Dai Bin | Value orientation and construction essentials of world-class tourist attractions

On August 17th, the 4th Earth Science Tourism Conference was held at the Zhangye Colorful Danxia Tourist Scenic Area. Dean Dai Bin of our institute was invited to attend and delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Value Orientation and Construction Essentials of World Class Tourist Attractions". The full text is as follows:

01

The market has a foundation, tourists have expectations, and the country has requirements

Sightseeing is the fundamental market for mass tourism, and sightseeing, leisure, and vacation will coexist for a long time, rather than shifting from scenic sightseeing to leisure vacation. This is the historical background and logical basis for building world-class tourist attractions. In a country with a population of 1.4 billion, hundreds of millions of urban and rural residents enter the ranks of tourism consumption for the first time every year. Whether it is energetic teenagers or elderly people with ample time, they all want to visit scenic spots with national geographical and cultural significance. The recent trend of "special forces style tourism" is to quickly check in at famous scenic spots. "I came, I saw, I left" is a typical sightseeing tourism. From the perspective of the inbound and outbound tourism market, Mount Huangshan Mountain, the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Sanxingdui, Huangshi National Park, Masai Mara Grassland, Iguasu Falls, Eiffel Tower and other landmark scenic spots are all must see places for first-time visitors. With the enrichment of tourism experience, people begin to pursue a deep experience of a certain country, region, or city, integrating into the leisure space of local residents, or spending leisure time quietly with family in vacation areas. This does not mean that sightseeing tourism no longer exists and that consumers have shifted towards leisure and vacation tourism, but rather that the same group has different travel motivations at different stages of their lifecycle. With the development of the times, more and more tourists will pursue personalized leisure experiences and vacation life. The proportion of leisure and vacation tourists in the total number of tourists is steadily increasing. However, there will also be more "novice tourists" joining the ranks of sightseeing and continuously promoting the steady growth of scenic spot sightseeing and travel base. As long as the population continues to grow, the market foundation for sightseeing tourism will always exist. As long as people's curiosity about the unknown world remains unchanged, there will be a demand for both leisure and sightseeing. In this sense, the construction of tourist attractions will be the eternal theme of modern tourism, and world-class tourist attractions will be the pearls on the crown of tourist attractions.

Scenic spots are the fundamental support of modern tourism industry, and building a tourism powerhouse requires more high-quality tourist attractions. On the one hand, we should see the trend of "de scenic spots" that comes with leisure vacationers, and on the other hand, we should also recognize the "scenic spot dependence" of tourists in the era of comprehensive development of mass tourism. The construction of the tourism scenic spot system in the era of comprehensive development of mass tourism should not be limited to classification and grading, but should start from the perspective of the source of tourists, and build a number of tourist attractions and leisure spaces that are from near to far, diverse in types, and rich in levels for the people. Firstly, it is necessary to cater to the leisure needs of urban and rural residents by building a number of free and open urban greenways and municipal parks, allowing people to fully enjoy the beautiful scenery and daily life around them. In the 1960s, I saw footage of children in the capital's parks in movies and TV shows, and in the 1980s, I heard the song 'Let's Paddle' on the radio. Those were the childhood dreams of many young people in small towns! With the development of the economy and society, as well as the construction of new urbanization and beautiful countryside, we should enable more children in third - and fourth tier cities and central towns to see the beautiful white towers reflected on the sea, surrounded by green trees and red walls on all sides. Secondly, there are easily accessible country parks and wetland parks, which can be free or public welfare, steadily bringing quality living spaces from close-up to mid-range. In the new version of Beijing's urban master plan, which includes the ecological spatial pattern of "one screen, three rings, five rivers, and nine wedges", the "one green road separating the urban park ring", "two green roads separating the suburban park ring", and "the capital forest wetland park ring" together form an important green "three rings", and have completed the transformation of green isolation as the main function to serve local leisure and short distance travel for citizens. The park city in Chengdu also follows this logic, integrating parks into the city's economic and social development system, and thus forming a new space for a beautiful life that is both nearby and distant, and shared by both hosts and guests.

