Dai Bin | National Camp · National Study Tour

On the morning of March 20th, the "China Study Tour Development Report · Shaoxing Release" event, jointly organized by China Tourism Research Institute, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and Shaoxing Municipal People's Government, and hosted by Shaoxing Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, was held in Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province. Dean Dai Bin delivered a keynote speech on "National Camp · National Study", and the full text is as follows:

The study tour has completed the stages of concept introduction, policy support, and market practice, playing a positive role in promoting social education for primary and secondary school students, awakening national awareness of study tours, and promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism. Compared to the standardization construction on the demand side and product level, the theoretical innovation and industrial practice on the supply side of research-based travel focusing on the macro level are relatively weak. In order to better promote the development concept of "scholarly spirit research, family and world travel", we need to make necessary spatial planning for research travel in the new era on the basis of summarizing recent practices, from the strategic height of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in Chinese path to modernization, from camp to city to route.

01 Build a batch of national camps for children and adolescents, forming a key project support for study tours in the new era

After more than a hundred years of development, campsite education has become an important form of education in many countries and a highly attractive destination for study tours. World renowned national campsites include Russia's Eagle Campsite, Artek International Campsite, and All Russian Children's Center Ocean Campsite, UK's Inspiring Learning and Gilwell Park, US based Lennox High End Traditional Campsite, Summit Campsite, Champion Campsite, and K&E Campsite, and Switzerland's Les Elfes International Campsite. These camps are located in areas with beautiful scenery and rich historical heritage, built or funded by the state, providing short-term boarding services for children, as well as outdoor sports, wilderness survival, astronomy, traditional culture, team leadership education, and international youth exchange programs. Compared with traditional standardized education and classroom teaching, the learning content and training programs of campsite education can be operated professionally in a scale economy manner, providing scenario based astronomical, geographical, sports, and humanities learning programs for educational objects

National campsites are not national level campsites guided by financial subsidies, nor should they become a platform for departmental power struggles, local reputation struggles, or corporate profit struggles. Instead, they are an essential component of the national education system sponsored by the state, carrying the will of the nation. They are educational institutions aimed at cultivating cultural confidence in children, enhancing national scientific literacy, and social communication skills. In the specific implementation process, it is not advisable to follow the traditional model of national policies, departmental standards, and local creation applications. Instead, the propaganda department should take the lead, with the participation of finance, development and reform, land and resources, environmental protection, education, science and technology, the Communist Youth League, culture, and tourism departments, and plan and select construction sites from the perspective of building a socialist cultural power. Just like the construction of a modern industrial system in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, national affairs are handled by the state, and national financial resources are used to build national camps into strategic support points for national education and lifelong learning systems. The required construction and operation funds should be included in the national budget, that is, the construction subject of the national camp is the state rather than society, and the operation subject is the government rather than the market. Now recognized by the education, sports, culture, and tourism departments according to standards, various types of campsites operated by enterprises are mostly intangible cultural heritage experience sites and cultural and creative product sales sites. Essentially, they are national level campsites oriented towards learning products, rather than national education oriented campsites.

The construction of national campsites that we advocate can certainly draw on international experience, but it should also be combined with excellent traditional culture and the requirements of the Chinese modern era. The completed national campsite should be a landmark that carries excellent traditional culture and indicates the direction of future development. Over the past forty years of reform and opening up, the national education system, including compulsory education, has mostly selected outstanding talents through classroom teaching and entrance exams. Today's China still needs excellent scientific and technological talents, humanities and social sciences, economic and trade, and social management talents, as well as qualified citizens and employment oriented vocational and technical talents. Such talents should not be exam oriented one-dimensional talents, but modern citizens who love life, understand nature, and integrate into society. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to build a number of national camps that are open to society and the international community nationwide to make up for the shortcomings of standardized education. The site selection range of national campsites can include archaeological sites parks, national key cultural relics protection units, nature reserves, patriotic education bases, key areas for cultural, artistic, educational, and technological gathering, as well as urban spaces such as the Macao Special Administrative Region.

