On December 16, the 2025 Summit of the World Travel & Tourism Economic Forum, themed “New Quality Productive Forces: A New Engine for the Global Tourism Economy”, opened grandly in Harbin. This marked the first time that the high-end international forum has been held in mainland China outside Macao since its launch a decade ago. It gathered government representatives from multiple countries, heads of international organizations, executives of leading global tourism enterprises, and representatives of key domestic cultural and tourism sectors in the "Ice City", to jointly explore new paths and driving forces for the high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry. At this world-class event, Wudalianchi Global Geopark in Heilongjiang Province made a wonderful appearance as a key promotion unit of the province. Leveraging its world-class volcanic and mineral spring resources and forward-looking project planning, it extended an invitation for win-win cooperation to the global tourism industry.
During the Heilongjiang Cultural and Tourism Investment Promotion Roadshow, a special session of the forum, Gong Kai, Director of the Administrative Committee of Wudalianchi Global Geopark, acted as a “Golden Promoter”. He systematically presented Wudalianchi’s top-tier resource endowments as a “Natural Volcano Museum” and one of the “Three Great Cold Mineral Springs in the World”. He also focused on promoting a number of high-quality investment projects with both ecological value and market potential, such as the upgrading of volcanic wellness resorts and the construction of a cross-border cultural and tourism cooperation platform. These projects are highly aligned with the forum's core theme of “Investment Leadership and Project Development”. They not only demonstrate Wudalianchi’s sustainable development model of transforming ecological protection into value creation, but also provide clear and feasible cooperation paths for global investors, attracting wide attention and garnering positive responses and cooperation intentions on-site.
The World Travel & Tourism Economic Forum is a highly influential platform for exchange and cooperation in the international tourism sector. Over the past ten sessions, it has attracted more than 14,000 representatives from over 90 countries and regions, evolving into an important bridge that “connects the world’s focus on China and links China to the world”. Focusing on cutting-edge topics including “Ice-snow Economy and Industrial Innovation” and “Investment Leadership and Project Development”, this year’s forum provided an efficient platform for matching global cultural and tourism resources with capital through diverse formats such as keynote speeches, roundtable dialogues, thematic exhibitions and investment promotion events.
Wudalianchi Global Geopark’s high-profile appearance at the forum is not only another display of its strength on the international stage following its successful retention on the IUCN Green List, but also signifies a shift in its development strategy — from an outstanding ecological protector to an active provider of high-quality international cultural and tourism products and a pioneer in industrial cooperation. By proactively linking with global capital and expertise, Wudalianchi is committed to transforming its unique volcanic geological wonders, rare cold mineral spring resources and profound ecological heritage into high-quality wellness vacation experiences and cross-border tourism products, further polishing its golden reputation as a world-class tourist destination.
The successful promotion at this forum will open an important window for Wudalianchi Global Geopark to introduce new concepts, resources and partners. It will help the geopark seize the initiative in the wave of cultural and tourism industry upgrading driven by new quality productive forces, and write a new chapter in the coordinated development of ecological protection and tourism economy
