I am very grateful to be invited every year to share my views on the current tourism economic situation.

Mainly three points: First, from the recent Spring Festival and the ice and snow season from December to February, our country's tourism industry achieved a high-level start in 2025. Second, the '15th Five-Year Plan' tourism planning currently underway and the strategic planning for high-quality development in the coming period will provide a high-level, top-tier, and high-end strategic layout for the next steps of our country's tourism industry. Third, I want to share with you three issues that need attention for high-quality development in the coming period.

Looking at the Spring Festival situation, our tourism industry has achieved a high-end start, a high-level start. The relevant data for this high-level start may already be visible online. I'd like to briefly discuss three points.

First, for our 8-day Spring Festival holiday, this is our first legally designated 8-day Spring Festival. Recently, we've also noticed that during the Two Sessions, the government work report included a sentence: 'Implement and optimize holiday system arrangements.' So many media outlets and friends are paying attention to what this sentence means. I think this is something we need to consider currently. For instance, should we focus our efforts on increasing public holidays, or on implementing our 5 to 15 days of paid leave? This is a question we need to consider next.

This year's Spring Festival provided us with a perfect experimental field. What's the difference between adding one day in terms of tourist trips, consumption figures, satisfaction, and emotional release, compared to not adding a day? From the data, the total volume is still growing, but the growth rate is slowing down, which is normal. As I often say, no one expects a child to change every day when they are two or three years old, nor do they expect daily changes when they reach 18. It's the same. The 8-day Spring Festival holiday achieved our expected goal.

Second, the Spring Festival market showed a pattern of prosperity, innovation, quality, and order. However, when we finally published, some wording might have been adjusted, for example, whether the word 'prosperity' could be used. In reality, looking back at the end of 2022, after our transition, the tourism economy shifted from a depression phase to a rapid recovery phase. After two years of development, we can now say we've entered a new cycle of prosperous development. We generally talk about cyclical operations constantly rolling forward through four stages: prosperity, recession, depression, and recovery.

Now, I can say that after a rapid recovery, we have entered a new stage of prosperous development, bringing many innovations to our market. For example, the deep integration of culture and tourism, and our technology, including equipment manufacturing, as well as the robots we just saw at the entrance shaking hands and greeting us—they have all entered our daily lives. We used to say that the imagined future is here; now it truly is before us.

Furthermore, the holidays laid the foundation for a high-opening and steadily rising pattern for the entire year's tourism economy. Yesterday, we also held a meeting for the first-quarter tourism economic operation analysis and the third symposium on the '15th Five-Year Plan' for tourism. The vast majority of entrepreneurs and managers are still full of confidence in this year's start.

Specifically, why did celebrating Chinese New Year lay the foundation for a high-end start? More and more people are choosing to travel for Chinese New Year, transitioning from spending Chinese New Year at home to traveling for Chinese New Year. This change in new customs doesn't alter our commitment to family and kinship. If our dedication to kinship remains unchanged, whether celebrating at home or at our Airport Garden, I believe it's the same for many people: as long as the elders are there, the home is there, and kinship is there. However, the impact on the tourism industry is that the market foundation has become thicker. That's why I've always said that the operation of the tourism economy is premised on consumption, and the identification of the tourism industry is premised on market demand. When the market becomes thicker, doesn't the development of the entire industry have a stronger foundation? Therefore, during the Two Sessions, in my plenary speech, I specifically talked about inclusive tourism, largely aiming to thicken our market foundation. I often say, if the water in a pond gets deeper and deeper, how big can the fish grow, Director Yao, for your members and entrepreneurs? Can it be clear, with more space? How do we keep the water clean during the cultivation process, and how do we ensure the fish develop more sustainably, without being damaged by others? Director Miao is here, and relevant colleagues from our industrial department and the ministry will protect and nurture it. So, first, we must thicken the market. Over the past year, more and more people have chosen to celebrate holidays with their families at destinations, and this shift in mindset is particularly important.

Second, what we noticed is that the data we released was for the 8 days of Spring Festival, but the unreleased data shows that the peak period for tourists began a week before the holiday. Sometimes people might wonder why the 8-day Spring Festival didn't see as high a surge compared to the previous 7 days. Often, it's because traffic shifted forward. Looking at the data for the first 8 days, the growth rate started to decline on the 4th day, and people began returning on the 4th day. So this is a point that deserves significant attention when we are understanding holiday tourism. At the same time, we noticed that inbound tourism has started to pick up, which I hadn't expected before. Some say it's the Intangible Cultural Heritage version of the Spring Festival, but objectively speaking, it's the result of a series of intensive dialectical policies we introduced over the past year concerning visas, immigration, and consumption payments, leading to an unexpected surge in inbound tourism. This is reflected in our holiday data, and what we are particularly focused on is the nearly 700,000 inbound foreign tourists.

