Help write the opening report on the development and utilization of religious and cultural tourism

It is of great significance to develop religious and cultural tourism. There are some phenomena in the development of religious and cultural tourism in China, such as insufficient attention, lack of high-quality employees, ineffective resource protection and imperfect management system. Therefore, we should clarify vague concepts, correct our understanding of religious culture, strengthen the cultivation of religious tourism professionals, innovate the management mode of religious tourism, and promote the healthy development of religious cultural tourism.

Keywords: status quo of religious and cultural tourism development countermeasures

Religious culture is an important part of China's traditional culture, which has had an important influence on people's ideas and customs, and penetrated into the fields of architecture, literature, art and so on, and has become an important part of China's tourism resources. China is rich in religious resources, rich in cultural connotation and obvious in development advantages, but on the whole, China's rich religious tourism resources have not been better developed and utilized.

The value of religious and cultural tourism

Religious and cultural tourism mainly refers to tourism activities that take religious activities or scenic spots as the main tourist attractions, are utilized by the tourism industry through the participation of tourists, and produce certain economic or social benefits. China has many historical and cultural sites and rich religious and cultural resources. According to the statistics of relevant departments, religious relics account for about half of the existing major places of interest in China, and nearly half of the national key cultural relics protection units announced by the State Council are religious landscapes. China's religious and cultural resources have high historical, artistic, research and tourism values. They are not only tourist attractions, but also museums for people to visit ancient times and increase their knowledge. The further development of religious cultural tourism will help guide religion to play an active role in promoting social harmony and promote China's social and economic development.

Carrying out religious cultural tourism is conducive to publicizing the policy of freedom of religious belief of the party and the state and expanding cultural exchanges with foreign countries. Respecting and protecting freedom of religious belief is a long-term basic policy of our government in dealing with religious issues. All along, we have been fully implementing the Party's policy of freedom of religious belief, managing religious affairs according to law, implementing regulations on religious affairs, actively guiding religion to adapt to socialist society, and striving to achieve harmonious coexistence between religion and society. Through religious cultural tourism, many Chinese and foreign tourists can contact, understand and protect religious cultural heritage and legal and orderly religious activities, and eliminate some of their prejudices and misunderstandings. At the same time, actively developing religious and cultural tourism can also provide opportunities for Chinese and foreign religious figures to strengthen ties, so that foreign friends can deepen their understanding of the true situation of religious freedom and the achievements of reform and opening up in China, thus helping to create a good environment for peaceful development.

Carrying out religious cultural tourism is conducive to promoting regional economic development and protecting religious resources. More than 300 million people travel for religious purposes every year in the world, and the annual tourism income of this market exceeds 654.38+08 billion US dollars. Religious tourism has become an important global industry. Some areas of our country have also vigorously promoted the development of regional economy by actively carrying out religious and cultural tourism, which has become an important growth point of economic development. Developing religious cultural tourism can not only improve the economic benefits of tourism in the whole region, but also bring some economic income to the religious departments themselves. Places for religious activities can improve their operating conditions through refueling, donations, Buddhist income, gifts and ticket income.

Religious cultural tourism is conducive to the continuation and promotion of traditional culture in China. Religion itself has a positive effect. It has a strong idea of equality of all beings, helping others, promoting evil and promoting good, and attaching importance to wisdom and truth. This is of great significance for us to advocate democracy, establish collectivism, oppose individual extremism and promote the construction of a harmonious society. Religion also has profound cultural accumulation, which is a collection of literature, art, language, folklore, philosophy, history and so on. Religion is full of wisdom and philosophy and contains many solutions to problems. The development of religious cultural resources is conducive to guiding people to pay attention to our excellent traditional culture and enhancing our national cohesion. ②

The Development Status of Religious Cultural Tourism in China

At present, China's religious and cultural tourism has formed some excellent tourism projects, and the development of religious and cultural tourism has also shown a diversified development trend, forming a tourism activity that integrates religious architecture, festivals, religion, religious health and other ways. Although China's religious and cultural tourism has made great progress, there are still some problems that cannot be ignored.

Local governments pay insufficient attention to the development of religious and cultural tourism. China is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. For a long time, religious issues have been intertwined with ethnic issues, feudal superstitions and other activities, resulting in the complexity and particularity of religious issues. In fact, religious culture has its negative effects, but it also has its positive side. As long as we have a correct understanding of religion, the characteristics of religious tourism resources, the implementation of religious policies and the correct development principles for the observance of religious laws and regulations, then this work is entirely possible to achieve better results.

Tourism projects are single and the quality of employees is not high. The activities launched by domestic religious tourism projects are monotonous and lack depth. To a great extent, the development of religious tourism in many areas is still in the "symbolic stage". The cultural connotations of religion, such as enlightenment wisdom, balanced psychology and self-cultivation, need to be explored urgently. In addition, the professional quality level of employees also needs to be improved. In many religious attractions, religious personnel only engage in activities such as praying for pilgrims, distributing scriptures, maintaining order and chanting scriptures, and rarely give in-depth explanations to tourists. Tour guides in some religious scenic spots are basically in a disorderly state without professional training and employment certificates.

