CNR:

It was just mentioned that Harbin experienced a surge in popularity around this year's Spring Festival holiday, with its winter sports tourism becoming a cultural phenomenon. How will Heilongjiang maintain the momentum of its ice and snow tourism and further amplify the spillover effect? Thank you.

Liang Huiling:

Thank you for your question. During last year's snow and ice season, Heilongjiang launched a "pamper the guests" approach, sparking enthusiasm among visitors. This has led to the flourishing of tourism and related industries, greatly boosting the morale of local officials and residents, and enhancing their confidence and determination to revitalize and develop the region. Moving forward, we will redouble our efforts to enrich our offerings and enhance our services, ensuring that visitors to Heilongjiang are happy, comfortable, and at ease.

First, we will create new growth drivers for the ice and snow economy. Key scenic spots such as Harbin Ice and Snow World, Yabuli Ski Resort and Xuexiang village will be upgraded. The amount of ice at the Harbin Ice and Snow World this year exceeded 200,000 cubic meters, which is nearly three times as much as last year. If you come to Harbin again this winter, you will see a larger, more cultured and more international ice and snow kingdom. We are making preparations for the 9th Asian Winter Games to a high quality, building the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Ice and Snow Sports Demonstration Zone to a high standard, and creating five centers for ice and snow sports events, talent, industry, culture and cooperation . We will promote innovative development of winter sports equipment such as ice skates, snowboards and ski lifts, and build the world's largest new energy vehicle extreme cold-weather testing base in Heihe and Mohe. We will expedite the development of the entire industry chain of ice and snow sports, ice and snow culture, ice and snow equipment, and ice and snow tourism, build a leading ice and snow economic area, and turn "cold" resources into "hot" economy .

Second, we will develop high-quality, integrated and all-season tourism. We will give full play to the advantages of different sceneries in the four seasons and rich geography, and strive to create special projects such as forest tourism, wetland tourism, boundary river tourism and border tourism, and accelerate the cultivation of new tourism formats such as camping, self-drive tours, travel photography and study, and elderly-care and health tourism. We will strive to transform the characteristic cultural tourism industry from "one place and one season" to "all regions and all seasons." We will strengthen the construction of tourism infrastructure supporting facilities, build star-rated homestays across the province, and a multi-faceted tourism transportation system, accelerate the popularization and promotion of smart tourism, and comprehensively improve tourist satisfaction. We will continue to regulate the order of the tourism market, make good use of advance compensation, ensure that complaints are handled in a timely fashion, and effectively protect the rights and interests of tourists.

Third, we will expand and amplify spillover effects of the tourism industry. We will promote the integrated development of tourism and culture, sports, health care, catering, sports equipment and other primary, secondary and tertiary industries, so that Heilongjiang's history and culture, music and performing arts, local delicacies, and sports events can provide tourists with new experiences, and ensure the local tourism infrastructure and thermal clothes and hats, green food, and special cultural and creative products offer consumers across the country with more choices. We will promote good practices and models of ice and snow tourism, strive to create a first-class business environment, and attract more companies to invest and develop in Heilongjiang. We will see that positive work styles in ice and snow tourism continue to thrive, and take solid, pragmatic and resolute steps to ensure that officials become more capable of serving the people and pursuing development. Thank you.