Original title: Sino US high-level dialogue on tourism depicts new prospects for cultural and tourism cooperation between the two sides

Xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, May 24 (reporter Fu Ruixia, Chen Chen, Ma Yujie) "Let me pick you up and send you to others' homes, jasmine flowers..." On May 22, at the 14th China US High level Dialogue on Tourism held in Xi'an, Shaanxi, Chinese and American students sang the classic folk song "Jasmine Flowers" in Chinese. The melodious and euphemistic choral singing conveys the exchange willingness of the two peoples to walk side by side.

On the same day, nearly 400 representatives of Chinese and American governments, institutions, local governments and enterprises attended the dialogue activity with the theme of "tourism promotes people to people and cultural exchanges between China and the United States". This is the "restart" of the dialogue five years after 2019.

On May 22, Chinese and American students sang a chorus at the opening ceremony of the 14th China US High level Dialogue on Tourism. Photographed by Shao Rui, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

In 2007, China and the United States jointly launched and established a high-level dialogue mechanism on tourism, creating good conditions for tourism exchanges and high-quality cooperation between the two countries. During the "China US Tourism Year" in 2016, the two sides held more than 100 exchange activities, with two-way exchanges exceeding 5 million. In 2019, China went to the United States about 2.8 million times, and the United States came to China 2.4 million times. China and the United States are important tourist source markets and tourist destinations for each other.

In the post epidemic era, the China US high-level dialogue on tourism was launched for the first time, and participants from both sides had high hopes for the prospect and potential of cooperation.

"As each other's important source markets, tourism destinations and industrial partners, China and the United States have broad prospects for cooperation in tourism project investment, travel services, group reception, accommodation brands and retail channels," said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Research Institute.

In the eyes of American tourists, China is a very important source market.

Grant Harris, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said that the United States has set the goal of attracting 90 million international tourists every year by 2027. An important factor for whether the goal can be achieved is "whether the U.S. tourism industry can attract more Chinese tourists".

Scenery of Xi'an Big Wild Goose Pagoda (taken on November 17, 2023, UAV photo). Photographed by Shao Rui, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

"In the next ten years and more, the United States and China will play a huge role in promoting the growth of international tourism." Christopher Naseta, global president of Hilton Group and chairman of the American Tourism Association, believes that exchanges and cooperation between the two countries are crucial for the sustainable and healthy development of the two countries and even the global economy.

In order to further facilitate the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel, China has continued to optimize its visa policy for a period of time, and cross-border tourism has welcomed good news.

"Last year, American tourists accounted for 9% of the number of foreign tourists we received. Recently, the Chinese government has implemented the visa free policy for foreign tourist groups to enter China by cruise ships, which ushers in a broad prospect for cruise ship cooperation." Wang Haimin, general manager of China Tourism Group, looks forward to strengthening cooperation with peers in the American industry to share China's huge tourism market.

American people also expressed their willingness to provide more convenient visa services for Chinese tourists.

"China has always played an important role in the global visa issuance network." On the scene of the dialogue, Julie Staft, an official of the US State Department, introduced the adjustment of the US visa policy.

At the same time, measures to improve the convenience level of inbound tourism are also being implemented in China. More and more foreign tourists find that traveling to China is more smooth and payment services are more convenient.

According to the information previously released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, since March 31 this year, the airlines of China and the United States can operate 100 regular passenger flights every week.

This is the sea of clouds on May 14 in Marin County, California, USA. Xinhua News Agency (photographed by Li Jianguo)

"As the world's two major air transport markets, China and the United States occupy many seats in the world's top ten airlines, and have a global airline network." Wan Qingchao, deputy general manager of China Eastern Airlines Group Co., Ltd., believes that it is the common responsibility of both airlines to build an air bridge across the Pacific Ocean.

"According to our data, 10 countries contribute about 80% of the consumption of foreign tourists in China." Ke Rulong, chairman of the Asia Pacific region of Visa, said that the company has cooperated with China to make bank cards better serve foreign tourists and Chinese merchants in China through a series of projects.

Dai Haiyong, head of foreign exchange business of Tencent Fintech, said that the company has launched the scheme of scanning code for payment of overseas electronic wallet in China, and will continue to explore and innovate payment products in the future, so as to further improve the mobile payment experience of foreigners in China.

Tourism is an important bridge for the people of China and the United States to communicate and know each other. Thanks to the multiple benefits, China US personnel exchanges are heating up. "Chinese citizens' travel to the United States has recovered rapidly, and the United States will return to the first place in 2023 as a long-term outbound tourist destination for Chinese citizens," said Dai Bin.

"The holding of this high-level dialogue on tourism between China and the United States has made the people of both countries see that the door to 'two-way travel' is open." Liang Xuecheng, director of the Department of Tourism Management of Northwest University, said that this is of great significance for promoting the recovery and development of the tourism economy of both countries, promoting people to people and cultural exchanges between China and the United States, and deepening people to people understanding. (Participating in the interview: Cai Xinyi, Zhang Sijie)