A Dong: Jilin revitalizes tourism industry with three major moves

China.org.cn, 05 29, 2020
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A Dong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and deputy governor of Jilin province, introduced the northeastern province's efforts to revive its cultural and tourism industry from the COVID-19 outbreak when taking an interview with Xinhuanet during this year's two sessions.

Reviving the cultural and tourism industry is an important means to stabilize employment, ensure people's wellbeing, stimulate consumption, energize the market, and achieve stable growth, said A.

Jilin will seek to revive its cultural and tourism industry through efforts in three aspects, according to A.

First, Jilin will support cultural and tourism businesses to resume operation while preventing and controlling the COVID-19 epidemic on an ongoing basis. The government will evaluate the impact of the epidemic and instruct cultural and tourism businesses to adopt standard prevention and control measures. A differentiated approach will be adopted, instead of a"one size fits all" approach. In low-risk areas, tourists will be allowed to travel across provinces. For businesses facing difficulties, the government will ease their burden and reduce their operation cost to boost market confidence. Jilin has now started to warm up for its summer tourism boom.

Second, Jilin will continue to promote cultural and tourism products that are characteristic of Jilin, such as summer tours, ice and snow tours, health tours, cultural tours, sports tours and cross-border tours. Jilin is now vigorously promoting its"Cool Summer" and"Ice and Snow Winter" brands. It will support OTAs registered and operating locally to roll out and market new cost-effective products by integrating various tourism resources like accommodation, dining, shopping and scenic areas.

Third, Jilin will strive to make its cultural and tourism products more appealing. Jilin will work with famous tourism enterprises to develop new IPs that tap on local tourism resources and are creative and individualized. It is hoped that the new IPs will help make local tourism destinations a lot more popular and drive the whole tourism industry chain. The province will also leverage the strength of the general aviation industry to develop air tours, aerial photography, competitive sports, and flight training. Ii will encourage scenic areas and indoor cultural sites to improve functions and offer services of better quality. The government will streamline its services and open "green channels" and"fast channels" and mobilize financial institutes to develop new credit products and customized financing solutions.

Speaking of Changbai Mountain in the interview, A described the tourism destination as a golden brand of Jilin's tourism industry.

To achieve sustainability, Changbai Mountain must seek high-quality development, A said, which includes bringing out the potential of its ecological resources and developing more cultural products.  

A also recognized the role of Cloud Tourism in promoting tourism resources and introduced Jilin's efforts in digitalizing its tourism industry amid the epidemic.

A believed that after the epidemic, new business forms will see rapid growth, including cultural tours, rural homestay tours, leisure tours, ecological tours, urban shopping tours, industrial heritage tours, study tours, red tours, heath tours and self-driving tours.

Going forward, Jilin will fully seize the opportunities brought by the ongoing Northeast China revitalization, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and the integration of cultural and tourism sectors, said A, listing the five major tasks as developing integrated tourism, building Jilin into a four-season destination, boosting the ice and snow economy, prioritizing tourism development in eastern, central and western Jilin each with different focuses, and beefing up marketing.