APTEC Silk Road Survey Report
"Silk Road Tourism in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China"
In October of 1994, nineteen countries including Japan convened in Samarkand for the "Silk Road Project" co-sponsored by WTO and UNESCO. At the meeting, the "Samarkand Declaration on Silk Road Tourism" was adopted declaring the future promotion of Silk Road tourism in collaboration with the public and private sectors.
In this connection, the Asia-Pacific Tourism Exchange Center (APTEC), founded in September 1995, launched the "Research Project for the Promotion of Tourism Exchange with Developing Countries and Areas along the Silk Road" and the "Silk Road Tourism Promotion Committee" (chaired by Dr. Takayasu Higuchi, Director of the Research Center for Silk-Roadology) was established in APTEC charged with its implementation. In addition to conducting basic studies of trends in exchange between various countries and regions, research teams consisting of scholars and administrators from tourism-related groups and local governments were dispatched to major tourist destinations along the Silk Road to gather basic information and submit proposals to the local governments containing concrete policies for the promotion of international tourism and international tourism exchange with Japan.
Research studies were undertaken in Xi'an and Lanzhou in February and March 1996, in the Hexi Corridor in October 1996 and in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in September 1997.
The Chinese portion of the Silk Road in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is blocked by the Tian Shan Mountains and the Taklimakan Desert, and is divided into three roads, namely the Northern and Southern Routes of the Tian Shan Mountains and the Southern Route in the Western Region.
On this particular trip, we flew into Urumqi, which is located on the ancient Northern Route of the Tian Shan Mountains, via Beijing on September 6. The following day, September 7, the Silk Road Tourism Promotion Seminar entitled "The Effective Use of Historical Resources and Environmental Conservation" was held in Urumqi. Although it was a Sunday, the participants comprising over fifty persons in the tourism field attended and the meeting turned out to be very successful.
Mr. Nayim Yashin. Director of Tourism Administration, Xinjian Uygur Autonomous Region, opened the seminar with his presentation of the current situation of tourism in the region, speaking about the existence of many historical, cultural and natural resources, the
