BEIJING: The 2026 Hainan International Language Service Industry and Talent Development Forum convened Thursday in Sanya, Hainan province, drawing about 150 participants, including guests from Russia, Uzbekistan, France and Japan.
The event, themed “Language Services Empowering Cultural Tourism Consumption and International Language Environment Development”, comes following Hainan’s launch of island-wide special customs operations, a shift expected to further boost inbound tourism. Nie Jing, deputy general manager of Hainan Tourism Investment Group, said visa-free policies have fueled rising visitor numbers, elevating language services from a supporting role to core “soft infrastructure” for the Hainan Free Trade Port’s business environment.
Nie said the group will build a language service standards system, talent training bases and a joint language technology laboratory.
The forum launched a government-industry-enterprise-university program to train guides in less commonly taught languages, alongside school-enterprise cooperation agreements. Organizers said the model aims to close a mismatch in which graduates often know a foreign language but lack industry skills, or vice versa.
Speakers highlighted practical challenges. Lu Ping, chairman of Hainan Free Trade Zone Dehang Group, said cross-language cultural communication poses real obstacles in cross-border livestreaming and exhibition trading, calling for more localized, intelligent solutions.
Zhou Lijing, director of inbound and product business unit at Hainan Saiaofei International Travel Agency Co, said demand is growing for Czech, Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Spanish services beyond traditional Russian, leaving a shortage of qualified guides. She urged deeper industry-education integration and “language plus service, operations and marketing” talent development. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