02 Cultivate a group of research and learning cities for the healthy growth and cultural exchange of young people

In the contemporary tourism landscape, no matter how much we emphasize the importance of scenic spots and rural areas based on natural landscapes, cultural heritage sites, and ethnic customs, including emphasizing the focus of tourism work on rural areas, it cannot replace the objective law that "the focus of tourism work should and must be in cities" that is not subject to human will. From the perspectives of tourist source areas, tourist distribution centers, and tourist destinations, cities have become the basic market and key support for study tours due to their developed economic and social development level, perfect infrastructure and public services, as well as advantages in capital, technology, and human resources. For a long time, tourism administrative departments and research institutions have regarded cities as a natural tourism market, including organizers of study tours, intentionally or unintentionally weakening the role of cities as tourist destinations. In fact, whether it is the degree of enrichment of cultural heritage, the height of cultural landmarks and art centers, or the strength of technological research and industrial systems, the tourism value of national hub cities and regional center cities is greatly underestimated - if not ignored.

Why is the concept of a study city proposed now? The study tour is still in the stage of market introduction and has not yet completed the necessary theoretical construction and policy design. If the subject is limited to primary and secondary school students and the content is directed towards mobile classrooms and intangible cultural heritage experiences, if the organizers are limited to school administrators and travel agencies, and even if the study tour guides are directed towards certification mode, it is easy to become an internal competition industry system. If we only consider study tours as a business, even if the market size is large, it is not what study tours should look like in the national strategic landscape. If college students are also included in the main body of study tours, a hierarchical promotion system will be formed, in which primary school students receive necessary county (city, district, banner) education, junior high school students receive necessary city (administrative office, state, league) education, high school students receive necessary provincial (city, autonomous region) education, and college students receive national education as much as possible. To this end, it is necessary to seize the inherent advantages of the travel needs of urban customer groups and the supply of study tours, rely on the economic and social development achievements of cities, and cultivate a group of study tour destination cities with profound cultural heritage and rich scientific and technological education resources. Research cities cannot be declared, created, and accepted solely based on quantitative standards, but rather guided by demonstration cities while respecting their inherent evolutionary logic and supporting elements.

Why set up a study tour meteorological station in Shaoxing? To promote the healthy and sustainable development of the new phenomenon of study tours, it is necessary to regularly monitor the scale, structure, and changes of the demand market and supply factors, and form an increasingly comprehensive specialized database. Based on scientific evaluation, research and formulate policies for promotion, regulation, and control, forming data centers, laboratories, research and development, and education and training bases. Through the release of special reports, conferences, international exchanges, and exhibition transactions, provide professional support for study tours across the country and the Asia Pacific region. Taking into account factors such as the level of economic and social development, transportation infrastructure, historical and cultural heritage, as well as policies, laws, and business environment, the China Tourism Research Institute (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) and the Shaoxing Municipal People's Government have collaborated to establish the country's first study tour meteorological station based on the principle of consultation, co construction, and sharing. The relationship between universities and cities, and between study tours and weather stations and study cities, is also embedded, coupled, mutually reinforcing, and symbiotic.

Why conduct experiments on national camps in the Macau Special Administrative Region? Of course, there are considerations for developing mainland youth to travel to Macau for academic purposes and promoting sustainable tourism development in Macau; There is also a goal to guide the transformation of gambling enterprises and promote moderate economic diversification; Moreover, due to the first unequal treaty signed in modern history, the Treaty of Wangxia between China and the United States, and Mr. Sun Yat sen's early revolutionary footsteps, it allows young people in mainland China to witness the vicissitudes of modern China and its unyielding spirit; The Lotus Square, the Return Memorial Hall, and the Hengqin Deep Cooperation Zone can allow mainland youth to see the great achievements of "One Country, Two Systems" and the patriotic governance of Australia in contemporary China. The gradually built world tourism and leisure center, the business and service cooperation platform between China and Portuguese speaking countries, and the exchange and cooperation base with Chinese culture as the mainstream and diverse cultures can allow mainland youth to see the future China of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

03 Promote a batch of national study tour routes targeting different age groups and integrating learning with tourism

In the 1980s, the "Beijing West Shanghai Guangxi Guangzhou" and "Three Gorges of the Yangtze River" targeting the inbound tourism market can be regarded as spontaneously growing national tourism routes. After the rise of mass tourism based on national consumption in the late 1990s, travel agencies began to take the lead in the design, development, and promotion of tourist routes, such as the "East China Double Fly Five Day Tour" and the "Hexi Corridor Self Driving Tour". With the rise of the Internet, the popularity of cars and the entry of the post-90s generation, self driving, self-help and strategy have become key words in the tourism market. Fragmentation of tourism activities has dispelled the tourism routes dominated by travel agencies. While gaining freedom, personalization, and diversity, the cultural and spiritual connotations of tourism are also at risk of dissipating. When we dissolve the cultural significance of "reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles" in the name of "I make my own decisions on my itinerary" into casual strolling and eating, tourism may soon move towards individual emptiness and collective unconsciousness of value suspension. Today, when Chinese path to modernization comprehensively promotes the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is time to reconstruct the national research and learning travel route guided by science and humanities.

