My first time ever to visit famous Yiwu City in Zhejiang, this time to talk about tourism in China, in a seminar entitled:
“New technology, new equipment and new tourism of promoting the development of China’s tourism market Summit Forum”

The date was 25 May 2016 and the location Crowne Plaza Yiwu Expo.
I was the only foreigner in the whole room…

I gave an overview on the development of tourism in China, from the point of view of a foreigner. Unknown to most of my friends I do have quite some connections to the tourism industry: I did some research for a large Israeli tourism platform and introduced potential Chinese partners; our office set up a WFOE in tourism; I took part as a tourism “expert” in the shooting of the “New Three Gorges 3D HD Movie” (November 2015 – more about that to come); and as mentioned in the seminar I am said to be one of the “pioneers” to start the promotion of RVs (Recreational Vehicles) and Camping through a seminar in Guizhou.
See: http://www.beijing1980.com/2016/02/24/the-new-sanxia-3d-movie-media-event/

Tourism is obviously an important economic activity in China but recently it became clear things were not going so well.
Talking to several foreign tour groups and reading the media there is a list of complaints, both from foreigners and local Chinese.
Despite the enormous potential of the country, tourism is not handled well and the number of foreign tourists visiting China has gone down while Chinese, fed up with poor service and high costs, have gone abroad in increasing and impressive numbers: in 2015 120 million Chinese went abroad.

My talk:
Economic development in the leisure industry adapted to foreign and domestic tourists
Preserving and promoting China’s authentic cultural and natural heritage

See here the PPT I used, only to illustrate some aspects. The full text of the speech can be obtained on request.
160525 yiwuppt

You can also listen to a podcast of major parts of the talk here:
What’s Next for China’s Tourism Industry?
(http://prodygia.com/podcasts/2-what-next-for-china-s-tourism-industry)

After the seminar we had one of those big banquets and the participants all agreed with my remarks on tourism.