Research On The International Tourism Cooperation Strategy:between China And Russia

China and Russia are the largest neighbors for each other, and the future of their international tourism cooperation is really bright. China is the world’s most populous country, with the fastest growing economy, and a prosperous and continuous inheritance of a five thousand years old ancient civilization; Russia is the world’s largest country, with very abundant natural landscape and a typical European Orthodox civilization mixed with Asian Mongolian civilization. China and Russia share a border line more than4,350kilometers in the northwestern (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region-Altai Republic) and northeastern (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region-Chita, Heilongjiang-Amur Oblast, Jewish Autonomous Region, Khabarovsk Krai, coastal frontier District, Jilin Province-Primorsky Krai) region of China, and the broad regions on both sides of the border line between China and Russia are packed with dozens of cities(towns) such as Manchuria (China), Suifenhe (China), Heihe (China), Hunchun (China), Mudanjiang (China), Vladivostok (Russia), Blagoveshchensk (Russia), Khabarovsk (Russia), Birobidzhan (Russia), Chita (Russia), Spa Minsk (Russia). The residents living in these cities frequently travel across the border to do business or just enjoy their travelling time, which contributes a significant part of Sino-Russian bilateral tourists. In addition, in the hinterland far away from the border line between the two countries, the cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk in Russia and Sanya, Dalian, Qingdao, Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an and other places in China are also very important travelling destinations for tourists from the counter nation.In terms of market size, nowadays China and Russia are main foreign tourists’ homeland to each other. Promoting the two-way flow of tourists between the two countries is of great significance to the entire Northeast Asian region’s tourism industry and other related industries’development. In2011, China received a total of2,536,000foreign tourists from Russia, only the Russian tourists entering into China by way of Heilongjiang Province reached1,463,400, accounting for China’s57.7%of Russian tourists; Russia received a total number of about800,000Chinese tourists in2011, and only the Chinese tourists entering into Russia by way of Heilongjiang Province reached427,000, accounting for more than half of Chinese tourist received by Russia. In terms of the space flow of tourists, Moscow, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg are the most attractive cites in the eyes of Chinese tourists, which means that Chinese tourists tend to experience the exotic Russian unique cultural customs, rather than its marvelous natural landscape; Sanya, Dalian, Qingdao, Beidaihe etc are the most attractive tourist destinations in China for Russian tourists, showing that China’s tropic or temperate seaside vocational travelling is more attractive to Russian tourists than its cultural or natural landscapes in Beijing, Xi’an, Huangshan etc.In recent years, the close bilateral economic and political relationship between China and Russia has shown a close-oriented development momentum. In1996, the Russia president Yeltsin’s visited to China, and China and Russia officially announced the establishment of "equality and mutual trust, the21st century oriented strategic partnership". In2001, China and Russia signed the" Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation ", indicating that China and Russia People will hold on to their everlasting friendship. Thereafter China’s Chairman Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping and the Russia’s President Putin and Medvedev also built and deepened a "comprehensive strategic partnership" between the two countries. Moreover, in2006and2007, China and Russia also held Chinese "Year of Russia" and the Russian "China Year" activities respectively to promote mutual understanding between the peoples in the two countries. In2012, the Chinese held a successful "Russia Tourism Year" activity, and in2013the similar activity the Russian "China Tourism Year" was also carried out, aimed at promoting cross-border flows between the two counties’ tourists. Of course, the travelling cooperation between China and Russia is also facing a number of practical difficulties and challenges, such as the residents of both sides, especially those lives in the hinterland, are lack of enthusiasm to the counter country. Besides bilateral visa formalities still needs to be simplified. And tourism market order is not yet standardized in both Russia and China, travel fees are usually expensive and opaque and illegal activities like gambling, smuggling, etc are still often organized under the name of international travelling.This thesis mainly focused on the international tourism cooperation strategy between China and Russia in the following aspects:First, this thesis starts with studying the tourism resources, tourism-related policies and international tourism market development status of China and Russia respectively. Secondly, this thesis analyzes the Sino-Russian international tourism cooperation history and studies the great opportunities and difficulties that the Sino-Russian cooperation in tourism are facing nowadays. Finally, this thesis ends up with solutions for bilateral tourism management and tourism-related practitioners’ reference.