Beijing
Pakistan has signed a Memorandum of Understand-ing (MoU) on tourism with Chinese tourism asso-ciations and forged partnership with travel agencies to promote tourism in Pakistan.
We are to launch a Chinese-language website called Discover Batie (also known as Discover Pakistan) to popularise Pakistan’s rich repertoire of culture and tourism resources across China, Pakistan Ambassa-dor to China, Moin ul Haque said.
Pakistan boasts a wide range of landmass including valleys and mountains and rich culture and cilivili-zation, and that Pakistan as Chinas is receptive to Chinese tourists and can be an attractive destination to global tourists as the country has put in place relevant tourist organisations and committees, fa-vourable policies, visa facilitation, and tourism de-velopment and rehabilitation.
He made these remarks at the 2021 World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit and World Conference on Tourism Coop-eration and Development held on Friday in Beijing.
Tourism contributes between 6-7 % of GDP in Pakistan and provides a little about two million jobs, according to a 2020 report by the Sustainable De-velopment Policy Institute (SDPI).
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the tourism sector in Pakistan and the rest of the world, according to China Economic Net (CEN).
Offering advice on tourism revival, Ambassador Haque pointed out that the tourism sector should provide safe, responsible, and attractive tourism by rethinking tourism products and services as new tourism patterns occur.
He said that countries can also seek to develop smart tourism, using new technologies to develop virtual or digital tourism resources.
It is learned that Ambassador Haque has formed a task force in the Embassy of Pakistan in Beijing to rev up Pakistan’s tourism sector.
To this end, the Embassy has been producing a series of Discover Batie videos to introduce every aspect of Pakistan to the Chinese people and to lure more Chinese tourists to Pakistan after the pandemic.
I want to emphasise that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has established a close partner-ship with WTCF and UNWTO.
I propose the possi-bility of preparing a programme of trilateral coop-eration between our organisations for the develop-ment of tourism in the context of the pandemic, noted Vladimir Norov, Secretary-General of SCO.
Sponsored by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and the Beijing Municipal Government and organised by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the Summit focuses on the revival of the world tourism sector through city cooperation, smart transformation, model innovation and development trends from a global perspective.
The Summit was also attended by Pansy Ho, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF), Tojiddin Jurazoda, Chairman of the Committee for Tourism and Devel-opment of Tajikistan, David Andre, Mayor of Victo-ria, Eijiro Yamakita, President and CEO of JTB Corporation, and ambassadors from the Republic of Columbia, Jordan, Kenya, Mozambique, the UAE, Zimbabwe, and Spain, and renowned tourist asso-ciations.—APP
