NE Asia seen as top tourism destination

Top tourism officials from China, Mongolia, Russia and the Republic of Korea - the four member countries of the Greater Tumen Initiative - vowed to build up the Northeast Asia region to be world top class tourism destination.

The officials made the comments during the third GTI Tourism Forum held in Hunchun, China's only city that borders both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia in Northeast China's Jilin province on Friday.

Statistics from the World Travel & Tourism Council have shown that in this region, the direct contribution of travel and tourism to GDP in 2013 was $431.7 billion, ranking third in the world after the European Union and North America.

"Northeast Asia has become one of the fastest growing tourism destination regions in the world, and we hope to build it to be a top-class destination," said Zhao Xiaojun, director of Jilin Provincial Tourism Administration.

He also suggested that GTI can learn from the cross-border tourism experiences of the EU and North America to build the region into a cooperative zone within the Tumen River Delta. The zone will become a borderless tourism demonstration area connected by highways, railways, aviation networks and land-ocean routes, with the support of China, Mongolia, Russia, the ROK, the DPRK and Japan.

"We will focus on simplifying visa procedures, and hope to learn from the practice of EU countries in carrying out the Schengen Agreement that allows one-visa visits to most of the countries within the economic entity to freely facilitate tourism," Zhao said.

Statistics from the National Tourism Administration also show that in 2013, foreigners who visited China from the ROK, Russia, Mongolia and Japan accounted for 38 percent of all the inbound foreign visitors. The number of outbound Chinese to those four countries soared to 7.24 million, a year-on-year increase of 17.7 percent.

"Tourism has become an important industry to support each country's economic development — expanding employment and promoting economic growth," said Guo Changzeng, deputy director of the Department of Planning and Finance of the tourism administration. "China hopes to grasp the opportunity to enhance and expand cooperation with member countries."