Master's Thesis Proposal in Tourism Planning and Scenic Area Development

In-depth exploration of cultural connotations to promote the sustainable development of the tourism industry

[Abstract] The sustainable development of the tourism industry is one of the central issues that people pay attention to in the field of tourism management. Under the guidance of the Scientific Outlook on Development, this article analyzes the status and role of culture in the sustainable development of the tourism industry, proposes an updated understanding, deeply explores the connotation of tourism culture, and improves the quality of the tourism industry, thereby building new advantages for the development of the tourism industry and realizing the realization of the tourism industry. sustainable development.

[Keywords] Scientific concept of development; tourism culture; sustainable tourism development

In the past 20 years, my country’s tourism industry has developed rapidly with the deepening of reform and opening up. Reflecting on the traditional development concept, people realize that economic growth is only a means, and economic development is the goal. The sustainable development of the tourism industry has become a central issue of widespread concern. The Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee proposed the Scientific Outlook on Development, pointing out a bright path for the future development of tourism. To implement the scientific concept of development in the tourism industry, it is necessary to deeply explore the connotation of tourism culture, thereby building new advantages for tourism development and achieving comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of the tourism industry.

1. Interpretation of cultural connotation

Modern tourism is a comprehensive mass activity that occurs when people actively pursue a higher quality lifestyle after their basic life needs are met. ,Cultural elements have a great impact on tourism activities.

The connotation of culture has always been a matter of divergent opinions. Combining the views and understandings of many scholars, the author generally has the following understanding of the connotation of culture:

1. The extensive nature of culture. Culture is a large category, including the sum of material and spiritual wealth created during the historical practice of human society. People's multi-angle and multi-faceted research on culture also proves that culture is rich in content and broad in extension. Culture can be subdivided from different perspectives, and tourism culture is one of its branches.

2. The hierarchy of culture. Culture has a unique hierarchical structure, including surface material culture, core layer of spiritual culture, middle layer of institutional culture and intermediary layer of educational culture. Therefore, "physical culture and mental culture are mutually opposed and unified in the entire tourism activity. Institutional culture and behavioral culture are the intermediate transition links from physical state to mental state, and have an irreplaceable role as a link between the past and the next. Institutional culture It is an indispensable factor to ensure service quality, improve tourism level, and promote the healthy development of tourism, and has the significance of ensuring direction and guidance." Therefore, in-depth exploration of the connotation of tourism culture requires multi-faceted and multi-level thinking.

3. Cultural ambiguity. Due to the wide coverage of culture, some scholars have proposed that culture is naturally a vague concept, and its content is both concrete and abstract. "The fuzzy culture and the ambiguity of culture force us to sometimes have to seek unclear explanations when understanding and studying culture." Understanding and mastering the connotation of tourism culture must be divided into categories and advanced step by step.

4. Cultural differences and development. Culture is a product created by the practices of various regions and ethnic groups in historical development, and there are obvious differences. Under the current trend of global economic integration, culture, as a dynamic and open system that continuously exchanges materials and information, continuously achieves self-maintenance and self-renewal in the opposition between stability and development. In the process of cultural development that keeps pace with the times, people occupy a central position. We must put people first and look at the cultural exchanges brought about by the flow of tourist crowds objectively. The cultural differences between the tourist source and the destination cannot explain which culture is better or worse.

To understand culture in conjunction with the tourism industry, tourism culture is not a simple superposition of tourism and culture. It is not limited to the field of traditional national culture, nor does it only focus on tourism forms with obvious cultural representations such as cultural tourism. Rather, it is necessary to regard tourism as a cultural phenomenon and further reveal its inherent laws to facilitate its sustainable development. Tourism culture is the same as general cultural forms, and also includes a multi-level structural system of material culture, spiritual culture and institutional culture, "involving both history, geography, ethnic religion, food services, garden architecture, folk entertainment and natural landscapes and other tourism object cultural fields; It also involves tourists’ own cultural qualities, hobbies, behaviors, ideological beliefs and other cultural subject areas; it also involves the tourism intermediary culture such as service culture, commodity culture, management culture, tour guide culture, policies and regulations.” A comprehensive and profound understanding of the cultural connotation of tourism will make the construction of tourism culture more purposeful, targeted and practical.

2. The status and role of culture in the sustainable development of the tourism industry

1. Advanced tourism culture leads the direction of the development of the tourism industry. Tourism is a highly cultural economic industry, and culture is the soul of tourism. The cultural essential characteristics of tourism inevitably require the development of tourism culture as a priority in the process of developing tourism, and use advanced culture to lead the sustainable development of tourism. Modern tourism is a kind of high-end consumption implemented by tourists to satisfy their own spiritual and cultural needs. The biggest gain for tourists is spiritual pleasure and a beautiful memory with endless aftertaste. Therefore, without culture, there would be no tourism, tourism products and tourism industry. Economic and cultural aspects are unified. Only by fully paying attention to the cultural nature of tourism products, exploring their cultural connotations, displaying cultural characteristics, and improving cultural taste and content can we attract tourists and bring about the vigorous development of the tourism industry.

