When the Annual Report on Development of World Tourism Cities came out recently, it had the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province, at 15th place for support for tourism development, and 8th for support for human resource.

The report, released by the World Tourism Cities Federation during the Rabat and Fez Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, ranked 63 cities, 4 in the Middle East and Africa, 21 from Europe, 9 from the Americas, and 29 in the Asia-Pacific region.

It had Harbin in the 15th spot with a score of 67.4 out of 100, a government tourism marketing index of 49.07, tourism support of 44.44, and visa policy at 47.22.

Support for tourism index is used for measuring a city’s support strength to tourism development, and the larger the index value is, the greater the support strength will be. The support for tourism index consists of government tourism marketing, tourism human resource support and visa policy.

The government tourism marketing is based on the amount of tourism information on the municipal website, while the human resource support is based on tourism training at universities and colleges, and the visa policy is based on the convenience in getting a visa.

The Federation is a non-profit, non-governmental organization initiated by Beijing and voluntarily formed by Berlin, Los Angeles, Barcelona and many other world famous tourism cities and tourism-related institutions.

Its numbers are growing, from 58 original cities and institutions to 135 members, as is its international influence.

Support for tourism index (Top 20)
1. Toronto, Canada
2. Bangkok, Thailand
3. Paris, France
4. Beijing, China
5. Shanghai, China
6. Macao, China
7. Guangzhou, China
8. Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
9. Hong Kong, China
10. Amsterdam, the Netherlands
11. Xi’an, China
12. Sapporo, Japan
13. Seoul, South Korea
14. Berlin, Germany
15. Harbin, China
16. Boston, USA
17. Riga, Latvia
18. Hangzhou, China
19. Cape Town, South Africa
20. Chengdu, China

Human resource support for tourism index (Top 8)
1. Bangkok
2. London, UK
3. Toronto
4. Shanghai
5. Beijing
6. Guangzhou
7. Xi’an
8. Harbin, Wuhan, Chongqing