Liberal Arts Research丨Focus and Direction of International Tourism Destination Construction (2)

The world's tourism industry is transforming from a bipolar plate era to a multi-plate era. Some developed tourism cities and regions have regarded tourism as an important means to attract global attention, enhance international competitiveness, and expand international markets. They have positioned themselves as international tourist destinations or international tourist cities. In Boya Research丨Focus and Direction of International Tourism Destination Construction (1), we focused on analyzing the macro background of international tourism destination construction and analyzed the consumption characteristics of inbound tourists. This article is the second in a series of articles. It will summarize the evaluation system for the construction of international tourism destinations by analyzing the development characteristics and characteristics of world-renowned tourism destinations.

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Currently, my country's provincial tourism is showing four major development trends, from economic attributes to people's livelihood and social attributes, from factor allocation to service system construction, and from scenic spots-led Transition to the development of tourist towns, from blooming everywhere to building a core brand. The transformation of regional tourism economy has become an inevitable trend, among which the construction of international tourism destinations has become an important starting point. So how to build it into an international tourist destination? What are the paths, priorities and directions of construction?

According to the World Tourism Organization's "Global Tourism Destination Ranking", the World Economic Forum's "International Tourism Competitiveness", the World's Excellent Tourism Destinations "Excellent Tourism Destination Assessment", World City Case Studies, China Tourism Research The Institute's "International Tourism Destination Indicator System" determines the construction evaluation system for international tourism purposes (Figure 9). The evaluation system is divided into seven categories and 26 indicators.

Figure 9 International Tourism Destination Construction Evaluation System

01 Awareness

Awareness mainly expresses the global market influence of the destination city . It includes four indicators: economic effect, tourism image, international influence, and marketing promotion. The weight accounts for 20% and the ranking is the highest.

(1) Economic effects are analyzed from the dimensions of income, employment, industrial correlation and industry influence coefficient, economic regulation, investment effects and income-generating effects. Because the ultimate goal of tourism destination city construction is urban economic development and increased tourism revenue.

For example, the British city of Glasgow has transformed from an old industrial city into a fashion capital. Glasgow is the oldest industrial city in the UK. It was developed as a heavy industrial complex for the export market. Its economy declined from the 1960s to the 1980s due to severe unemployment and subsequent social problems. Later, through the construction of tourist destination cities, we actively implemented economic structural transformation, improved the urban service environment, invested heavily in transportation, tourism, culture and other industries, and enriched bars, restaurants, supermarkets, modern theaters and fashionable apartments in and around the center of Glasgow. and other businesses, and the public investment in the construction of city landmarks such as museums, art galleries, concert halls and conference centers, transforming it into a famous tourist city integrating ports, culture and leisure, conference centers, and university education.

Another example is the city of Chicago in the United States. As the economic center of the Midwestern United States, Chicago was once a traditional industrial center in the Great Lakes region. During the economic crisis in the late 1960s, Chicago, as the "industrial rust belt", faced many problems such as industrial decline, laid-off workers, slow economic growth, and an increase in the poor population. Subsequently, the United States carried out economic structural adjustment and transformation. Chicago took the industrial transformation as an opportunity to achieve comprehensive transformation of urban economy, society, culture, etc., showing the evolution process from manufacturing to service industry to high-end knowledge-based service industry and cultural service industry. .

The specific approach is to gradually shift from manufacturing to transportation and reduce the proportion of heavy and chemical industries. As the U.S. economy restructured after World War II, the Chicago government began to gradually transform from manufacturing to a central city that relied mainly on transportation. The second is the service-oriented transformation from the secondary industry to the tertiary industry.

In the 1960s, in order to solve the problem of manufacturing and job relocation caused by suburbanization, Chicago carried out a new round of industrial structure transformation and finally established the development of a "diversified economy led by the service industry". Target. The third is to transform the service industry into a high-end service industry and build a nationalized metropolis. Entering the new century, Chicago is re-building a high-end service industry system based on the traditional service industry. Chicago relies on the close connection between satellite cities and central cities, and uses the cluster development model among multiple central cities to actively attract foreign investment, actively develop high-tech industries, and build an international metropolis with high-tech leadership and diversified capital.

(2) Tourism image is one of the dominant forms of a city’s competitiveness, expressing the important attraction and influence of tourism in a region. Including cognitive image and emotional image. Among them, the cognitive image also includes factors such as natural resource image, leisure culture and historical image, design environment image, social environment, and price.

