Develop characteristic tourism
Urban tourism has played an increasingly important role in China's tourism industry. Some small and medium-sized cities set their own tourism development strategies by imitating big cities, and the results are not very satisfactory. So, how do small and medium-sized cities develop tourism? We believe that it is necessary to have tourism development ideas and strategies suitable for the characteristics of small and medium-sized cities.
Cultivate and highlight characteristics
The characteristics of a city are its charm and competitiveness. Small and medium-sized cities should work hard on their characteristics to develop tourism. Features are embodied in many aspects and forms. From the perspective of tourism resources, there are mainly historical and traditional cultural characteristics, natural scenery characteristics, folk customs characteristics, geothermal hot springs and other leisure industry characteristics, and so on. Having good tourism resources does not mean having good scenic spots and scenic spots. Tourism resources are only the basis for developing tourism. Resources need to be tapped, and characteristics need to be cultivated. It is the focus of developing tourism in small and medium-sized cities to transform the cultivation of characteristic tourism resources into characteristic tourist attractions.
In cultivating characteristic scenic spots, first of all, we should make tourist attractions into fine products. Adhere to the principle that people have nothing but me, and people have my superiority, and develop tourism resources into unique and even unique tourism products. Boutique does not mean high-grade and modernization. Tourists are far away from the city and go to the deep mountains and forests. What they want to see is the ecological beauty. The purpose is to find "wild fun", not to enjoy the modernization and comfort of the city there.
Secondly, the city style should match the style of tourist attractions. Attractions attract people's attention, but cities affect people's mood of enjoying them. Although some small and medium-sized cities have unique scenery, they blindly imitate the styles of some well-known scenic spots and buildings in the development of scenic spots and urban construction, and the external image masks their internal characteristics.
Third, we should improve the supporting facilities of tourist attractions. The main purpose is to reduce the transportation cost and time cost to reach the scenic spot and improve the safety and comfort. This requires strengthening the construction of infrastructure and service facilities such as traffic roads.
Fourth, create characteristics with creativity. Tourism resources are often not unique. But special creativity can turn resource advantages into unique tourism projects. 2005 is China's "Red Tourism Year", and relevant departments have opened up 30 boutique routes and more than 100 classic scenic spots. Red tourism is extremely hot this year. However, some cities put some green (eco-tourism) on the red tourist routes and engage in "two-color" or even "color" tourism, which has received better effects of adding fire to the fire.
Be willing to play a supporting role and take the initiative to participate in the division of tourism.
Being a supporting role means that small and medium-sized tourist cities should actively integrate into the regional tourism industry chain and participate in the tourism division of labor. Judging from the trend of tourism development, regional tourism cooperation has been continuously strengthened. Regional cooperation based on the principle of "open market, mutual exchange of tourists, complementary advantages and win-win cooperation" has become the consensus of the global tourism industry. Domestic regional tourism resources integration and regional tourism cooperation are also booming, and regional partners such as Three Gorges Scenic Area, Yangtze River Delta Green Tourism Passage, Pan-Pearl River Delta Tourism Area, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Capital City Holiday Tourism Circle and Bohai Rim Tourism Circle have been formed successively. The integration of regional tourism resources has also become one of the main attractions of the domestic tourism market in 2005.
It is difficult for small and medium-sized cities to become direct destinations for tourists. They are mainly a node of the regional tourism industry chain. If small and medium-sized cities want to develop tourism, they must create conditions and take the initiative to accept the external spillover benefits brought by other mature tourist attractions in the region in terms of tourists, promotion, brands and service personnel. The most important thing is to incorporate the developed tourist attractions and scenic spots into the tourist routes in the region. In addition, open integration of tourism resources should be carried out, and local protectionism should be broken, and a cooperative mechanism with reasonable distribution of interests, clear rights and responsibilities and self-imposed constraints should be established through market mechanism. To put it bluntly, it is to establish a mechanism to avoid opportunism and ensure the long-term cooperation.
In addition, to strengthen the management of scenic spots and improve the service level and level, we should not drag our feet because we have affected the image of the whole tourist route. Only in this way can we improve our value and dominance in the whole line in the division of labor.
