World Tourism Association for Culture and Heritage (WTACH) executive chair Chris Flynn was recently elected vice-chair of the World Rural Tourism Conference (WRTC) for the Asia Pacific Region. 

The new position will be formally recognised at the upcoming WRTC Forum to be held in Lucun, Huzhou, China from 8 to 10 November.

Commenting on his election, Flynn said: “This is a truly great honour. I look forward to working more closely with WTRC to forge new relationships in China and beyond that will yield innovative and productive ideas, solutions, and opportunities to improve the Rural & Cultural Tourism sectors.”

A timely forum

The WRTC Forum aims to comprehensively promote the organic interaction between rural finance, rural revitalisation, and rural tourism as a win-win platform for promoting a community with a shared future for mankind. 

At the same time, it fully leverages the leading role of finance in deepening the Ten Million Project which seeks to support rural revitalisation and rural tourism, whilst contributing to the realisation of human rural civilization and common prosperity. 

Flynn said of this: “Rural Tourism is a rapidly growing and critically important sector for Cultural Heritage Tourism development, as it often incorporates aspects of both Community and Culinary Tourism all of which as covered in the WTACH Responsible Tourism Development Academy (RTDA) training modules.”

He added that each RTDA Training Package was developed in conjunction with the organisation’s global network of industry and associated experts with the primary objective of  delivering Excellence in Tourism Development and Leadership.