For example, Xi'an, my country, is quite unique in the multi-dimensional shaping of its tourism image. Through the slogan of "One day in Xi'an, a lifetime of Chinese love", we will shape the cultural image of tourism; improve the level of tourism services; create local characteristic neighborhoods; and improve urban infrastructure. There are also differences in communication on the Internet. For example, domestic websites focus on: tourist attractions, tourism and catering, and cultural propaganda focuses on the promotion of religious culture. Foreign websites focus on: tourist attractions, community life, leisure and entertainment, tourism transportation, tourism transportation, fun and magical promotion, and unique community life promotion.

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(3) International influence, evaluated from five perspectives: resources, market, development concept, management model, and service standards. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) released the "2018 Urban Travel and Tourism Impact", which assessed the tourism scale and tourism revenue of 72 tourism cities around the world. The total tourism revenue of these 72 cities in 2017 last year reached It has achieved US$625 billion, accounting for almost 24.3% of the world’s total tourism revenue. The results are quite good. Among them, Shanghai and Beijing in my country rank the top two (Figure 10).

Figure 10 Top 10 cities by tourism revenue

(4) Marketing promotion, including marketing time planning, marketing thinking angle, marketing carrier combination, marketing effect estimation, etc. Generally speaking, for customer source markets, marketing entities must have a complete market-oriented marketing system. Disseminate through the four-place marketing model (tourist destinations, tourist distribution centers, tourist source areas and third-place online marketing), and carry out different marketing methods for tourists in different market segments, such as experiential marketing and customized marketing , brand marketing and cultural marketing, etc.

For example, Switzerland has developed a tourist-centered international marketing strategy (Figure 11). Another example is that Hawaii in the United States has formulated a systematic international marketing strategy, including: a) adopting a global promotion model and investing US$20 million annually in all-round attacks in international metropolises such as London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong; b) outsourcing professional companies responsible for Asia, Promotion of Southeast Asia; c) Market-oriented, conduct detailed surveys and studies on tourist satisfaction every year, and continuously update and improve tourism products based on tourist demand plans; d) Hold world-class large-scale water sports competitions, such as the Honolulu Marathon, Professional golf championships, Kenwood Cup, etc. to strengthen brand marketing.

Figure 11 Tourist-centered marketing model (Hawaii)

02 Comfort

Comfort mainly expresses the superior and uniqueness of a city's natural ecology. Including phenological conditions, phenological seasons and tourism low and peak seasons, and tourism phenological resource tour timing; Biological environment: geology and landforms, animals and plants, landscapes, water bodies, atmosphere, soil; Development suitability: carrying capacity, resource value, market conditions, facility conditions wait. The weight is 15%.

For example, from the phenological conditions of Guilin, Guangxi, my country’s international tourism city, there is no severe cold in winter and no scorching heat in summer.

The climate within the territory is mild, with abundant rainfall, a long frost-free period, sufficient sunlight, abundant heat, long summers and short winters, four distinct seasons with rain and heat basically in the same season. The climatic conditions are very favorable. Du Fu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, praised Guilin's reputation as "all the mountains are hot, but only Guilin is pleasant". climate. Guilin has less snow in three winters, flowers bloom all year round, and the average annual temperature is close to 19.4 degrees Celsius. From the perspective of ecological environment, Guilin’s landscape is the best in the world. Guilin is famous for its "clear mountains, beautiful waters, strange caves and beautiful rocks". It is a mountainous and hilly area with a typical "karst" karst landform. The limestone throughout the city has been weathered and eroded for hundreds of millions of years, forming thousands of peaks. , embracing the city with one water, a unique landscape with beautiful caves and rocks.

In terms of the development strategy of tourist cities:

First, highlight the tourism function in the industrial layout, focus on building characteristic industrial belts and industrial clusters, and build "one core, two poles, three belts and multiple points" ". "One core" means to strengthen the core tourism functions of Guilin's central urban area (including Lingui New District) and build a city for sightseeing, leisure and vacation, business and exhibition tourism; "two poles" means to improve Yangshuo, develop Xing'an growth pole, and build a city that interacts with the central urban area. It is a regional leisure and vacation tourism destination; the "three belts" focus on promoting the construction of the Li River Golden Tourism Industry Belt, the Hunan-Guangxi Corridor Tourism Industry Belt, and the Southwest Corridor Tourism Industry Belt; and the "multi-point" refers to the construction of characteristic tourist attractions.