2. Culture is the core of tourism economic competition. Competition in the tourism industry is essentially cultural competition, and cultural factors have become the decisive factor in the development of tourism economy. In tourism activities, tourists' material needs are lower-level needs that are easy to meet; but their ultimate goal is spiritual and cultural needs, which are high-level and complex needs that are difficult to meet. Since the cultural differences between regions and ethnic groups are often unique to a region or an ethnic group, it is difficult to imitate and copy, and the comparability is low. It is easy to create your own characteristics and brands, forming a strong competitiveness for the development of tourism. The unique national and regional information contained in culture is often non-renewable and irreplaceable. Highlighting the characteristics of tourism culture to form regional cultural characteristics is the key to cultivating the core competitiveness of the tourism economy. As tourism development gradually develops in depth, culture is like an invisible hand that controls tourism economic activities. Only through cultural innovation can the tourism economy be maintained everlasting.

3. Culture is the driving force for the sustainable development of the tourism industry. In the era of knowledge economy, cultural and economic integration is an inherent requirement of social development, and paying attention to the role of cultural factors in economic and social development is a worldwide phenomenon. UNESCO emphasized in a report that the driving force for development actually exists in culture, and culture is the cradle of development. The experience of international tourism development shows that the revenue of the tourism industry does not depend on the increase in the number of people, but comes from the multi-cultural tourism products and special tourism services. The higher the degree of integration of tourism and cultural exchanges, the more tourism cultural factors, the more tourism. The more developed the economy is. Taking the Grand View Garden in Beijing as an example, it started with 1.6 million yuan in production fees for the "Dream of Red Mansions" TV series. It has continued to explore the culture of the Red Mansions and developed the Red Mansions Banquet and Red Mansions Banquet Dances based on the recipes in the "Dream of Red Mansions" novel. By tapping into the cultural connotations, the company has developed into a A well-known brand of domestic tourism enterprises. After tourism resources have gone through the general development stage, culture has become an important driving force that leads to in-depth development of tourism.

4. Cultural tourism is the development direction of the tourism industry. The rapid development of my country's tourism industry in recent years has largely benefited from my country's long and profound cultural resources. In 2002, in a survey of the tourism resources that overseas tourists were most interested in China, cultural types accounted for four of the five tourist resources that tourists were most interested in. Among them, in the survey of overseas Chinese, cultural relics and historic sites ranked first. This reflects the dependence of tourism on culture and its own cultural attributes. China’s unique historical and cultural continuity, profound national cultural heritage, and wide variety of cultural resources are conducive to the development of tourism with a complete structure and a wide range of choices. products and form a high-quality brand. At present, the development of the cultural tourism market is in the ascendant. Vigorously developing tourism culture and developing tourist attractions and tourism activities with cultural characteristics can meet the high-level cultural needs of tourists. It is an inevitable choice for China's tourism to face the international market and compete, and promote cultural tourism. Only with the development can our country transform from a big tourism country into a powerful tourism country.

5. The interaction between tourism and culture. Through travel activities, tourists learn about the culture of the tourist destination. At the same time, they also bring their own local culture to the residents of the tourist destination, spreading and exchanging the cultures of the two places. At the same time, in order to attract tourists, tourist destinations are increasingly paying attention to the development and protection of cultural resources, which undoubtedly has a positive effect on the development of culture. However, the relevant research results of many anthropologists and sociologists show that the large-scale continuous visits of such tourists have more of a negative impact on the culture of tourist destinations. The most obvious one is the abnormal commodification of local culture. Such changes are fatal to destinations that originally attracted tourists based on their unique culture and local social customs and customs. It will cause these destinations to lose their original appeal and lose the sustainable development of the tourism industry. and even maintain the basis of their basic survival.

3. The construction of tourism cultural connotation promotes the sustainable development of tourism

The key to maximizing the benefits and continuous development of the tourism industry lies in the development and utilization of various cultural resources to satisfy people's demand for tourism products and Cultural needs in services, in the process of deeply exploring the connotation of tourism culture, establishing a benign internal operating mechanism and external development relationships for the industry, thereby improving the quality of the industry and achieving sustainable development.

1. Change the concept of tourism development under the guidance of the Scientific Outlook on Development. Our country's tourism industry started late. Under specific historical conditions, it proposed development ideas such as "tourism supports tourism" and "five together", which once played a positive role in making people pay more attention to tourism from foreign affairs reception to career to industry. The understanding of tourism has gradually become clearer, and some projects have achieved good economic benefits in a certain period of time. However, this extensive development of extension expansion and one-sided pursuit of economic benefits have caused damage to the natural resources and social and cultural resources of tourist destinations. It is difficult to measure with economic figures. The Scientific Outlook on Development proposes people-oriented, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development, and requires the development of the tourism industry to shift from quantity to quality and benefit, and develop in depth by exploring the connotation of tourism culture and enhancing the added value of products.

