Delegates share their views with guests at the Global Tourism Economy Forum in Macao on Tuesday. Roy Liu / China Daily

The shortage of talents in the tourism industry and the lack of public facilities, as well as services at tourist resorts, have to be resolved to facilitate the fast growth of tourism on the Chinese mainland, industry leaders told a forum in Macao on Tuesday.

"Management talents in the industry are in a severe shortage of supply," said Wang Ping, chairman of the China Chamber of Tourism. "Currently, CEOs in three-star hotels are working as leaders of five-star hotels, while those in economy hotels are performing the role of managers in three-star ones."

Thus, the training of all levels of management talents in the tourism industry has become essential as tourism growth accelerates in the country, Wang told a roundtable forum co-organized by the China Chamber of Tourism and China Daily.

The forum, themed "Exploring the Full Dimension of Cultural Tourism - Cultural Heritage and Creative Living Culture", is part of the annual Global Tourism Economy Forum held in Macao from Monday to Tuesday.

Johnson Jia Yunfeng, chief executive officer of D&J Global Communications, said industry leaders should focus their attention on improving public facilities and tourism services.

"Public facilities and services are two elements we are lack of. If we manage to attract a great number of tourists to our country, but are not able to offer good services to them, then our marketing has, in fact, made a bad effect because people tend to spread bad things to others," he said.

According to the China National Tourism Administration, more than 87.5 million inbound trips were made by international tourists, as well as those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, between January and August this year - a 4.3-percent year-on-year increase.

While the growth of mainland tourism spurs wide concern over the protection of cultural heritage, Bai Changhong, dean of the college of tourism and service management at Nankai University in Tianjin, believes that tourism and cultural protection are not contradictory.

Peter Wong Man-kong, chairman of MK Corp Ltd, agreed, saying the relatively late development of the tourism industry and the growing demand for a large pool of talents call for the country to take a leaf from other nations in order to better protect its cultural resources.

Wu Zhaolan, vice-president of Suning Universal Group, noted the ongoing changes in the tourism sector.

"Tourism-plus-Internet is becoming an important subject with the development of internetization of information. Many tourism services are now provided online. The integration of tourism and the Internet is not only an offline-to-online transformation of traditional products, but also a future trend that reflects the complementary role of the two," she said.

Besides the Internet, Ding Zuohong, chairman of the board of Yuexing Group, reckons that the furniture-and-decoration industry also has a role to play in developing cultural tourism.

"The industry can contribute to cultural tourism by adding innovative elements to every single place, for example, making beds and sofa, restaurants or entertainment facilities in tourism resorts more creative."

Ji Xiaodong, vice-president and secretary-general of the China Chamber of Tourism, called for the promotion of cultural tourism by making efforts to enhance the internal meaning of tourism resorts and putting emphasis on the spiritual inheritance of these places.

sally@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 10/14/2015 page8)