The second is to rely on unique resources to create world-class tourism products and tourism brands. Build eight series of tourism products, landscape sightseeing + leisure vacation + historical culture + national culture + red + ecological countryside + outdoor sports + romantic wedding ceremony. Promote the "six batches" of key projects: a batch of world-class tourism products, a batch of new tourism products, a batch of tourism service bases, a batch of characteristic tourism towns, a batch of leisure and health resort bases, and a batch of key tourism infrastructure. Create eight major tourism products: Li River Scenic Area, "Two Rivers and Four Lakes" Scenic Area, Yangshuo Landscape Leisure Scenic Area, Longsheng Longji Terraces Scenic Area, Resource Bajiaozhai Danxia Scenic Area, Xing'an Ling Canal Scenic Area, Mao'er Mountain Health Resort, and Dynamic Tianhu Lake Scenic spots.

The third is to improve ecological functions through functional zoning and clarify key ecological functional areas and cultural and natural heritage protection areas. As a territorial space that builds an ecological security barrier and protects cultural and natural heritage, its main functions are to enhance water conservation, soil and water conservation, and protect biodiversity, protect the authenticity and integrity of cultural and natural heritage, focus on protecting urban landscape features, and properly handle landscapes. City-city relations, the development of resources and environment that can host suitable industries, and the prohibition of various development activities that do not conform to the regional functional positioning.

The fourth is to pursue sustainable utilization and protect core tourism resource ecology and landscape. The Li River is the soul of Guilin's landscape. Guilin protects the Li River by strengthening the construction of natural reserve vegetation, increasing the protection of Li River water resources, strictly supervising and managing water function zones, and strengthening the regulation and management of the Li River channel. In accordance with the principle of maintaining the natural form to the maximum extent, the natural landscape of the Li River will be restored and constructed, the existing vegetation and community protection will be strengthened, the bank protection will be greened, the Li River plant landscape area will be beautified, and the karst landform landscape garden will be constructed. Create conditions for the protection and sustainable use of landscape resources.

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03 Attractiveness

Attractiveness mainly emphasizes that a city or region has world-class cultural resources or natural resources (Figure 12). The weight is 18%. As of July 2, 2018, China has 53 world heritage sites, including 36 world cultural heritage sites, 4 world cultural and natural dual heritage sites, and 13 world natural heritage sites. World-class tourism resources are the resource background for the construction of international tourism destinations and the basis for development and construction. Generally high quality, great value, and wide market influence. Make full use of world-class resources and make the tourism city economy bigger and stronger through concepts such as technology, tourism +, and global tourism.

Figure 12 The basic connotation of world heritage

For example, in the process of building Xi'an into an international tourist city and a world tourist fashion capital, firstly, it established the concept of "big tourism, big market" and jumped out of the "Ticket economy", develop moonlight economy and optimize tourism consumption content. Break out of the "Terracotta Warriors", develop all-region tourism, and enhance the tourism development pattern.

Focusing on the great history, great culture and great Xi'an, we will shape the charm and image of the city. The second is to comprehensively utilize tourism resources, comprehensively utilize and develop the four major resources of "landscape and humanities", and strive to create cultural tourism development brand projects. These include: creating an international brand of "Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang Culture", creating a tourism performing arts brand with regional and cultural characteristics, building a cultural tourism park brand, creating ancient city cultural tourism and rural tourism brands, developing cultural tourism products, and creating the "Belt and Road Initiative" The core area for the integrated development of culture and tourism. The third is to give full play to the advantages of information technology and extend the cultural tourism industry chain. Do a good job of "culture + human brain + computer" and combine the advantages of a series of new generation information technologies such as VR, AR, 3D, online games, and big data to create products that meet the needs of the younger generation of tourism consumers; actively create information for the integrated development of culture and tourism Leading technology companies promote the development of the cultural tourism industry to the high end of the value chain.

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In fact, AR technology has a lot of application space and scenarios in the protection and development of cultural heritage. AR technology adds a virtual dimension to reality. Through digital collection, restoration and reproduction, display and dissemination, it adds more possibilities to the digital protection of cultural heritage, stimulates a strong sense of presence and participation in the experience, and makes cultural heritage more accessible. Heritage takes on new life. The development of augmented reality technology provides more and better application methods and technologies for the digital protection of cultural heritage, and has some unparalleled advantages in the protection of cultural heritage.

04 Experience degree

Experience degree mainly expresses the internationalization and diversification level of international tourism city tourism products. The weight is 16%. It includes four dimensions:

(1) The completeness and rationality of the tourism product system. On the one hand, the core tourism product is used as the brand to determine market specifications and development competitiveness. On the other hand, it relies on characteristic tourism products to highlight regional characteristics and integrated innovation capabilities.

(2) The cultural nature and branding of core tourism products refers to the number of high-quality tourism projects and high-quality tourism routes that are deeply integrated with culture and tourism.

(3) Tourism service facilities and their tourism development support capabilities, including food, accommodation, transportation, travel, entertainment, shopping and other tourism supporting facilities.