2. Adhere to government leadership and give full play to the functions of the tourism industry.

Under the conditions of my country's current productivity development and tourism industry development level, a government-led tourism development model has been formed, and the resulting industry development trend of government leadership, market entities, business operations, and national participation has formed. In tourist destinations, tourism The interests of investors, operators, tourists, and local residents are intertwined. Only the government can coordinate the practical conflicts between them and pursue and achieve the unity of economic benefits and social and cultural benefits. Therefore, government management departments must improve management The level of specialization and science should be abandoned, and short-term behavior should be abandoned, and be a representative of advanced culture, guide the healthy and sustainable development of the local tourism industry, and thus fully exert the functions of the tourism industry.

3. Build a tourism corporate culture and create a harmonious tourism environment. With the gradual improvement of my country's tourism legal system, the standardization of the tourism market environment has been promoted. However, various short-term behaviors such as vicious competition, false advertising, and contract fraud in the tourism industry are still eroding the unhealthy body of the tourism economy and seriously threatening the tourism industry. long-term development of the industry. Creating an honest and fair business environment and improving the image of the tourism industry are issues that tourism operating companies must face and think about. Administering tourism in accordance with the law and improving the construction of tourism laws and regulations can standardize the market order to a certain extent. More importantly, it relies on the self-discipline of tourism operating enterprises and promotes honest and law-abiding operations by building the corporate culture of tourism operating enterprises.

4. Deeply develop tourism resources and promote development through branding. The development of cultural connotation in tourism resource development is an important means of differentiated competition. The core of the development and utilization of tourism cultural resources is cultural creativity. On the basis of analyzing the local context, the cultural development direction and theme style are determined, the content is clearly positioned and organized around the theme, and then reflected through tourism products, and the cultural connotation is continuously enriched and carried out. Creative upcycling. Among them, the key is to perceive and grasp the cultural themes of tourism resources and express them through tourism products. Its essence lies in summarizing, exploring and sublimating tourism cultural resources and finally condensing the personalized spirit of regional characteristics, and then through materialization and innovation, to achieve a deeper Through layer-by-layer integration, cultural connotations will be penetrated and expressed in all aspects of tourism products to form a characteristic brand and enhance tourism attraction.

5. Pay attention to the impact of tourism on society and culture and conduct forward-looking research. my country's tourism industry started late, with a relatively weak tourism economic foundation and lack of the ability to expand the market in depth; on the other hand, its wings are not yet full-fledged, coinciding with the great changes of China's accession to the WTO, and it is facing the challenges of informatization and globalization in its infancy. Challenges objectively make it impossible for China's tourism industry to follow suit and copy the development model of Western developed countries. At the same time, it is precisely because the history of the development of my country's tourism industry is very short, the focus of tourism industry development is concentrated in the economic field, and the impact of tourism on society and culture is not as direct and easy to detect as its impact on the economy and environment, which often takes a relatively long time. It takes time for the results to gradually appear, but once the results appear, the consequences are irreversible. It is worth noting that my country's research in this field lags far behind the research on the impact of tourism on the economy and environment. We must pay attention to this phenomenon and conduct forward-looking research. The current research content mainly includes the commercialization of social culture in tourist reception areas, the decline of traditional culture, the alienation of national culture, and the impact of cultural demonstrations brought by tourists on the culture of tourist reception areas. Impact issues, etc., those engaged in these studies include not only tourism workers, but also anthropologists and sociologists, so we should also pay attention to the sharing of results and the application and promotion of research results in practice.

6. Accelerate talent training and lay a solid foundation for the development of the tourism industry. The tourism industry chain is long and is a labor-intensive industry. To achieve sustainable development of tourism, we must speed up talent training, improve the quality of workers, and give full play to my country's advantages in abundant human resources. For a long time, tourism professional education in our country has been placed within the scope of economics, tourism culture is not yet an independent subject, and insufficient attention has been paid to improving the cultural quality of tourism talents. In fact, tourism product design, resource development and planning, and tourism services are all based on culture. However, the cultural level of tourism employees is low, their awareness of culture is insufficient, and the "whitening" link of tourism cultural connotation is missing, making it impossible to In order to help tourists with different cultural backgrounds understand the cultural connotation of tourism products, tourism activities can only stay at the superficial level of sightseeing and cannot adapt to the development requirements of modern tourism. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the training of tourism talents, gradually shift from pure productive investment to human capital investment, improve the professional quality of tourism employees, and improve their understanding of the history, culture, and folk customs of their environment. They must not only be good waiters, but also We must be good guides and provide tourists with all-round material and spiritual enjoyment through every word and deed of every tourism worker, so as to enhance the taste of tourism culture.

The tourism industry is an industry that has four major functions: economic, cultural, social and environmental. However, the phenomenon of blindly pursuing economic benefits and neglecting cultural and other functions exists in many places to varying degrees. The appropriateness of tourism resources Development and sustainable utilization require improving industrial quality, integrating cultural elements, and conducting brand operations. Under the guidance of the Scientific Outlook on Development, we must study spiritual culture, develop material culture, create institutional culture and management culture, and promote educational culture. The government and all parties related to the tourism industry must participate to deeply explore the connotation of tourism culture and actively practice it to promote the tourism industry. Towards maturity and sustained and healthy development.

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