Strive to improve the tourism industry chain
It is not contradictory to participating in regional tourism division of labor. Perfecting the tourism industry chain requires small and medium-sized cities to occupy more links in the regional tourism chain, so that tourists can think it is worth spending more time here and spend more money, so that they can get more tourism income and added value.
Tourism is a sunrise industry, which mainly means that it is an industry with rapid development and strong driving ability. It is social and comprehensive, including six elements: food, shelter, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment. However, at present, the tourism industry in many small and medium-sized cities mainly stays at the stage of "seeing", which is not a "tour", and mainly relies on tourist attractions to obtain ticket income. Even if tourists eat and live in small and medium-sized cities, they also consume food and shelter as necessities, as long as they make do. Spending on shopping and entertainment is even less pitiful. For any city that wants to develop tourism as a pillar industry, it is necessary to constantly improve the tourism industry chain, attract tourists, stay and make them spend more.
First of all, it is necessary to expand the number of scenic spots and scenic spots, so that tourists can see and watch more things, so that tourists can really "swim" instead of passing by a certain scenic spot in the city. Of course, we must consider the market risk when increasing scenic spots, and insist on giving up what is lacking rather than making up what is lacking. A general trend is to shift from focusing on developing sightseeing scenic spots to focusing on developing holiday tourism and special tourist attractions.
Secondly, it is necessary to develop related industries around "tour", so that tourists can have their own characteristics, live in good taste, buy with confidence and have fun, that is, to transform a single sightseeing tour into a comprehensive tour and a transit tour into a consumption tour.
Third, some special tourism products can be developed where conditions permit.
Segmentation of the market and enhancement of pertinence
It is impossible for any small and medium-sized city that develops tourism to face all tourists. It can only attract a specific group with roughly the same needs. This group is a market segment. Different dividing standards have different market segments. According to the geographical environment, it can be divided into two market segments: short-distance tourists and long-distance tourists. According to the characteristics of tourists themselves, it can be divided into three market segments: the elderly tourism market, the middle-aged tourism market and the youth tourism market. The development of tourism in small and medium-sized cities should start from their own advantages in tourism resources, location and human resources, aim at specific market segments and provide tourism products and services for specific customers.
Studies have shown that if tourist cities focus on the neighboring markets, they can get twice the result with half the effort. The primary tourist market segment of small and medium-sized cities is tourists from the big cities around them. With the increase of income level, the demand of urban residents for short-distance leisure tourism is increasing. Small and medium-sized cities should focus on developing health tourism, entertainment tourism, sightseeing tourism, holiday tourism, experience tourism and popular science tourism by combining their own advantages to attract tourists from big cities.
In addition, small and medium-sized cities should retain leisure tourists in the region. We should focus on developing some educational and recreational tourism, theme park tourism, life experience tourism and other projects suitable for young people, and retain local tourists by developing family-style group tourism projects.
Strengthen tourism promotion
Tourism promotion is the sales process of tourism products and a crucial link in the development of tourism. With the city government gradually realizing the importance of the tourism industry, all kinds of tourism advertisements are overwhelming, and all localities are scrambling to hold various tourism festivals. These starting points are good. However, many promotion activities have not achieved the expected results.
To this end, it is necessary to improve the means of publicity and promotion.
First, it was suggested that we should adhere to "three cancellations and four assistance" in publicity and promotion. The "three cancellations" are to cancel the loud and spread propaganda, the fragmented and patchwork propaganda, and the propaganda that is not carefully planned and random. "Four Helps" means using the mainstream media, network power, festival activities and celebrity effect.
Second, through cooperation with travel agents to promote sales. The proportion of tourists traveling through travel agents is relatively high. For those small and medium-sized cities that mainly attract long-distance tourists, it is necessary to strengthen cooperation with travel agents, such as jointly producing promotional materials and advertisements for tourist destinations, and directly promoting sales to tourist destinations through the latter.
Third, we should promote the construction of honest tourism. Honesty is the foundation of tourism survival. Many leisure tourism projects provided by small and medium-sized cities, "repeat customers" are their main customers. More efforts should be made to standardize the tourism market and improve the quality of tourism services.
Fourth, we should expand the market with brands. The promotion of tourism products must pay attention to establishing brands. When the brand is recognized by tourists, the promotion of tourism products can get twice the result with half the effort.
