From 10 to 11 May 2022, the Chinese Language Training and Capacity Building Workshop of ASEAN (Lao PDR) was co-organised by Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism of Lao PDR (MICT) and the ASEAN-China Centre (ACC). About 100 local Chinese-speaking tour guides, tourism practitioners, tourism teachers and students from the Lao PDR attended the 2-day online training programme. Mr. Chen Dehai, Secretary-General of ACC, Mr. Ounethouang Khaophan, Deputy Minister of MICT addressed the opening session.  

Secretary-General Chen Dehai noted that with the success of the 2019 Visit Laos-China Year, people-to-people exchanges between the two countries reached a new height. Tourism has become one of the highlight areas for Laos-China exchanges and cooperation. Currently, the government of the Lao PDR and China are working closely to enhance bilateral cooperation in various fields. The Laos-China railway will greatly facilitate the personnel exchanges and have profound influence to the tourism cooperation of the two sides. ACC is willing to cooperate with MICT on tourism human resources development cooperation and will give priority to Chinese language training and tourism capacity building. 

Deputy Minister Mr. Ounethouang Khaophan thanked ACC for organising this workshop and stated that the Lao PDR and China enjoy a sound relationship in tourism cooperation and development. Lao PDR started to re-open its borders in early 2022 and fully re-opened to the world recently. Meanwhile, the government also launched quite a few measures to facilitate and attract international travellers. Lao PDR would like to welcome more Chinese tourists to visit the country after the pandemic. 

Chinese Language Training for Chinese-Speaking Tour Guides of ASEAN is one of the major flagship projects of ACC and is very popular among ASEAN Member States (AMS). During the pandemic, this project has played an important role in tourism human resource cooperation between AMS and China. The courses of this workshop featured Tour Guide Service Standards and Communication Techniques, Chinese Traditional Culture and Tourism Hospitality and Digital Transformation of Tourism, and were widely welcomed by Lao participants.