One is the national cultural park route. The Great Wall, Grand Canal, Long March, Yellow River, and Yangtze River National Cultural Parks, as well as the cities and villages along their routes, contain the genetic code of excellent traditional culture, the spiritual lineage of red revolutionary culture, and the spatial carrier of socialist advanced culture. They are also tourist routes that practice the concept of national education and lifelong learning. Implement the deployment of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, adhere to shaping tourism with culture, highlighting culture with tourism, and promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism. The government, industry, culture, and tourism academic community are all exploring the subjects, paths, and methods of integration, and have also achieved certain results in project construction, product research and development, and entrepreneurial innovation. Now, it is necessary to actively construct the contemporary time and space of cultural construction and tourism development with a more conscious historical consciousness and a broader global perspective. Taking the four seasons, seven public holidays, and twenty-four solar terms as the timeline, the five major national cultural parks as the spatial axis, the national campsites as the pivot, and the study cities as the support, a series of contemporary study tour national routes with temporal and spatial intersections are formed.

The second is the border historical and geographical route. In April 2021, the Ministry of Education and four other departments jointly issued the "Guiding Outline for Deepening Ethnic Unity and Progress Education in Schools in the New Era", emphasizing the need to "strengthen the sense of Chinese national community among students of all ethnic groups, that 'you are in me, I am in you, and no one can do without each other'", and "melt the sense of Chinese national community into the blood of young people of all ethnic groups". In the new era, we must strengthen the sense of community of the Chinese nation, especially starting from youth education. Cultural identity is the deepest form of identity, which cannot be cultivated solely through classroom teaching, but through the journey of "reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles". In the process of forming the Chinese national community, the borderlands played an irreplaceable role. As the famous historian Chen Yinke said, "The rise of the Li Tang ethnic group was due to the blood of the barbarians outside the Great Wall, injected into the decadent body of Central Plains culture, eliminated old influences, and restarted new opportunities, thus creating an unprecedented world situation. Cultivating and promoting national routes in the history and geography of border areas, allowing young people to travel through natural geography and historical time and space such as forests, seas, snowy plains, deserts, Tibetan Qiang corridors, Theravada Buddhism, and land reform and return to flow, will root the sense of community of the Chinese nation in everyone's heart. This is the true spirit of scholars and the country, and this is the "grand goal of the country" that tourism and education departments should and must strive for.

Thirdly, there are routes such as national parks, scientific expeditions, and field investigations. In 2019, the central government officially proposed a nature reserve system with national parks as the main body, nature reserves as the foundation, and nature parks as supplements. In December 2022, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "National Park Spatial Layout Plan", which clarified the timetable and roadmap for building the "world's largest national park system", and basically completed the world's largest national park system by 2035. The "Most Beautiful Land" covering an area of 1.1 million square kilometers involves over 700 existing nature reserves, 10 World Natural Heritage sites, 2 World Cultural and Natural Heritage sites, and 19 World Biosphere Reserves. National parks should not only strengthen the management of natural resource assets and carry out ecological protection and restoration, but also carry out science popularization and community development work. The tourism industry has strong economic attributes and a high degree of marketization, but tourism activities have a social attribute of improving the overall quality of the nation. The improvement of comprehensive quality requires the support of history, culture, and art, as well as the backing of science, technology, geography, astronomy, water conservancy, and other sciences. For college students, young adults, and young elderly people, traveling along national parks and incorporating scientific research and field investigations undoubtedly has unique value and extremely important significance for building a lifelong learning system with Chinese characteristics.

Tourism is a fundamental right of the people, an enduring way of life for humanity, and a dialogue between humans, nature, and society that transcends time and space. Building national campsites, study cities, and national routes, making it easy for more citizens to read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles, and achieving comprehensive human development, is what tourism should look like in the future.