Formulate a scientific development strategy
The development of tourism in small and medium-sized cities is a long-term cumulative process. At present, many city governments have put forward ambitious tourism development goals, but it is very difficult to implement them, and it is easy to have half-baked projects in the development of scenic spots. An important reason is the lack of a scientific and reasonable urban tourism development strategy.
To formulate the development plan of urban tourism, first of all, we should follow the development law of tourism itself, fully consider the favorable and unfavorable factors of tourism resources, market demand, supporting facilities, tourism investment and other aspects, and determine reasonable tourism development goals.
Secondly, we should consider the development of tourism in a larger region, not only considering the cooperation within the region, but also considering the competition brought by "homogeneous" tourism products and services within the region. Developing similar tourism products in the same area is prone to the phenomenon that "bad money drives out good money", which eventually leads to the shrinking or even collapse of the whole market. This is a problem that should be paid special attention to when formulating the tourism development strategy.
Third, we should coordinate the relationship between tourism and other industries. Now many small and medium-sized cities are taking the development of tourism as an opportunity to speed up the construction of urban infrastructure and improve the urban environment. This is very necessary. However, except for a few small and medium-sized cities that can take tourism as a single pillar industry, most small and medium-sized cities need other industries to support urban development. The investment in urban construction must consider the needs of the development of other pillar industries. At the same time, we should pay attention to the integration of tourism and other industries, and develop industrial tourism with urban characteristics. In a word, tourism is a new industry with strong comprehensiveness and great relevance, and it is a sunrise industry in the 21st century. Some qualified small and medium-sized cities can promote urban revitalization by developing tourism. There are also many successful examples in this regard. However, tourism has its own laws of development. In particular, it is based on people's mobility and consumption and people's services. The requirements for supporting facilities and location advantages are relatively high and the risks are relatively high. Therefore, to develop tourism in small and medium-sized cities, we must follow the law of tourism industry development, adapt to local conditions and the market, innovate models, formulate scientific development plans, and promote the scientific development of tourism. Link to this article:
Different from traditional resources such as land and mineral deposits, tourism resources generally have the characteristics of wide area, regionality, immovability, diversity and sustainability.
(1) The geographical distribution of tourism resources is very extensive. It can be said that tourism resources are distributed at any point on the earth. For example, there are all kinds of familiar natural and human landscapes on densely populated land, such as Huangshan, which integrates geological heritage, cultural heritage and natural heritage. Cities have modern buildings that embody human wisdom, villages have rich folk customs and pastoral scenery, sparsely populated mountains and deserts have primitive and simple natural scenery; On uninhabited land, there are unique landscapes that people are not familiar with, such as the ice and snow in Antarctica. In the ocean, there are rough waves and endless water surfaces, and there are strange marine life; There is a rapidly changing meteorological landscape in the sky. It can be said that tourism resources exist in almost every region within the geographical circle.
(2) Tourism resources are strongly regional. All kinds of tourism resources are not only a part of the natural environment, but also influenced and restricted by the natural environment, thus causing regional differences in tourism resources. Such as island lowlands, tropical scenery, coconut grove and bamboo house, mountain snow, desert camel bells and other special tourism resources are all related to the natural environment. Not only the natural tourism resources are influenced by the natural environment, but also the humanistic tourism resources are largely determined by the natural environment. In the long-term life and production, people have to conform to nature and adapt to nature in order to obtain suitable living conditions. Therefore, all kinds of human landscapes and cultural heritages created by human beings are also influenced by the geographical environment, leaving the brand of regional characteristics. Take residential buildings as an example. Siheyuan and Hutong are symbols of old Beijing, caves are unique dwellings on the Loess Plateau, herders in pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia mainly live in tents and yurts, and residents in hot flashes in southwest China prefer the so-called "diaojiao building", etc. The characteristics of these dwellings are closely related to the natural environment specificity of their living places.
