On the morning of 24 September 2019, Dr. Johan Afendi Ibrahim, Dean of theCollege of Tourism, Dr. Ahmad Edwin Mohamed, Associate Dean, and Mr. Muharis Mohammed, Director of the Hospitality Management Discipline of Universiti Sains Malaysia, a group of five people visited Hainan University, and Guo Qiang, Dean of the College of Tourism, and He Biao, Associate Dean, visited Hainan University in 8- 501 conference room met with the guests, Mr. Zhou Hongxia, PhD student of Hainan University, Mr. Wang Cun Tsuen, Vice President of Malaysia Hainan Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Yu Lili, Director of Academic Affairs Office and Mr. Wang Bing attended the meeting.

The meeting was hosted by Ms Zhou Hongxia. Dean Guo Qiang firstly expressed a warm welcome to the visit of the delegation from Northern University and introduced in detail our strong faculty and quality schooling conditions. He mentioned that in the context of building a free trade pilot zone and a free trade port with Chinese characteristics in Hainan, our university still needs more quality students, and proposed to the Northern University of Malaysia to jointly enroll students, share educational resources, develop together and build a "Belt and Road" tourism education alliance. Dr. Johan Afendi Ibrahim, Dean of theCollege of Tourism of the University of Northern Malaysia, introduced the relevant information of the University of Northern Malaysia and theCollege of Tourism, especially the cooperation with Chinese universities, and expressed his hope to join hands with the College of Tourism of Hainan University and actively carry out various cooperation matters to achieve the common development of the two universities and actively respond to the "Belt and Road" initiative. He expressed the hope that they could join hands with the College of Tourism of Hainan University and actively carry out various cooperation matters to achieve the joint development of the two universities and respond positively to the "Belt and Road" initiative. The two sides then discussed the joint doctoral training programme, inter-campus exchange of students and teacher visits, and expressed their eagerness to cooperate and exchange between the two universities, and reached a preliminary consensus on some areas of cooperation, hoping to further negotiate and sign an agreement later, and actively promote various cooperation. The two sides took a group photo and exchanged gifts, ending the exchange happily.

The meeting enhanced the friendship between Hainan University and the University of Northern Malaysia, strengthened the cooperation and exchange between Hainan and Southeast Asian countries, and was conducive to promoting Hainan's tourism higher education to go global, sharing resources and developing together with foreign tourism colleges and universities, actively responding to the "One Belt, One Road" initiative proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, and promoting the construction of the "One Belt, One Road" tourism education alliance proposed by Hainan Province.

Fig. 1 Meeting site