On this basis, national parks, national cultural parks, geological parks, forest parks, wetland parks, heritage parks, and archaeological parks from a national perspective are introduced to provide residents - residents are returning tourists, tourists are traveling residents - with diverse types and rich levels of poetry and distant living spaces. The reason why theme parks, resorts, museums, art galleries, theaters, and commercial districts were not included is that tourist attractions are products of the national conditions and the times, and parks and scenic spots are typical representatives of tourist attractions. The construction process of greenways, municipal parks, suburban parks, national parks, and national cultural parks is not only a process of continuously meeting the people's demand for a better tourism and leisure life, but also a process of accumulating experience in the construction of world-class tourist attractions.

02

Landscape has value, culture has heritage, and scenic spots have ideas

World class tourist attractions should and can also carry the common values of all humanity. Tourist attractions should not only see the scenery, but also the ideas and values. Without the guidance of ideas, tourist attractions cannot go far; Without the support of values, tourist attractions are also unsustainable. The common values of peace and development, fairness and justice, democracy and freedom for all mankind are also the guiding principles for tourism development and the construction of tourist attractions. Peace is the eternal expectation of the people, like air and sunshine; Development is the top priority for all countries and a powerful support for the survival of civilization. In the great historical process of promoting common prosperity in various countries and regions, we advocate for an innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development concept to achieve coordinated economic and social progress among all countries. We must face major practical issues such as wealth gap and development gap, pay attention to underdeveloped countries and regions, care for impoverished people, and let every piece of land nurture hope. Scenic areas developed based on natural resources, historical and cultural heritage, and social development systems not only meet the needs of tourists for sightseeing and leisure, but also carry the glory and dreams of promoting comprehensive human development, economic growth, and social development. In the process of planning, construction, and operation of scenic spots, it is not only necessary to pay attention to the creative inheritance and innovative development of excellent traditional culture, but also to promote socialist advanced culture, enrich the experience content and consumption scenes of tourist attractions.

Due to historical reasons, many natural and historical cultural scenic spots in China are located in economically underdeveloped areas, or in historical and cultural cities and ancient villages with inconvenient transportation in economically developed areas. These scenic spots require national level planning and construction, as well as central and provincial financial investment and support. If the scenic spots such as the Colorful Danxia in Zhangye, Gansu Province, the Great Buddhist Temple, Qinghai Lake, Kumbum Monastery, Shuidonggou in Ningxia, and the Tomb of the King of Xixia simply rely on the ticket income and self-development of the scenic spots, they may have difficulties in survival. When these scenic spots have developed to a certain extent, they should consciously make their due contributions to the economic and social development of the region. For example, the Opinions on Deepening the Integration of Culture and Tourism, Displaying Anhui Style, and Accelerating the Construction of a High quality Tourism Powerful Province recently issued by the Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the Anhui Provincial People's Government regard the construction of a world-class leisure and vacation tourism destination in Mount Huangshan as an important part of the construction project of a new tourism highland. The cultural and tourism integration case launched at the China Tourism Group Annual Conference includes the embedded development model of Xiangcun and Qizhuang in Zhouzhuang, Jiangsu. The Yangtze River Sleepless City in Ma'anshan City has created an open commercial block with a scenic area mindset, further commercializing the block through rent free and shared development models, which is also a beneficial exploration of the development model of tourism scenic spots in the new era. No matter when and where, not competing with the community for profits, but sharing with the people is what world-class tourist attractions should look like.

The tourism industry has strong economic attributes and a high degree of marketization. The development of China's tourism economy in the past forty years has been a process of marketization and specialization, as well as a result of reform and opening up. The tourism industry in the process of economic globalization should and must develop towards a more open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win direction. We should not only make the cake bigger, but also divide it well and focus on solving issues of fairness and justice. On the one hand, it is necessary to fully protect the tourism rights of the citizens, and we must not enclose every scenic spot and charge admission fees, or even "prevent tourists from peeping into the beautiful rivers and mountains of our country". Conditional areas should orderly reduce the ticket prices of state-owned key scenic spots, including the free opening of West Lake in Hangzhou and Elephant Trunk Hill in Guilin. On the other hand, we should fully pay attention to the development rights of the people in the area where the scenic spot is located, and provide high-quality employment, medical care, education and other livelihood guarantees for those who have lived here for generations. The construction of scenic spots and the development of tourism should provide employment opportunities for local residents, while ensuring reasonable growth in quantity and effective improvement in quality. Efforts should be made to make life scenes a specific symbol of scenic spots, making tourism more vibrant and lively, allowing more people to share the dividends brought by tourism, and truly achieving common prosperity. Scenic spots are an integral part of the local natural environment and social development system. If a "dual structure" of scenic spots and communities emerges, no matter how beautiful the scenery is or how personalized the services are, it cannot be a truly world-class tourist attraction.

