A bird’s eye view of the WTA headquarters & World Tourism Museum at the Xianghu Lake
Highlights
Lyu Weiyi
On Feb 24, the World Tourism Alliance (WTA) opening ceremony was launched at the Xianghu Lake in Hangzhou, where its headquarters is settled down.
The WTA is a global, comprehensive, non-profit international NGO initiated by China in Sept 2017. Up to now, 228 members from 42 countries and regions have joined the alliance. Over the past five years, it has played a crucial role in promoting the high-quality and sustainable development of the global tourism. Based on the local advantages of the headquarters and focused on the vision of human development, it is becoming a highly-recognized international tourism alliance.
As an international organization with the highest specifications in Hangzhou, the official launch of the WTA marks a closer connection between Hangzhou and the world. It is believed that with this important platform, Hangzhou is expected to become one of the most influential international leisure destinations and to establish its urban cultural tourism brand.
Approximately 350 people attended the WTA opening ceremony, including officials from the Chinese Culture and Tourism Department, leaders from Zhejiang province, foreign ambassadors in China, representatives of the Alliance's members and guests from home and abroad.
As an indispensable part of the WTA headquarters, the preparation for the World Tourism Expo is almost completed after three years of hard work. Located at the Xianghu Lake, the picturesque scenic spot known as the "sister lake" of Hangzhou's West Lake, the World Tourism Expo will be the world's first tourism-themed comprehensive exhibition hall.
According to the original concept of the WTA landscape park, the entire island will be built into an ecological landscape park. In the future, it will display the world's tourism culture with rich contents, novel forms and advanced means, carrying the historical memory of human tourism development and conveying the meaning of tourism in different times.