China News Service, Qufu, Shandong, September 29 (Zhou Yiwei) The "Confucius' Hometown, Hospitality Shandong" inbound travel agent promotion conference following Confucius' study tour was held in Qufu, Shandong on the 28th. Nearly 120 people from 25 countries and regions, including representatives from cultural and tourism institutions, young sinologists, Internet experts, travel agents, and key Chinese cultural and tourism enterprises and research bases, attended the meeting to explore how to use Confucius culture to build a bridge between Chinese and foreign cultural tourism.
On September 28, the “Confucius’ Hometown, Hospitable Shandong” promotion conference for inbound travel agencies following the Confucius Study Tour was held in Qufu, Shandong. Photo by Zhou Yiwei
Liu Shaohua, Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, said in his speech that Shandong has profound cultural heritage, rich tourism resources, and complete supporting facilities. The inbound tourism and study tourism markets have both strong supply and demand and broad prospects. The province will continue to promote the upgrading of inbound products and services, strengthen the branding, standardization and standardization of study camps, and work with overseas travel agents to promote Shandong’s good resources and policies to the international market through professional channels.
Zhan Xin, vice chairman of the Jining Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference, said Jining is the hometown of Confucius and Mencius and the capital of the canal. It has profound cultural heritage, a booming cultural tourism industry, and steady growth in inbound tourism. It is making every effort to build a demonstration highland for Chinese study and tourism. The city will continue to improve its inbound study service guarantees, sincerely invite cultural and tourism partners at home and abroad to deepen cooperation, and welcome tourists from all over the world to come and experience Confucian culture.
Liu Weikang, president of the Malaysian Chinese Tourism Industry Association, said that although the country and Shandong are separated by mountains and seas, they are culturally connected. The continuous facilitation of visa policies between Malaysia and China has brought valuable opportunities for travel agents from both countries to jointly explore markets. We are willing to work hand in hand with the Shandong cultural and tourism industry to create high-quality study products such as "Study Tour with Confucius", deepen cultural exchanges between young people from both sides, and jointly build a bond between the people of Macao and China.
"Among the many provinces in China, Shandong ranks among the top ten popular destinations for outbound tourism in Malaysia." Liu Weikang said that Shandong's cultural tourism products continue to iteratively upgrade, breaking through the traditional landscape tourism model, and deeply exploring unique experience content such as Confucian culture, and its attractiveness continues to increase. For example, he said that Zibo barbecue and other Shandong specialty delicacies have become popular in Malaysia, which has inspired many people in the country to have a desire to travel to Shandong.
Fan Yong, chairman of Hong Kong Huachang Oriental Culture International Exchange Co., Ltd., regards Shandong as a "holy land for study and study." According to him, the company has organized multiple batches of Hong Kong students to go to Shandong to carry out research activities. The content of the research has been continuously enriched. On the basis of historical and cultural themes, new content has been added, such as visiting and studying important weapons of great powers and studying marine knowledge. "I hope to deepen the two-way academic exchanges between Hong Kong and Shandong, and rely on Hong Kong's advantages of integrating Chinese and Western cultures and being an international window to further enhance friendship and cultural exchanges between the two places."
Qiao Feng, a young Sinologist from Malta, said that with the help of teachers from Qufu Normal University and Chinese friends, he realized that people from different countries can learn from each other and carry out cultural exchanges, and he was even more deeply impressed by the saying "When three people walk together, there must be someone who can teach me".
Qiao Feng said that his deep study of Sinology and personal experience in the hometown of Confucius made him realize the value of mutual learning between different countries and civilizations. "Therefore, I especially like what Confucius said, 'It is a great pleasure to have friends come from afar.'"
At the meeting, cultural tourism promotion officers from Shandong Province and Jining City respectively promoted the "Hospitable Shandong·Experience Qilu" study tour product and the "Following Confucius Study Tour" theme study route. From "one mountain, one river, one saint" to "hospitable Shandong and seeing Qilu" all-area study matrix, Shandong's high-quality resources will be transformed into high-quality study routes suitable for more school stages and more needs.
The conference also carried out inbound study and tourism negotiation and docking activities. 12 Shandong travel agencies and 15 Shandong study bases conducted "one-on-one" negotiations with 13 overseas channel operators and overseas travel bloggers, and reached a number of cooperation intentions such as the "China-Russia Education Year" Russian study group, the Indonesian Confucian Education Association study group, and the Malaysian Jining study group, and established a long-term cooperation mechanism of "mutual transportation of tourists, mutual exhibition of products, and mutual promotion of routes." (over)