Yesterday, when we held the first-quarter situation analysis meeting, some entrepreneurs told me that they didn't seem to feel that many tourists, especially in Beijing. I explained that a large part of this, when we talk about perceived temperature differences, is that the data we release counts foreign visitors once they arrive in our territory, regardless of whether they joined a travel agency or visited our Fantawild parks. I will discuss this specifically later, and I will keep emphasizing that it is the tourists who define the tourism industry, not the other way around. If we don't see this kind of change, we will always wonder why the temperature difference is so significant, and where did those 700,000 people go? They might not have taken a tour bus but instead used ride-hailing services, public buses, or subways. They might not have entered theme parks, but they entered commercial districts.

Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a new batch of tourism and leisure districts. I spoke about this on CCTV, mentioning that our tourism and leisure districts are forming a new tourism landscape that mutually supports and complements tourist attractions, resorts, commercial areas, and numerous cultural and museum venues. Therefore, when we consider the influx of foreign tourists, what attracts them, especially the significant increase in visitors from Hong Kong and Macau, it's largely related to our improved quality of life. For many years, I've emphasized that the development of our tourism economy shouldn't solely focus on traditional natural landscapes; that era has passed. A better quality of life is what truly attracts people. If your home life is good, Chairman Yao, I'd love to visit. If you're not home, I'll just pour myself a cup of tea in your living room and leave. But if my life isn't so good, you might just glance at me and leave. So remember, in tourism, we don't necessarily need to strive for uniqueness or being the best. A happy life is always similar.

Because of this, we see that overseas mainstream media reports extensively on Chinese tourists, and the overall coverage is very positive, reaching a record high. This signifies a very favorable market development. Furthermore, many people are traveling abroad; 200,000 more than those traveling domestically. In terms of long-term development, I've always stressed that the Chinese government will not, and cannot, maintain a trade surplus with any country at any time as our national policy; it's unrealistic. Our focus is on ensuring the safety and quality of our citizens traveling abroad, telling China's story well, and facilitating international exchange. Looking at the travel distance and consumption motives of tourists, I believe that traveling north and south, and the 'county-level tourism' trend, is a key point. I particularly want to mention that reverse tourism, county-level tourism, and hometown tourism among young people have increased the tourism heat in first-tier and central cities. Yesterday, I used the term that we are facing a dual downshifting of tourist sources and destinations. What does this mean? In the past, tourism involved people from big cities traveling while those in rural areas provided hospitality. Now, people from lower-tier cities are also traveling. In the past, we mainly went to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, but today, cities like Wuhu and Bengbu have also become popular destinations. During the Lunar New Year, someone from my hometown asked if I could come back, as they discovered that Nezha was originally from our area. I said okay, that's fine. Several places claim to be Nezha's birthplace, but I think Sichuan's explanation is excellent; they say Nezha is where the story took place and was filmed. Therefore, whether it's a filming location for a film or TV work, or the prototype location of a story, it will become a place that many tourists want to visit, reflecting that places with emotional connections are more likely to attract attention.

Therefore, in this sense, whether it's county-level tourism or traveling north or south, what changes is the scene, and the distance is different, but the common points are quality, warmth, and an upward-trending life.

Secondly, I believe that during the tourists' journey, through a large amount of data, for many years, during each of the seven holidays a year, I have my team monitor two core data points: one, how far a tourist travels from their origin to their destination; and two, once at the destination, for example, staying in a hotel near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, how far they travel in the surrounding area. Therefore, we have these two radii: tourist travel radius and destination recreation radius. From the chart, we can see that both data points are increasing rapidly and expanding. The underlying factor is what I have been closely monitoring recently: whether the current tourism economy can better focus on the formation of new chain masters, such as high-speed rail, expressways, shipping and aviation, and private cars. In 1985, China had its first expressway, but today, the expressway mileage has reached 198,000 kilometers, which is not on the same level as the United States, let alone high-speed rail. This has greatly changed the way tourists travel. Some people say this is unfavorable, that tourists come and go quickly. But I say that their return rate will be high because travel is more convenient; they can leave whenever they want.

I believe that micro-tourism and light vacations will become new and emerging tourism formats. This includes those of us here today who are related to amusement parks and entertainment. You can't just focus on tourism; you also need to focus on leisure, especially cultural leisure. Secondly, and more importantly, our emotional values have changed. For young people, it's shifted from pleasing others to pleasing themselves; they control their itinerary and destination, and their happiness. Often, it's not about a big brand or a certain label that attracts them; they look for places that make them happy. Therefore, the shift from pleasing others to pleasing oneself, from functional value to emotional value, is a huge change. During this year's Spring Festival, I had my team conduct a survey: were you happy after your trip? This is reflected in some specific data indicators. Overall, tourism can make people happy. This is one change. The Spring Festival, simply put, represents a series of changes, signaling the arrival of an era of high-level opening, laying the foundation for our confidence and determination to maintain a high-level start and high-level growth. I always say that confidence is more important than gold; we invest in expectations.