The commercial atmosphere of the scenic spot is too strong, and the resource protection is weak. Many open temples and palaces are full of strong commercial colors. The business activities of vendors in religious places have greatly affected the sanctity and solemnity of scenic spots. Some religious sites also took the opportunity to defraud tourists in various names. With the further development of tourism, the protection of religious tourism resources is becoming increasingly serious. Driven by economic interests, some local governments do not respect the laws of economic development and the reality of social development, and hastily build some religious tourism projects with little benefit. At the same time, the construction of some tourism projects has brought great damage to the surrounding ecological environment and religious culture. ③ Poor protection of religious tourism resources has become an urgent problem in the development of religious tourism in China.

The management system is not perfect, and the contradictions among stakeholders are prominent. At present, the management of religious tourist attractions in China has basically formed a complex management system. There are a lot of competing interests between tourism and nature reserves, tourism and cultural relics, tourism and religion, tourism and environmental protection, and tourism and community, forming a complex relationship. There are still some contradictions between religious groups and tourism departments in the development of religious tourism. The departments of tourist attractions often don't know enough about religious knowledge, policies, regulations and related issues, and they don't pay enough attention to the suggestions of religious departments and the protection of the rights and interests of religious groups when making decisions. Religious groups lack experience in coordinating all aspects of relations and simply think from their own perspective, which also causes dissatisfaction from other departments.

Countermeasures for the Development of Religious and Cultural Tourism in China

According to the characteristics of religious tourism and the problems existing in the development of religious cultural tourism in China, we should pay attention to the following points in developing religious tourism in China.

Clarify vague concepts and correctly understand religious culture. As a social and cultural phenomenon, religion has existed universally for a long time in human history, and its influence is very extensive and profound. In ancient times, there was almost religious infiltration from ideology to social life. Philosophy, theology, literature, music, fine arts, architecture and people's customs and habits show religious spirit everywhere. The religious thought of theism is not the mainstream ideology in today's society in China, but it has played a positive role in moral education, stopping evil deeds and doing good, and psychological comfort for its followers, and has also had a certain positive impact on social moral norms and living habits. There are both connections and differences between religious culture and religious belief. Although religious culture is not the mainstream culture, it is also the crystallization of human wisdom and an important part of China's traditional culture.

Enrich the content of religious tourism products and strengthen external publicity. Religious architecture, music, painting, sculpture, dance, festivals and fitness methods have great attraction and appeal to tourists and can meet their various aesthetic and spiritual needs. Therefore, we should dig deep into the connotation of religious culture and actively develop diversified tourism projects, instead of being satisfied with the existing shallow development. In today's increasingly fierce competition in tourism, external publicity is of great significance. Generally speaking, the intensity of publicity is directly proportional to the number of tourists. Vigorously promoting is conducive to strengthening people's attention to scenic spots. The publicity of many religious tourist attractions in China still needs to be strengthened. At present, we should make full use of TV, newspapers, internet and other media channels to expand our influence. Only by multi-level, multi-angle and all-round propaganda can religious and cultural tourism develop greatly and make great achievements.

Strengthen the cultivation of religious tourism professionals. Religious cultural tourism, as a special cultural tourism product, has higher requirements for tourism professionals. Religious tourism professionals should have a certain religious knowledge base and historical and cultural knowledge. Only in this way can we better publicize China's historical culture and religious culture to tourists, thus arousing their interest. Combined with the actual situation in our country, we can add religious and cultural tourism courses in the tourism specialty of secondary vocational schools and higher vocational colleges in a planned way, and strengthen the training of religious and cultural knowledge for tourism management service personnel. Conditional can hire experts and researchers familiar with religion from universities and research institutes near the scenic spot as tour guides. Because they have rich religious and cultural knowledge, they can introduce basic landscapes to tourists and explain their religious thoughts.

Establish and improve the management system of religious cultural tourism and innovate the management mode of religious tourism. In order to improve the current chaotic management situation, we should break the traditional mode of fragmented ethnic and religious departments, cultural relics departments and tourism departments and decentralized resource management. Under the unified leadership of the government, the management departments of tourist attractions, religious departments, garden management departments and cultural relics protection departments should clearly define their responsibilities and make concerted efforts, not only considering unilateral interests, but also considering the overall interests.

Of course, the relationship between protection and development should also be properly handled in the development of religious tourism, and the religious feelings of religious organizations and believers must be fully considered in the development work. At the same time, it is also necessary to standardize the management of religious tourism resources development activities, strictly put an end to those foolish and anti-scientific spiritual and cultural wastes that appear in the name of developing religious tourism resources, and ensure the correct development direction through scientific management. China's profound religious and cultural resources are the common wealth of our people. We should thoroughly study the rich religious culture, actively sublate and critically inherit it, and give full play to the positive role of religious culture in serving China's economic and social development and opening up.

(Author: Yanshan University Law School)

To annotate ...

(1) Su Yongjun: Exploring the Development of Religious Tourism Resources with Southern Jiangsu as an Example, Journal of Zhejiang Gongshang University, 2005.

② Gao Yining: "Modern Value and Social Significance of Religion", Religion in China, No.5, 2003.

③ Cao Huiping: "Research on the Development and Management of Religious Tourism Projects in China", Social Scientist, No.4, 2002.