On the afternoon of September 28, the 2021 Sichuan Provincial Culture and Tourism Development Conference was held at Jiuzhaigou County, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Peng Qinghua, Secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee, attended and addressed the conference. He emphasized that relevant parties should thoroughly study and put into practice the important remarks of General Secretary Xi Jinping on culture and tourism, correctly understand the features and changes at different stages of cultural and tourism development in Sichuan, and comprehensively and precisely implement the new development philosophy. With such efforts, the province can focus on high-quality development of culture and tourism, with reform and innovation as the fundamental engine, the satisfying of people's ever-growing needs for a better life as the priority. While actively responding to changes and taking the initiative to reform, Sichuan is making new progress in cultural and tourism development and accelerates the construction of a powerhouse for culture and tourism.

　　The conference was chaired by Huang Qiang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Governor of Sichuan Province, and was attended by Deng Xiaogang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee.

　　Peng noted that since 2020, the culture and tourism industry has met great challenges. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and People's Government of Sichuan Province endeavored to realize pandemic prevention and control and economic and social development. With an eye on the trends, they released policies decidedly to boost the cultural and tourism development, launched measures to help relevant enterprises survive, and continued educating people with the revolutionary history. The CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and People's Government of Sichuan Province strove to promote cultural and tourism resources in Sichuan, involved the culture and tourism in the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and revitalized the industry to serve the overall development plan of the province. From complete suspension, to resumption in an orderly mannerly, and then accelerated recovery, the province secured hard-won achievements with great efforts. During this process, departments all across Sichuan, especially the ones concerning culture and tourism, fulfilled their responsibilities and made concrete contributions, leading enterprises and people engaging in the field to be confident and overcome difficulties. Thanks to that, the industry rebounded and even celebrated new advances. The culture and tourism industry of Sichuan stood the test, steeled itself for changes, and saved strength, entering a key stage of quality and efficiency improvement, transformation, and upgrading. The practice has proved that the forward-looking plans on cultural and tourism development, set by the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and People's Government of Sichuan Province over the years, not only vigorously helped the industry to survive but also laid a solid foundation for it to seek further growth.

　　Peng pointed out relevant parties should understand the new situations, tasks, and requirements facing the province in developing culture and tourism. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core highly valued the culture and tourism. General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a slew of important speeches and gave a stream of significant instructions, scientifically answering the fundamental and directional questions in this field, explaining the missions and tasks of cultural construction and tourism development in the new era. All of these served as guidelines for us to follow. Stepping into the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the province came to a new starting point and embarked on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist Sichuan. It has been deeply putting into action the Belt and Road Initiative, the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and China's western region in the new era, Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle construction, and other national strategies. At the same time, it is catalyzing the reshaping of regional economic development and opening up plans. Gratifyingly, Sichuan has become easily accessible, tourism management and service facilities have been perfecting, demand for travel and consumption potential contained by COVID-19 wait to be unleashed — all of these offered favorable conditions and rare opportunities for the province to develop culture and tourism. The industry will definitely welcome a booming future, as long as relevant parties can bear the "Two Development Strategies" in mind, understand features of different development stages, seize opportunities hidden in the pandemic as well as brought by the improvement of cultural and tourism consumption and industrial transformation and development. Developing culture and tourism under the new situation requires comprehensive and correct implementation of the new development philosophy, serious practice of the people-centered development thought, deep promotion of full-chain transformation and upgrading, and integration of resources and strengths. Based on these, Sichuan is able to turn blueprints into reality and discover a new path of high-quality cultural and tourism development reflecting the call of the time with Sichuan characteristics.

　　Peng called for the promotion of high-quality cultural and tourism development around the construction of a powerhouse in this field. He demanded that relevant parties should strive to improve the influence of Bashu culture, continue highlighting "Joyous Travel in Sichuan with Sanxingdui, Jiuzhai Valley and Giant Pandas at the Core", and giving full play of the leading role of the three knock-out brands. They need to follow the core socialist values, advance the innovative project of inheriting the history, celebrities, and culture of Sichuan, revitalize Sichuan Opera and Quyi, and create more excellent works. The efforts should also be made to enhance the regional coordinated development. The cities (prefectures) involved in the "once core and five belts" are encouraged to play a part in the province's overall development plans, develop a community of development complementing each other's advantages and responding to each other's actions, and contribute to the overall plans. Efforts should be made to strengthen the strategy, policy and planning alignment between Sichuan and Chongqing and build Bashu Cultural Tourism Corridor into an important culture and tourism destination with international clout, Chinese characteristics, and Bashu charm; maximize the advantages of Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in gathering resources, capital, policies, and talent, enhance cooperation with neighboring provinces, strengthen engagement with international sister cities and build a leading area of open culture and tourism cooperation. The competitiveness of Sichuan's culture and tourism industry needs to be further strengthened. Efforts should focus on integration to constantly innovate the business formats of culture and tourism industry, prioritize culture and tourism themed Red heritage, rural scenery, sports, health and wellness, and industry, develop a larger and stronger platform for culture and tourism industry and consistently increase the core competitiveness of culture and tourism industry. The ability to supply quality products of Sichuan's culture and tourism industry needs to be further improved. Efforts should be made to deepen the supply-side reform in culture and tourism industry, launch diverse, distinctive, quality, and market-oriented tourism products as well as tourism routes and projects that highlight experience and interaction to meet people's ever-changing tourism needs, standardize and equalize public cultural services, and create a sound ecology for culture and tourism industry where demand governs supply and supply creates demand. The comprehensive strength of Sichuan's culture and tourism industry needs to be further strengthened. Efforts should be made to overcome final key hurdles, improve the public transportation system for tourism, keep up with the self-drive and self-guided tour development trends, build more support facilities, and ensure that tourists can enjoy convenient transportation, spend more time and enjoy better experience; vigorously promote the construction of intelligent scenic spots and build an intelligent platform for all-for-one tourism; advance the building of workforce for culture and tourism services and create a high-quality talent pool for culture and tourism industry.