Regarding the layout of the tourism economy in 2025, I think there are several points. I believe 2025 is a crucial year for consolidating the tourism economy's entry into a period of prosperous development and is a highly significant year in the process of contemporary tourism development. Simply put, it has several characteristics. In this new historical period, we will pay more attention to the roles of the market and the government. This includes the "14th Five-Year Plan" for tourism that we are currently working on. First, we need to plan where the government's hand should be placed and then guide the market and enterprises. Therefore, in the future, we may further accelerate the formation of a new pattern of government leadership, social participation, diversified investment, and market operation. We will further focus on how to both loosen and control tourism work in the new era, especially on loosening up. Regarding government regulation, we will further emphasize developing tourism and governing tourism according to law.

Secondly, regarding supply and demand, from a dialectical perspective, it must be high-quality and high-level supply and demand, with high-level demand guiding high-quality supply, and high-quality supply meeting high-level demand. This is correct; it's dialectical. However, in the operation of the tourism economy, we pay more attention to starting from the demand side to maximize the release of consumption potential. This is a focus of our current and future work. This requires us to invest more effort in scientifically, systematically, and accurately grasping tourism market data and providing authoritative interpretations. Yesterday, when discussing the first-quarter situation analysis, I said that we are like a 301 Hospital. Without a large number of blood tests, MRI scans, and CT scans, it's difficult to accurately determine whether a person has lesions or related symptoms. But is a pile of data enough? This requires expert consultations and professional general practitioners to interpret the data; otherwise, we may be misled. For example, we often talk about "many people but not much money," "macro-level optimism, micro-level pessimism," and other viewpoints.

I can clearly say that in the new era of national tourism development, our priority is to allow the vast majority of people to enjoy the beautiful life of poetry and distance; making money is a market behavior. Therefore, when coordinating government and market supply and demand, we will place more emphasis on our grasp of the demand side. In terms of protection and development, in the new historical period, we will place more emphasis on the role of protection and will not blindly develop. If we continue the past model of real estate + tourism and continue to pursue a fast-in, fast-out approach, like developing real estate or fast-moving consumer goods, it will definitely not work. We need more entrepreneurs with more patience and wisdom, not just temporary skills, to promote the sustainable and high-quality development of the industry. This requires us to pay attention to the coordination between tourism activities and the natural environment, tourists' rights and residents' interests, and economic growth and social development.

When discussing ancient town tourism, I said that I want to see cultural heritage, but more importantly, I want to see a vibrant future. You can't relocate all the residents, and if this place develops, one day we will collapse. Including the matter of us soon launching a batch of world-class tourist attractions and resorts, I often say this: the resorts we want are not the Western style. We may have been to many Western-style resorts, they are not the Mediterranean model, not the Caribbean model, and certainly not the South Pacific model, that kind of enclave model. What we want is a development model where tourism development and the shared development of local residents and guests coexist.

I've been to Jiangnan quite a bit recently. When I was in Shanghai, I told the people at the Liang'an Hotel that what you're doing is very good; you shouldn't relocate all the residents. Another issue is the international and domestic aspects. We will place more emphasis on the domestic market as a foundation. Everyone is paying attention to this. We are facing a once-in-a-century great change, and the question of how we view the market in the next five years. First of all, we need confidence. Don't always be asking what Trump is doing or what the international situation is like. We must believe that after more than 40 years of reform and opening up, culture and tourism have become an important part of people's better lives. We have strong market forces and a huge consumer base with great growth potential. This is the basis of our confidence in overcoming all difficulties, and it is also the foundation of our overall planning and annual work.

Of course, we will also pay close attention to the new international landscape, including the "Belt and Road" initiative and the Global South. We will also promote a group of companies with operations both domestically and internationally. This is what we need to develop next, using domestic tourism demand as a foundation to lay the groundwork for the development of the tourism economy this year and in the next five years. At the same time, we will also promote the dual circulation between international and domestic markets. Note that the circulation between international and domestic markets will change; we won't just focus on one market. We also hope that everyone, when making overall plans and global layouts, will have a true global perspective.

The last point is the issue of development and security. Two types of security: one is life safety. Without safety, there is no tourism. I often say that life is more important than scenery. Everyone must remember this. We will still have various safety issues.