(3) Tourism resources are immobile. All kinds of characteristic tourism resources are generally concentrated in areas that are suitable for their geographical environment and regional environment, with strong local color and regional characteristics. This is the embodiment of the personality characteristic of tourism resources-immovability. What is suitable for this kind of local color and regional characteristics is the personality characteristics of the natural environment. Without personality characteristics, the connotation and attraction based on characteristics and personality will disappear or be greatly reduced. For example, a small number of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses were transported to other places for exhibition. Due to the limited number and the strong "Terracotta Warriors and Horses" atmosphere around the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, on the one hand, it is difficult for people to feel the profound historical accumulation. On the other hand, because the number is far from the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, people simply can't feel the magnificent lineup of Qin Jun soldiers who were stronger than Ma Zhuang two thousand years ago, and realize that Qin Shihuang commanded millions of troops to "sweep Liuhe", "Xiongnu in the north" and "Xiongnu in the north". Another example is the diaojiao building of ethnic minorities in Hunan and Guizhou. After it is moved to other areas as a scenic spot, it is often difficult for tourists to understand why they spend so much time to build a small bamboo building that seems to have no use, but they still keep climbing up and down. This is also a common problem faced by many fake tourist attractions: simulation, realism, and even confusing the fake with the real. However, due to the lack of the contrast atmosphere of the regional environment, it is difficult for tourists to feel the same. Therefore, the development and utilization of tourism resources should follow the principle of territoriality, that is, the development should be carried out in the tourist resources, rather than moving the resources to other places to create "artificial attractions".Develop and utilize for the sake of development and utilization. In fact, there is no possibility of migration for a large number of tourism resources.
(4) Tourism resources are sustainable. Tourism industry is called smokeless industry, green industry and sunrise industry because tourism resources are generally sustainable. For most of the tourism resources, in the process of tourism, tourists generally can't consume them like food. Such as natural landscapes, town features, historical sites, garden buildings and other tourism resources, are only for tourists to visit, and tourists can only take away their impressions and aesthetic feelings, but it is impossible to take away these tourism resources. Another example is the welcome pine, the signboard of Huangshan Scenic Area. Although millions of tourists watch and take photos with it every year, the welcome pine is still welcoming guests from time to time. Because these resources are not in the form of physical consumption, they can be used by people for a long time. Of course, there are also a small amount of resources, such as food and consumable resources, which will be consumed by tourists in tourism activities, which is more obvious in rural tourism. These consumable resources need to be supplemented by natural reproduction, artificial feeding, cultivation and reproduction. However, it should be pointed out that long-term use is relative, and this kind of resources will degenerate or even disappear in the process of tourism. Therefore, even long-term use of resources must be carried out for sustainable development. For example, Huangshan Scenic Area takes a break for each scenic spot, that is, each scenic spot is closed for a period of time after receiving tourists for a few years, so that the natural vegetation and ecological environment in the scenic spot can be restored. Therefore, in the development and utilization, it is necessary to attach importance to adopting various protective measures,On the one hand, it reduces its natural and man-made damage, on the other hand, it carries out ecological restoration and environmental protection, and extends the service life of resources.
(5) Tourism resources generally have certain cultural attributes. Most tourism resources have certain cultural connotations or cultural attributes, and contain certain scientific and natural or social philosophies. From this perspective, tourism activities should not only stay at the level of leisure and curiosity, but also be regarded as a cultural exchange activity. Through sightseeing, sightseeing, participation and experience, we can not only enjoy all kinds of beauty, but also enrich our experience and increase our knowledge. For example, all kinds of gorgeous scenery, museums, ruins and classic buildings can not only increase people's historical and cultural knowledge, but also stimulate people's passion for exploring natural mysteries and stimulate people's thinking. Therefore, through tourism activities and enjoying the beautiful scenery, some thinkers, writers, artists and scientists often have some sparks of thought and even create history. For example, Li Bai, a great romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty, will be inspired by the scenery wherever he goes, leaving a well-known scenic spot poem. Although the cultural connotation of tourism resources is an important aspect to attract tourists, it is often necessary for tourists to have high cultural accomplishment and spiritual realm to enjoy this kind of culture. Of course, the real connotation of tourism activities is actually to find the spiritual harmony between tourists and scenic spots through the appreciation and understanding of some cultural connotations of scenic spots, which is the key to the value-added development of tourism and the long-term and sustainable development of tourism industry and tourism resources. Therefore, tourism development should not only deeply study the cultural connotation of tourism resources, but also take certain measures.Let the cultural connotation contained in the landscape be fully displayed to tourists, and make them evolve from simple superficial tourism to connotative tourism, thus increasing the attraction of tourism resources.
