The Shandong provincial department of culture and tourism convened a meeting on Jan 23 in the province's capital city Jinan to review the department's work and achievements in 2018 as well as devise a working plan for 2019.

Wang Lei, Party secretary and director of the Shandong provincial culture and tourism department delivered a keynote speech at the meeting.

Last year, the department made innovations in its routine work and achieved breakthroughs in its key tasks such as ecological-civilization construction, rural cultural revitalization and promoting Shandong culture worldwide. It also contributed greatly to the brand building and promotion of Shandong's featured cultural and tourism activities.

Wang said that generally the department's work was improved in 2018 and Shandong's image as a province with abundant recourses in culture, tourism and historic relics was further exemplified and enhanced.

The meeting highlighted several tasks to guarantee the smooth proceeding of the department's culture and tourism work in 2019.

As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the department will bring out a number of quality literary and artistic works, promote the development of red tourism, as well as host related activities to celebrate the significant anniversary.

Focusing on the conversion of old and new growth drivers, the department will strive to promote the integration and high-quality development of its culture and tourism sectors through expanding the province's cultural and creative industry, high-quality tourism services and all-for-one tourism.

All-for-one tourism focuses on the upgrading and integration of tourism resources, public services, regulations and policies to boost economic development with tourism being the new engine for growth. It is the government's most recent endeavor to upgrade the province's tourism sector as well as a move to alleviate poverty by spreading tourism and tourism investment to rural areas. 

The department will make a special effort to explore marine culture and promote the marine economy as the province is endowed with vast marine resources and has a coastline which equates to one sixth of the country's total and adjacent sea areas of about 159,500 square kilometers.

The department will continue to deepen reform and expand opening-up in 2019. It will push forward the reform of comprehensive administrative law enforcement in the cultural market, deepen the reform of state-owned tourist attractions, as well as promote foreign exchanges and opening to the outside world.

Centering on inheriting and carrying forward traditional culture, the department will strengthen the protection and utilization of cultural relics, enhance the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritages, and advance the development of demonstration zones of traditional culture and key projects.

The meeting also stressed that combined measures should be carried out to better coordinate the development of the culture and tourism sectors and increase the influence of Shandong culture as a whole. 

The Shandong provincial department of culture and tourism convenes a meeting on Jan 23 to review the department's work and achievement in 2018 as well as devise a working plan in 2019. [Photo/sdwht.gov.cn]

Wang Lei, Party secretary and director of the Shandong provincial culture and tourism department delivers a keynote speech at the meeting. [Photo/sdwht.gov.cn]