The second is ideological security. We cannot overemphasize commercial goals; we also have issues of cultural security and ideological security.

High-Quality Development of the Tourism Economy in 2025

Overall, high-quality development remains our theme. New productive forces and humanistic economy will be the two wings driving the high-quality development of the tourism industry—a body with two wings. The theme of high-quality development + these two main lines of new productive forces and humanistic economy.

The progress of an era and the development of an industry inevitably require a corresponding theory of tourism development and a corresponding national strategy. These all come from the practice of how to promote the practice of thought.

Therefore, we pay close attention to the establishment of a systematic new-era national tourism development theory, especially the core issue of who tourism development is for. In the 1980s, it was for foreign exchange earnings, with the government taking the lead and being moderately ahead of the curve. In the late 1990s, we developed domestic tourism, and in the initial stage of mass tourism, five things were promoted simultaneously. Because of the two major goals in 2009: a strategically important pillar industry of the national economy and a modern service industry that better satisfies the people, what is the purpose of tourism development today? If we cannot position the goal of tourism development as better meeting the needs of the vast majority of people for a better life, we will not go far. Therefore, we must pay attention to this issue of who tourism development is for.

Second, tourism innovation relies on the strength of market entities and on the government's leading role in opening up. One is the fundamental force, and the other is an important role; these two must be distinguished. But our goal is the same: to meet the needs of the people for a better life. So when we talk about inclusive tourism, quality tourism, and the rural tourism public transportation system, everything is based on this. Some people say not to talk about theory, that theory is too abstract. Without a strong theory, how can theory, which is not grasped by the masses, become a material force?

Second, we need to reconstruct the national tourism development strategy for the new era. This includes establishing a new-era integrated land and sea travel strategy, accelerating the promotion of a time strategy that interweaves day and night and four seasons of travel. Before the meeting, CCTV discussed broadcasting a series of programs about spring flower viewing tourism and outdoor sports. We need to build a four-season travel time strategy, coordinate the promotion of a market strategy that is primarily domestic and internationally coordinated, and further promote an industrial strategy driven by the optimization of existing resources and innovation. This is the national strategic system for the new era.

We have two basic judgments about the future period:

First, tourism will be deeply integrated into the better lives of urban and rural residents, and tourism will play a more important role and have a more positive impact in the national governance system. This is also why we emphasize starting from the needs of the people for a better life. All resources that nature bestows upon the people should be shared by the people, and all public spaces owned by the people and built in the name of the people should allow the people free access.

So at this year's Two Sessions, I mentioned a proposal about opening up government courtyards, which is also related to this. The issue of lowering ticket prices at key state-owned scenic spots is also an inevitable trend. Some comrades say that we have also invested. Have public universities invested? Why don't you follow the same price-leading, price mechanism as private universities? Therefore, in this new historical period, starting from the needs of the people for a better life and from the perspective of the national governance system, we will understand some of the new changes in the national tourism strategy of the new era, our words and deeds. As the saying goes, "the ducks know when the spring river thaws," and "the falling leaves tell of autumn." If we cannot see such a broad development prospect, we might as well just do small business and there's no need to move towards a larger industrial development system. Practice without theoretical guidance will not go far, and practice without ideological guidance is blind. Therefore, the status of the tourism industry as a strategic pillar industry will become more prominent, and market mechanisms and market entities will play a leading role. This is our overall judgment on the new year and the next five years.

Specifically, let me talk about three specific characteristics. One is from the perspective of market entities: the hotspots of urban tourism will become even hotter, and the trend of warming up the lukewarm spots will become more obvious. Once, when I was in India, after giving a speech, many media outlets were present, and one media outlet raised a question: "Professor, I want to travel to China. Can you recommend the best time and place to go?" How do you answer that? No matter how you answer, you will miss something. Everyone says their hometown is good. So later, I used a phrase that might have a bit of diplomatic language, but it was my sincere words: "In my heart, every inch of land and every moment in my beautiful motherland is beautiful and worth visiting." We want to make big cities, central cities, and county-level central towns into new tourism spaces to meet the diverse, high-quality, and personalized needs of the people, from high to low. Otherwise, some people might be parched to death or die of thirst during their travels, which is unacceptable.

Second, in international tourism, we will further promote international tourism exchanges and further promote the development of inbound tourism, using the market forces of outbound tourism to help our tourism enterprises grow internationally. No matter what environment we face, I believe that as long as we stand with the people's needs for a better life and with millions of market entities, we will overcome any difficulties. I also firmly believe that no force can stop the people's yearning for a better life of poetry and distance—not the epidemic, not public health events, not temporary difficulties in economic development, not any setbacks, and not any temporary setbacks. I wish our better life of poetry and distance will be even better tomorrow. Thank you.