Shanghai Sets Up Metropolitan Leisure Commission

The World Leisure Organization's China branch has set up a leisure commission in Shanghai in the hope of creating a platform to encourage leisure travel consumption in the face of the global financial crisis.

Dao Shuming, director of the Shanghai Tourism Administration, says that this is the right time to set up the commission because while the financial crisis is affecting the world, the tourism industry needs to debate whether it's necessary to expand and how to expand to encourage tourism consumption.

Lou Jiajun, the director of the Leisure Research Center of Huadong Normal University, says Shanghai is the city with the most complete leisure industry chain and greatest leisure consumption potential in China, so it is vital for the city to consider the problems of developing leisure tourism.

A number of travel enterprises, including Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group and The Westin Bund Center Shanghai, participated in the meeting to establish the commission with the aim of finding a solution to the imbalance in supply and demand for tourism information.