03

Development has goals, technology has a roadmap, and there is no set timeline

World class tourist attractions should have globally renowned natural resources and cultural values shared by all mankind, as defined in the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council's 14th Five Year Plan for the Development of the Tourism Industry. The first tourist attractions that meet the above requirements that come to mind are the 56 scenic spots listed as World Cultural Heritage, World Cultural and Natural Dual Heritage, and World Natural Heritage. If nothing unexpected happens, those included in the first batch of world-class tourist attraction construction list should come from tourist attractions developed based on World Heritage sites. Those scenic spots with national card attribute, both natural scenery and cultural value, clear management boundary, large tourist reception and modern management, such as the Great Wall, the Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Mogao Grottoes, Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang and Terracotta Warriors, Potala Palace historical buildings, Mount Huangshan Mountain, Lushan Mountain, Mount Wuyi, Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area Valley, Hangzhou West Lake, Suzhou Gardens, the Earthen Building in Fujian Province, etc., are easy to attract the attention of cultural and tourism authorities. For these scenic spots, the main task at present is to sort out, summarize, and extract the cultural heritage of tourist attractions, and to narrate the creative inheritance and innovative development of excellent culture in a language that the tourism market can understand. It is necessary to implement the concept of "shaping tourism with culture, highlighting culture with tourism, and promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism" and make it visible to society. The focus of work in the coming period will be to adhere to the people-oriented nature of mass tourism, the modernization of smart tourism, the sense of future of green tourism, and the worldview of civilized tourism, so that the construction achievements of tourist attractions can be shared by people from all countries and regions in the world, and as tourists, tell the story of China in the new era to the world. In addition to 56 World Heritage sites, there are hundreds of 5A level scenic spots that are willing to create conditions to enter the construction of world-class tourist attractions. Although it is unrealistic to build hundreds of world-class tourist attractions in a short period of time, and it is also impossible to be a policy goal, we are willing to see more tourist attractions work hard for this goal by positioning world-class tourist attractions to "serve tourists from all countries and regions in the world, including the Chinese people, with modern management and world-class quality, promote the deep integration of culture and tourism, and promote high-quality development of tourism".

From the perspective of policy orientation and practical process, the construction of world-class tourist attractions will be a long-term construction process, rather than a phased achievement acceptance. Returning to the beginning, scenic sightseeing and vacation leisure will coexist in the comprehensive development stage of mass tourism for a long time. Central documents and development plans also aim to build world-class tourist attractions and resorts, as well as a number of tourism and leisure cities and blocks with distinctive cultural characteristics. For high-level scenic spots that have the conditions to become representative of the national tourism image and form the node support of the national tourism route, it is necessary to create conditions, improve their level, and accelerate the construction of world-class tourist attractions under the guidance of world-class tourist attraction work guidelines and tourism regulatory departments. For vacation areas, theme parks, and tourist districts that are more suitable for developing new forms of leisure and vacation, it is recommended to create world-class tourist resorts, national level tourist and leisure districts, and world-class tourism groups. The history of tourism development over the past forty years shows that supply side innovation has mainly focused on government led standard setting, local mobilization of administrative resources, and the creation and delisting of enterprises and institutions through classification and grading. In the absence of clear evaluation criteria for world-class tourist attractions and resorts, the traditional creation and listing model may need to be adjusted accordingly. It is not enough to simply regard world-class tourist attractions as a "5A" brand and use it as a goal to create a roadmap and listing schedule. The cultural and tourism system, as well as the management entities and operating institutions of tourist attractions, should effectively transform their work ideas, from graded evaluation to classified development, from upgrading to comprehensive improvement, from expert evaluation to market recognition, from national conditions to common values, pragmatically promote the deep integration of culture and tourism, and effectively improve the quality of tourist attraction development. Whether listed or not, only by truly achieving a high-level scenic spot, high tourist satisfaction, high-quality development, creative cultural inheritance, and demonstration of ecological civilization, and contributing Chinese wisdom to the prosperity of world tourism with the strategic orientation of "Three Highs, Two Ones, and One Contribution", and making unremitting efforts for this, can a world-class tourist scenic spot be what it should be.

Author | Dai Bin

Manuscript Review | Yang Liqiong

Source | China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism)

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