2023.05.05
On April 26-27, 2023 local time, at the invitation of the APEC Secretariat, Liu Shijun, Vice Chair and Secretary-General of the World Tourism Alliance (WTA), led a delegation to the 61st APEC Tourism Working Group (TWG) meeting held in Iloilo, Philippines.
APEC is now the only intergovernmental cooperation organization in the Asia-Pacific region, and the most wide-ranging and influential economic cooperation mechanism with the highest-level participation in the region. Currently, APEC has 21 member economies and 3 observers. As a specialized mechanism under the APEC Senior Officials Meeting, APEC TWG meetings are held twice a year, one by the rotating economy of the year and the other by another APEC economy on a voluntary basis. The 61th TWG meeting was hosted by the Philippine Department of Tourism and included 12 agenda items. In addition to the regular items such as briefing on the operation of APEC-funded projects, feasible initiatives of the working group on the implementation of policy documents, and discussion of the APEC Tourism Strategic Plan (2020-2024), the meeting also organized panel discussions on two priority areas of the TWG’s 2023 work plan, i.e. safe resumption of cross-border travel and sustainable tourism development.
On behalf of WTA, Liu Shijun delivered a presentation on agenda item 7 of the meeting, and shared his thoughts on the important role of tourism in fighting global poverty and promoting rural development from the perspective of social and economic sustainability. He said that under the guidance of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, WTA has actively explored feasible ways for tourism to contribute to poverty reduction, rural revitalization and common prosperity by drawing experience from China’s practice. By collecting and publishing tourism cases worldwide, the WTA aims to showcase the economic values of tourism in promoting circular growth, balancing income disparities between regions and boosting employment, as well as highlighting the huge potential of tourism in promoting mutual understanding and trust, building harmonious communities and families, and ensuring equitable development opportunities for underrepresented groups. Liu Shijun introduced to the participants four models of tourism-enabled poverty reduction and rural revitalization, which were established based on the analysis and study of over 200 best practices collected and published by WTA over the past five years. The introduction received positive responses from the audience. In the subsequent discussion on agenda item 10, Liu Shijun briefed the participants on the development of WTA itself as an invited speaker. On behalf of WTA, he thanked the APEC Secretariat for the invitation and expressed the desire to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with relevant members under the APEC framework and jointly promote the inclusive and sustainable development of world tourism.
Seventeen APEC member economies including Australia, China, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam as well as four guest participants including Macau (China), International Air Transport Association (IATA), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and World Tourism Alliance attended the two-day meeting on-site or online. Li Changlin, Director of the WTA General Administration Division, and Zhao Ke, Director of the WTA Liaison Office in Beijing, attended the meeting in the Philippines as members of the WTA delegation.