(4) Tourism corporate brand promotion and international marketing strength, tourism corporate global layout, international tourism cooperation strategy, and cultural tourism brand promotion strategy.

For example, the Archipelago Wetland - the Balearic Islands is located in the Western Mediterranean, between the Iberian Peninsula, southern France and North Africa, with a total area of ??approximately 5,000 square kilometers and a coastline of 1,239 kilometers. Balearic Island has a typical Mediterranean climate, with a mild climate and obvious island climate characteristics. The average temperature throughout the year is around 17 degrees Celsius. In order to increase the experience of international tourists, they focus on the following aspects of development: First, create diversified seaside resort tourism products around regional culture to avoid homogeneous development with surrounding areas; Second, hold a variety of cultural festivals, which It is also the core attraction of the Balearic Islands and has become a prominent feature of its seaside resort tourism; third, relying on coastal resources to develop sports and leisure projects, enriching tourists’ holiday life experience; fourth, incorporating cultural relics, monuments, museums, etc. into the holiday product series , giving coastal vacation tourism rich cultural connotations; fifth, positioning cultural vacation and leisure, Balearic Island has become a tourist resort in the world.

05 Accessibility

Accessibility expresses the geographical location of a tourism city, the convenient access to internal and external transportation, and the surrounding proximity (Figure 13). The weight is 15%.

For example, in order to enhance the accessibility of regional tourism, Southeast Asian tourism countries have established the Southeast Asian Tourism Consortium. Since the 1990s, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and other neighboring countries and regions have formed the Southeast Asia Tourism Consortium to achieve integrated development and develop "one-journey, multi-destination" tourism products.

At the same time, Singapore’s location advantage as its gateway to Southeast Asia helps neighboring countries (such as Thailand) and regions engage in the planning and development of tourist attractions (spots), and truly becomes a leader in the tourism industry in Southeast Asia.

Figure 13 Accessibility of international tourist cities

06 Benefit Degree

Benefit degree expresses the driving effect of the tourism city industry leader, with a weight of 9% . The tourism industry system of a tourist region includes: (1) The modernity of the industrial content, such as high-quality tourism product system (features, brands, quality), global tourism space system (adapting to the law of self-service tourism development), modern tourism company *** Service system (networked global supply method), etc. (2) Optimization of industrial structure, such as the degree of coordination of the six elements of tourism, the proportion of flexible consumption of "travel, shopping, and entertainment" (more than 70% in developed tourism countries), the added value of each element such as technology, cultural and creative application, and productive enterprises Reasonable proportion with service enterprises, etc. (3) The degree of cross-border integration and internationalization of the industrial chain. The degree of integration of related domestic industries (such as high-tech industry, sports industry, etc.), international industrial chain layout strategy (in line with the industrial gradient theory, in line with the "One Belt, One Road" international strategy), etc.

For example, Hong Kong’s experience in optimizing the tourism industry structure:

(1) The government attaches great importance to the tourism industry and provides policy encouragement. The tourism management agencies established by the Hong Kong SAR government include the Hong Kong Tourism Commission, the Hong Kong Tourism Industry Council and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The three take into account the government, industry and other levels, forming a "three-legged" trend to manage Hong Kong's tourism industry. The SAR government provides policy incentives and planned investments for the tourism industry. At the same time, Hong Kong’s tourism development-related policies are flexible and convenient, mainly reflected in the convenience of entry visas, shopping tax refunds and “multi-stop” itinerary arrangements.

(2) Focus on improving the brand connotation of tourism products and services. We conduct surveys and consultations on the tourist market every year to keep up with consumer trends and meet tourist needs. The development of tourism, cultural and creative products has greatly made up for the relative lack of natural tourism resources. Among them, tourism festivals best embody the concept of cultural creativity. Hong Kong’s tourism industry has a good grasp of key markets. Since the signing of "CEPA" in 2003 and the opening of individual travel from the mainland to Hong Kong, the number of mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong has been guaranteed, and shopping tourism products and services have been stimulated, and the tourism industry structure has been optimized.

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Another example is Singapore’s experience in optimizing the structure of the tourism industry.

(1) Adopt a government-led, multi-channel marketing strategy. The Singapore Tourism Board continues to put forward new theme image slogans based on development needs, and invests a lot of money in in-depth promotion. The Singapore government has levied a tourism tax to provide a stable source of funds for the management and development of the tourism industry.