　　Peng Qinghua pointed out that equal emphasis must be placed on development and safety to constantly improve the governance ability and service level of Sichuan's culture and tourism industry. Efforts should be to prioritize safety guarantee ability, assign greater importance to keeping the bottom line, creating a beautiful environment, and advancing protection, modernize governance system and ability, and make Sichuan's culture and tourism industry more thriving, more balanced, safer, and more sustainable; study effective methods for epidemic prevention and control in accordance with the new situations and requirements for regular epidemic prevention and control, stick to scientific and targeted epidemic prevention and control, accelerate the coordination of Sichuan Tianfu Health Code with scenic areas and spots and provide convenience for tourists; formulate detailed emergency plans, optimize and re-create response procedures, and ensure that epidemic emergencies can be handled timely, effectively and scientifically during the upcoming National Day holiday; constantly advance reforms to streamline administration and delegate powers, improve regulation, and upgrade services, complete long-term mechanisms in policy support, factor investment, incentive guarantee and other fields and create an international business environment that is market-oriented and based on the rule of law; strengthen comprehensive supervision of tourism market, solve long-established issues such as defrauding and ripping off consumers, dominating the market, selling seconds at best quality prices and false advertising, provide high-quality culture and tourism products that tourists can enjoy themselves throughout, and ensure that tourists can have a high satisfaction rate and would like to visit again; take a scientific approach towards the relationship between protection and development, prioritize ecological protection and green development, follow the strictest ecological protection mechanism, adopt a prudent attitude especially towards developing and utilizing non-renewable resources such as natural and cultural heritage, scientifically assess and determine the maximum carrying capacity of scenic areas, control the number of tourists in a rational manner, and realize the organic integration of economic benefits and ecological benefits of tourism industry.

　　Peng Qinghua emphasized the importance to implement the key remarks by General Secretary Xi Jinping and the decisions and plans by the CPC Central Committee on culture and tourism, and mentioned that Sichuan has formulated the Culture and Tourism Development Plan during the 14th Five-year Plan Period in Sichuan Province  and described the overall planning and roadmap to develop Sichuan into a province with strength in culture and tourism. Party committees and governments at all levels should implement the objectives and key tasks set out in the document to ensure that the implementation work can get off to a good start to present a new image. Relevant departments at all levels shall perform their duties according to the division of labor, focus on planning alignment, project implementation, infrastructure construction, information sharing and other work, and form a culture and tourism work pattern where Party committees and governments coordinate with each other and advance joint management. Sichuan Provincial Culture and Tourism Industry Leading Group should enhance supervision, guidance and coordination and ensure that the decisions and plans by the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee on culture and tourism development can be implemented effectively and work well.

　　At the Conference, Gan Lin, a member of the Standing Committee and Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee, announced the list of the third batch of named counties of Famous Tourist Counties of Tianfu and the document for the First Batch of Famous Tianfu Tourism Brands (famous towns, famous villages, famous B&Bs, famous tour guides and famous products). Peng Qinghua presented the plate to all the named counties of Famous Tourist Counties of Tianfu. Peng Qinghua, Huang Qiang, Deng Xiaogang and other leaders presented the plate to all the winners of the First Batch of Famous Tianfu Tourism Brands. Representatives from Jiuzhaigou County, Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archeology Research Institute, Fantawild Holdings Inc., and the Department of Transportation of Sichuan Province delivered a speech. Nanchong City was declared to be the host site for the 2022 Sichuan Provincial Culture and Tourism Development Conference and the conference flag was handed over.

　　The Conference was extended to the county level by teleconference. The event at the main venue was also attended by Sichuan provincial leaders Shi Xiaolin, Wang Yihong, Bao Hui, Luo Qiang and Cui Baohua, heads from relevant departments and bureaus of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, various cities (prefectures) in the province, provincial departments and some central units in Sichuan and representatives of relevant parties.