industry collaborators for each other. This relationship presents vast opportunities for growth in various sectors such as tourism investments, travel services, group receptions, accommodation brands, and retail partnerships. With the end of pandemic, Chinese travelers are swiftly resumed visiting the U.S., by 2023, the United States regained its position as the top choice for long-haul travel among Chinese tourists.

While maintaining a positive outlook for the future, we recognize the impact of insufficient aviation capacity on the recovery of the tourism supply chain, as well as the influence of restrictive travel policies on the destination choices of tourists from both countries. In 2019, there were 300 direct flights between China and the United States every week, but now there are less than 100. The tourism industry is still trying to recall employees lost in the three years of the pandemic, which also directly affects the orderly recovery of the supply chain. It is concerning that due to negative news online about visas, customs, immigration, security, and other issues, some Chinese tourists have given up their plans to visit the United States in recent years. Influenced by the U.S. State Department's Travel Advisory for the Chinese mainland, categorized as “Level 3: Reconsider Travel”, the previously high satisfaction of American tourists to China has begun to fluctuate, and the number of American tourists choosing other Asian countries as long-haul tourist destinations has increased.

III. 2035: Work together towards a shared vision

Looking to the future, let's negotiate with each other and foster a new concept of tourism exchange and cooperation between China and the United States. China is entering a new cycle of prosperity and development. During the five-day Labor Day holiday this year, 295 million domestic trips were made, generating tourist spending of 166.89 billion yuan in total, an increase of 28.2% and 13.5% over the same period in 2019 respectively. There were 1.775 million inbound tourists and 1.897 million outbound tourists, close to the level of the same period in 2019. On the 17th of this month, the National Tourism Development Conference was held in Beijing. President Xi Jinping stressed that it is necessary to speed up the development of China as a world powerhouse in tourism, so that tourism can better serve a better life, promote economic development, build a spiritual home, showcase China's image and enhance mutual learning among civilizations.

Based on the present, we aim to jointly establish new goals for tourism exchange and cooperation between China and the United States. Tourism not only holds economic and market value but also serves as a messenger of peace and a bridge of friendship. To promote the continuous increase in tourist visits between China and the United States and the steady improvement in service quality should and can become the common goal among all sectors of government, business, academia and research, which requires our joint efforts. To achieve this, it is necessary to pragmatically promote tourism, implement more convenient visa policies, continuously expand direct flight quotas, deepen cooperation and exchanges between tourism investment institutions and market entities. Furthermore, we should promote exchanges between the tourism industries, education institutions, and think tanks of the two countries.

Collaborate with various sectors toward new achievements in tourism exchange and cooperation between China and the United States. Activities in China carried out by Brand USA and industry organizations, key states and cities such as Hawaii, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, market entities such as United Airlines, American Express, VISA, Hilton, Disney, and Universal, will be supported. Efforts to promote tourism, including signing tourism cooperation agreements between cities, provinces and states, and industry organizations of China and the United States, by "Hello！China", the China Tourism Association, and key cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, etc, will be supported. Efforts to expand the market in the United States by Chinese tourism and aviation enterprises will be supported.