On October 9, “Camellia Friendship Certificate” of Ningbo City awarding ceremony was grandly held in the Conference Center of the Municipal Government, and professor Philippe Violier (French nationality), assistant dean of Ningbo University-University of Angers Joint Institute at Ningbo, won this honor. Qiu Dongyao, vice secretary of Ningbo Municipal Committee and mayor, presented the Camellia Friendship Certificate to the winners in recognition of their positive contribution to Ningbo's reform, opening-up and economic development.
Philippe Violier, a famous French tourist geographer and distinguished professor, now is the dean of the School of Tourism and Culture, University of Angers, and the assistant dean of Ningbo University-University of Angers Joint Institute at Ningbo. He once served as the president of the Board of University of Angers and president of the French Committee of Tourism and Leisure Geography, etc. He has successively won the silver medal from the Ministry of Transport and Tourism and the officer medal from the Ministry of National Education of France.
Professor Violier visited Ningbo University for the first time in the spring of 2005. In the next 15 years, he has devoted himself to promoting the exchange and cooperation between University of Angers and European tourism circles and Ningbo University, introducing a large number of high-level scholars and many industry experts from French and European universities to Ningbo University, and promoting Ningbo University to cooperate with University of Angers to launch undergraduate education program and master education program for tourism management major, both of which were approved by the Ministry of Education of China in June 2010 and August 2013 respectively. Under the active promotion of professor Violier, Ningbo University-University of Angers Joint Institute at Ningbo was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2017 and became one of the 17 Chinese-French cooperatively-run schools in China.
Professor Violier has been friendly to China for a long time and he is firmly optimistic about the development and future of China. He promoted the addition of Chinese studies to the master's program at the School of Tourism and Culture of University of Angers, to cultivate the future elites from French tourism industry who know and are friendly to China one after another. At his initiative, the 3rd Angers International Tourism Festival was held in March 2019 when President Xi Jinping visited France, and with China as the main guest country, a series of China-themed activities were launched around the friendly exchange between China and France. In recognition of his outstanding contributions, in October 2019, he was invited to attend a military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
After the outbreak of the COVID-19, professor Violier paid close attention to China's development, understood China's experience, and cared about the Chinese teachers and students studying at University of Angers; meanwhile, he guided the former students to collect, sum up Zhejiang’s experience in anti-epidemic work and reported it in the mainstream media in France, receiving a warm response from the French society.
