On June 2, the “2026 World Mayors Dialogue • Beijing” of the WTCF Beijing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2026, co-hosted by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and the Information Office of Beijing Municipal People’s Government and themed “Future Tourism • Smart City Renaissance”, was held at Zhongguancun International Innovation Center. Sima Hong, Vice Mayor of Beijing and Executive Vice Chair of the WTCF Council, and other leaders attended the event. Zhang Ge, Secretary of the Haidian District Committee, delivered a keynote speech on “Explore Zhongguancun: Embracing Innovation and the Future”. Gloria Guevara, President and Chief Executive Officer of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), shared cutting-edge insights. Representatives from Athens, Andorra la Vella, Chisinau, Victoria, Quito, San Salvador and other cities engaged in dialogue.

Zhang Ge, on behalf of Haidian District, extended a warm welcome to the attending leaders and guests. He stated that Haidian is a city where natural landscapes integrate with profound cultural heritage, and where sci-tech innovation resonates in sync with the future. It boasts profound humanistic heritage, where ancient and modern cultural lineage, revolutionary heritage, and the spirit of innovation interweave and crystallize, forging Haidian’s distinctive urban temperament; it is endowed with innovation momentum that leads the nation, featuring the convergence of education, technology and talent, robust economic growth momentum, vibrant growth of sci-tech enterprises, and dense, active intellectual resources, continuously injecting inexhaustible vitality into the city’s development. At present, the AI wave is reshaping industries, and technological transformation is restructuring cities. Future tourism fuels the rejuvenation of cultural heritage, and smart urban development elevates city development. Grounded in its unique endowments of mountains and waters, cultural lineage and sci-tech innovation, Haidian adheres to forge the city via culture, fuel development with smart technologies, boost tourism through integrated development, adhere to a people-centered philosophy, striving to build a modern urban district where one can both touch historical cultural lineage and foresee future technology.

Zhang Ge shared in-depth insights from four dimensions: cultural lineage nourishing the city, technology-driven renewal, integration-driven industry prosperity, and smart city governance. He pointed out that Haidian always adheres to protection as the foundation, activation as the priority, and integration into daily life, making mountains and waters a poetic urban experience accessible to all. To safeguard its cultural lineage of mountains and waters, Haidian has connected the 36-kilometer Greenway of the Three Hills and Five Gardens, linking renowned gardens and historic sites to weave scattered historical legacies into an integrated whole and transform static cultural resources into flowing urban landscapes; to carry forward its red genes, Haidian has burnished the red IP of “the Historic Route of the CPC’s March to Beijing to Found a New China”, connecting red landmarks to forge red corridors that are walkable, perceivable, inheritable and experienceable; to cultivate urban temperament, Haidian has delved deep into the scholarly fragrance of academic institutions, the spirit of scientists, and the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, launching distinctive themed cultural and tourism routes. Haidian insists on empowering cultural inheritance with technology and reshaping tourism formats, giving ancient civilizations expressions oriented toward the future. It revitalizes history through digital means, leveraging cutting-edge technologies to enable garden treasures to transcend time and space and come vividly back to life; it upgrades experiences through intelligence, promoting multilingual AI smart guides and immersive interactive interpretation across the entire district; it incubates business formats through scenarios, relying on the resources of universities and research institutes, key laboratories, and leading sci-tech enterprises to build a nationally leading destination for sci-tech study tours. Haidian continuously promotes the integrated development of culture, commerce, tourism, sports and exhibitions, activating urban value through diverse business formats and making cultural and tourism vitality a powerful engine for urban development. Relying on core business districts, it integrates performing arts and events, fashion consumption, and leisure experiences to build trendy and vibrant scenes; it cultivates distinctive economic formats, drawing traffic through brand events and retaining visitors through quality scenarios, converting footfall into growth and popularity into business opportunities; it expands public spaces across the entire district, bringing sports and cultural services and ecological recreation to the doorsteps of the people. Haidian always empowers cultural and tourism services and enhances public welfare through smart urban governance, ensuring that urban development ultimately serves the people’s aspiration for a better life. Relying on the Haidian Urban Brain, it builds a district-wide smart cultural and tourism dispatch system; it deploys over one hundred cultural and tourism service stations, providing one-stop, refined and people-friendly smart services; it is going all out to build the Jingzhang Railway Heritage Park into a world-class AI innovation block, creating the “Century-old Jingzhang AI Innovation Belt” to transform industrial heritage into an innovation highland; it continuously advances urban renewal, giving old buildings new life, enabling old blocks to carry new functions, and allowing old spaces to incubate new scenarios.

A thousand cities, a thousand faces; shared beauty in harmony. On site, Haidian made friends through tourism and welcomed the world with intelligence, extending a sincere invitation to the world: We wish to jointly safeguard our cultural lineage with everyone, joining hands to protect treasures of civilization and revitalize historical heritage, allowing the cultural lineage of mountains and waters to radiate with entirely new brilliance in the new era. We wish to jointly create new tourism with you, fully opening up urban scenarios, sci-tech innovation resources, and cultural and tourism platforms to jointly explore new tracks and new paradigms of “AI + Culture & Tourism”, and co-create a new ecosystem for tourism. We wish to jointly build new cities with you, sharing smart governance experience and jointly exploring pathways for urban advancement, joining hands to build cities that are smarter, more inclusive, and more livable.

Currently, emerging technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence are accelerating their integration into all industries, bringing new opportunities and new challenges to the development of urban tourism. The Mayors Dialogue session gathered urban managers, who, grounded in the development trends of the global tourism industry, conducted in-depth discussions on methods and pathways for enhancing and upgrading urban tourism, shared practical experience and development insights, forged consensus on urban construction and tourism development, and opened up a better future for urban life through the digital and smart transformation of the tourism industry.