BRICS tourism ministers discuss green growth, sustainable development, recovery

BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Tourism ministers from BRICS countries on Monday engaged in in-depth discussions on topics such as green growth, sustainable development and recovery, during a meeting held via video link.

Hu Heping, China's minister of culture and tourism, said at the meeting that BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- have rich tourism resources and play an important role in the global tourism landscape.

Noting booming tourist demand, constant mutual exchanges and huge cooperative potentials and prospects among the BRICS countries, Hu called for efforts to further improve the cooperation mechanisms for tourism and boost exchanges among administrative departments, industry associations, research institutes and market entities of the BRICS countries.

Hu urged efforts to carry forward pragmatic cooperation and make the recovery of tourism more resilient, adding that green principles should be upheld and joint efforts should be invested to boost sustainable development of tourism.

Hu also called for innovation-driven, digitalized and smart development of tourism as well as openness and inclusiveness in a bid to share more opportunities with more emerging economies and developing countries.

Hailing the cooperations among the BRICS countries over recent years concerning tourism and acknowledging the urgency of the industry's recovery, the ministers attending the event said they would take concrete steps to foster a resilient, inclusive and sustainable tourism industry.