WTA Chair ZHANG Xu Attends the Opening of the 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference and Cultural Tourism Promotion Event

(Yueyang, China) — On the evening of May 25, the 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference officially opened in Yueyang, Hunan Province. The opening ceremony, which included a cultural tourism promotion event, was attended by prominent government officials. Mr. SHEN Xiaoming, Secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Party Committee, declared the conference open, while Mr. MAO Weiming, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Hunan, chaired the session. Also present was Mr. MAO Wanchun, Chairman of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), along with Mr. ZHANG Xu, Chair of the World Tourism Alliance (WTA), who delivered the keynote address.

In his speech, Mr. ZHANG Xu noted that in recent years, Hunan has deepened its "Conference to Revitalize the City" strategy, with tourism emerging as a powerful engine driving the high-quality development of the economy and society. He highlighted that Hunan’s development path has provided a "Hunan Model" for the cultural tourism transformation of inland provinces. Currently, with the goal of becoming a world tourism destination by 2035, Hunan is advancing its efforts by focusing on creating five distinct tourism "pillars" and cultivating new cultural and tourism production capacities. This is driving Hunan’s transition from a traffic-based economy to a value-based economy. Mr. ZHANG reaffirmed the WTA’s ongoing commitment to strengthening cooperation with Hunan, with the goal of utilizing the WTA’s platform advantages to help Hunan establish an "international cultural tourism interchange bridge" and support its efforts to establish Hunan as a "world-class tourism destination".

The conference, with the theme "Three Rivers and Four Lakes Meet in Hunan; Majestic Landscapes All in Yueyang", attracted renowned experts, scholars from the cultural tourism sector, and leaders of tourism departments from various provinces and cities, as well as executives from top cultural tourism enterprises. As a key part of the conference, the WTA · Dongting Dialogue was successfully held alongside the event.