(2) Optimize the tourism industry structure through innovation in tourism products and services. On the one hand, we vigorously build man-made tourism attractions; on the other hand, we vigorously explore social and cultural tourism resources and turn ordinary citizens' lives into unique tourism attractions to make up for the shortcomings of the lack of natural tourism resources. Continuously improve the tourism product structure and enhance the added value of the tourism industry. And regard quality services as an important driving force for the development of the tourism industry.

(3) Adapt measures to local conditions and cultivate the exhibition industry as the backbone of the tourism industry.

The factors supporting the development of Singapore’s convention and exhibition tourism industry mainly include the following five aspects: First, Singapore has significant geographical advantages and convenient sea, land and air transportation; second, it has carried out a large number of convention and exhibition infrastructure construction in advance; third, Singapore pays attention to the environment and the protection and development of tourist attractions; fourthly, Singapore has convenient tourism policies; fifthly, Singapore hotels and conference services have a high level of service and can meet various conference service requirements.

Another example, Tokyo’s tourism industry structure optimization experience:

(1) Actively improve the city’s software and hardware environment to promote the development of the tourism industry. "Tokyo in Ten Years - Changes in Tokyo" published in 2006 proposed comprehensive improvements to the city's software and hardware environment from eight aspects, which objectively strongly promoted the development of Tokyo's tourism industry.

(2) The policy of building a country based on tourism ensures the status of tourism as a pillar industry. The Japan Tourism Nation Policy implemented in 2007 is the foundation of Japan in the 21st century, and tourism has been clearly identified as a pillar industry for Japan’s economic growth. In December 2009, the Japanese government established the Tourism Nation Promotion Headquarters, and the system for implementing the tourism nation throughout Japan has been gradually improved.

(3) The tourism marketing and promotion system is complete and the publicity and promotion channels are diverse. The Tokyo government vigorously implements media support plans. The Tokyo government provides generous support for TV programs, article reports or radio programs about Tokyo tourism planned by foreign media. In terms of government-enterprise cooperation, city promotion delegations are dispatched to hold briefings and negotiation meetings for local tourism companies abroad to expand the visibility of tourism companies.

(4) Convenient and fast urban rail transit significantly improves tourist experience. Tokyo rail transit is famous for its safety, punctuality, convenience and speed. The developed public transportation provides an excellent transportation experience for more than 500 million domestic and foreign tourists every year.

07 Sustainability

Sustainability refers to a healthy and strong tourism development environment, including three dimensions: policy management, economic environment, and professional talents, with a weight of 7%. In our country, sustainability shows the synergy between tourism industry governance and tourism growth factors. The former must be promoted by the industry to the party and government to promote the development of the tourism industry, and transform from tourism industry management to social management; the latter includes a scientific and technological innovation system, which is the continuous driving force for the upgrading of the tourism industry; a comprehensive financial service system (a variety of financial instrument services the capacity of the tourism real economy), as well as the scale and quality of human resources. The construction of international tourism destinations or cities requires sophisticated, professional and international talents.

Emphasize protection in the development of world-class cultural resources and avoid man-made destructiveness. For example, Mount Tai explodes the mountain and splits the peaks, and sets up three cableways directly to the top of Mount Tai, one of which covers an area of ??19,000 square meters. The shops and tourist facilities scattered all over the core area have seriously damaged the landform, ecology and beauty of this historic mountain; in Xidi Village in southern Anhui, the numerous shops make people feel like they are in a commercial city; in Hongcun, Anhui, parking lots and shops outside the village The emergence of other facilities has greatly degraded the original appearance of the pastoral ancient village; the three-hole washing incident occurred in Qufu Scenic Area, resulting in the destruction of the painted paintings of the ancient Confucian buildings and serious damage to cultural relics; next to the Leshan Giant Buddha, huge sums of money were spent to build the Bamiyan Giant Buddha in Afghanistan. The Oriental Buddha Capital within the Leshan Giant Buddha has placed this thousand-year-old monument among clones that have no historical, scientific or religious value. This is a great derogation of the cultural heritage of the Leshan Giant Buddha; and so on.

In terms of policy management, we can learn from the following models.

In terms of talent training, Hong Kong’s experience can be used as a reference. The Hong Kong government has been working with the Tourism Board, the Travel Industry Council and the tourism industry. Hong Kong's tertiary institutions, the Vocational Training Council and other educational institutions have launched courses related to the tourism industry. Most of the courses are eligible for continuing education funds. funding. The Hong Kong Tourism Board has organized multiple "Tourism Liaison Officer Training Courses" every year for many years to promote employees' understanding of Hong Kong and improve communication skills and tour guide presentation skills.

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Note: The content of this article comes from Boya Strategy. The author is Professor Dou Wenzhang, chief expert of Boya Strategy, professor of Peking University and doctoral supervisor.