"As an important carrier of people-to-people exchanges, tourism cooperation has become a key link for promoting people-to-people bonds, unimpeded trade and cultural integration among countries co-building the Belt and Road," said Song Haiyan, Chair Professor of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Associate Dean of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, when attending the "Cooperation and Development" lecture series at Shandong University on the 26th.

In his lecture, Song Haiyan noted that in recent years, relying on the continuous deepening of infrastructure connectivity, the cross-border tourism market scale among Belt and Road co-building countries has steadily expanded, two-way investment has maintained growth, and supporting constructions such as visa facilitation and security cooperation mechanisms have achieved remarkable results, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality development of culture and tourism.

Focusing on the coordinated model of cultural heritage protection and tourism development, Song Haiyan stated that tourism resources such as world cultural heritage gathered in Belt and Road co-building countries constitute a globally highly diverse cultural corridor. The integration of culture and tourism can not only enhance tourism attractiveness, but also provide sustainable impetus for cultural heritage protection.

Addressing the challenges brought by global climate change, Song Haiyan proposed a dual-drive development path of "green low-carbon and digital transformation". He believed that tourism cooperation among Belt and Road co-building countries needs to shift from scale expansion to quality improvement, promote new models such as ecotourism and low-carbon transportation, build green tourism demonstration zones, and simultaneously co-construct cross-border tourism big data platforms, actively exploring the application of new technologies such as metaverse and AR in immersive cultural experiences.

Song Haiyan emphasized that tourism cooperation among Belt and Road co-building countries is not only an extension of economic cooperation, but also an important practice field for building a community with a shared future for mankind. Only by adhering to the development concept of taking green as the background, digitalization as the engine, culture as the soul and cooperation as the path, and through institutional innovation and in-depth people-to-people exchanges, can we fully release its great potential in promoting inclusive growth and civilizational mutual learning, and build it into a globally dynamic and resilient model of international tourism cooperation.

Edmund Sheng, Distinguished Professor of Shandong University, Taishan Scholar Distinguished Expert, and Executive Dean of the SCO Research Institute, stated that the significance of exchanges and cooperation in the tourism dimension under the Belt and Road Initiative has become increasingly prominent, and combining with the concept of tourism integration will shape a more integrated, accessible and innovative future for the global tourism industry.

Edmund Sheng added that this event not only provides a comprehensive and in-depth framework for understanding international tourism cooperation in the new era, but also offers new perspectives and ideas for deepening regional and country studies under the SCO framework. It has important guiding significance and practical value for the SCO Research Institute of Shandong University to further help improve the service functions of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Zone, and better serve national strategic needs and the overall situation of Shandong Province's opening-up.

It is reported that this event was co-hosted by the School of Political Science and Public Administration of Shandong University, the SCO Research Institute of Shandong University, the Institute of Public Security of Shandong University, and the China-SCO Economic and Trade College.