It took 4 years to rebuild the "Jiangnan Water Town", but now no one cares about the 2 billion investment. Why did the ancient town become an "empty city"?

You gain a board outside and lose the double doors in the house - the gain outweighs the loss.

In China, there are many well-preserved ancient towns with historical heritage. They have now become a wonder of my country’s tourism industry. The endless flow of tourists and huge economic returns have led many developers to focus on the development of the ancient town.

However, many ancient towns themselves have been surrounded by commercial atmosphere and lost their original sense of history, not to mention those "ancient towns" built with modern technology. The melon is not sweet, and I will introduce it to you today. An ancient town that took 4 years and invested 2 billion to build was once prosperous, but later became a ghost town. This is the Longtan Water Town Ancient Town in Chengdu.

A modern version of the ancient town rising from the ground

In today's Chengdu, Sichuan, there is a unique ancient town called Longtan Water Town worth 2 billion and known as the "Chengdu Qingming Festival Along the River". However, In recent years, it has changed from an ancient town to an "isolated town", just like an empty city.

Speaking of this ancient town, it is not a historical relic, but a product of modern technology. According to the developers, they want to build the Longtan Water Town into a boutique hotel, business club, shopping, The complex business district that integrates catering, leisure, entertainment and tourism has the characteristics of a fusion of northern and southern cultures and a blend of east and west, but it turns out to be a "four different things".

Longtan Water Village is located between the Third Ring Road and the Fourth Ring Road in Chengdu. It is built on an industrial land. Because industrial land is cheap and has a long service life, the developer chose this location. After After four years of construction, the Longtan Water Town Ancient Town with a total investment of 2 billion yuan has risen from the ground and is quite distinctive.

From the appearance, it is no less than the ancient town attractions in other areas. However, although such a modern version of the ancient town has complete facilities and excellent appearance, it lacks its own connotation.

We have to admit that the power of modern technology can build such high-standard ancient town buildings. Moreover, Longtan Water Town attracted a large number of tourists as soon as it opened, setting a record of hosting 130,000 tourists in three days. In 2013, Longtan Water Town was included in the key tourism projects of the Sichuan Provincial Tourism Bureau and declared a national "4A-level scenic tourist area".

It not only has a unique ancient town culture, but also has strong support from the government. This characteristic scenic spot known as "Chengdu Qingming River Scene" and "Chengdu Zhouzhuang" should have a bright future, but now it is sparsely populated. Only during holidays do some tourists come, and the businesses inside gradually move out, leaving the once-splendid ancient town a ghost town.

Why are ancient towns turning into empty cities?

The failure of the ancient town of Longtan Water Town is not accidental, but has its own reasons and external limitations. From a geographical point of view, Longtan Water Town is located between the Third Ring Road and the Fourth Ring Road. It is not particularly remote. Compared with Zhujiajiao Ancient Town in Shanghai, it is already close to the urban area. However, it is surrounded by several railway lines. Surrounding, if you want to enter from the outside, you must bypass these railways.

Everyone who travels knows that without a convenient public transportation system, it would be troublesome for individuals to go around the railways to get to a certain place. Moreover, the transportation in Longtan Water Town is not very convenient. If you start from the city center, it takes about two hours to get there, and you have to change to multiple routes in the middle, which is really troublesome.

In addition to the traffic problem, we also said that this ancient town is built on industrial land. In other words, the scenic spot is not surrounded by very leisurely natural scenery, nor is it suitable for residential use. Instead of residential areas, there are factories. It is unimaginable that a scenic spot known as "Along the River During Qingming Festival" is surrounded by factories.

This made the curious tourists feel deceived. They originally wanted to breathe fresh air, but it turned out that PM2.5 exceeded the standard.

However, external reasons cannot completely defeat a scenic spot, because there are many scenic spots in our country that also have these problems, but they are still crowded with tourists. Therefore, the key to the complete failure of Longtan Water Town lies in itself. From the perspective of the ancient town itself, it is a product of modern industry, so it has no historical heritage and has no historical value as a tool for commercial profit. Therefore, it should not deceive tourists in the name of an ancient town.

Compared with those ancient towns that have experienced hundreds or even thousands of years, the design of Longtan Water Town is not reasonable. The river is too narrow, there is too little greening, and the buildings are too dense, causing tourists who originally come for leisure to be crowded. The crowd was heartbroken, making this scenic spot a "disposable" product with few repeat visitors.

In addition to its own shortcomings, the planning of the ancient town is not in place. On the one hand, it lies in its positioning. The ancient town in Shu is branded as a Jiangnan water town. For thousands of years, the Sichuan-Shu region has nurtured own culture, so the Longtan level should have used local materials, but it has to achieve cultural integration. It is difficult for foreign cultures to take root, and the result is a typical "four differences".

Moreover, the developers lack long-term planning. Although the ancient town is so gorgeously designed, the follow-up facilities have not kept up. Many facilities are aging and have not been repaired. The commercial streets, hotels and other supporting facilities outside are not complete.

The green area of ??the ancient town is very low, which makes the ancient town full of depressive feeling. Moreover, it looks like a commercial street, which makes people feel like a place for playing cards and drinking. It also lacks the beautiful feeling of cultural buildings. Many tourists come here with the purpose of relaxing themselves and getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city, but this place makes people feel even more depressed. The cold and cold buildings take away the excitement and pleasure of traveling at all.

And due to the subsequent decrease in tourists, many merchants gradually lost money and started lawsuits with developers. Developers who were mired in commercial disputes were unable to continue to renovate the ancient town. Therefore, Longtan Water Town gradually declined and became It became an "empty city".

Uniqueness is worse than uniqueness

The current situation of Longtan Water Town has been exposed by major media. Many netizens said that the so-called ancient towns are all the same and have no uniqueness at all. Some flavor. Even though the admission to Longtan Water Town is free, it only attracts sporadic tourists during holidays. It is just a ghost town on weekdays.

Not only the ancient town of Longtan Water Town, but also some other man-made scenic spots in China have followed the same path as Longtan Water Town due to poor planning and lack of characteristics, such as the Huixiang Style Small Town in Xingjing Town, Yinchuan City town, as well as Longquanpu Ancient Town in Yichang City, which failed due to poor management and weak investment policies.

These scenic spots are all tough and naturally not sweet. In the face of these situations, there are actually no strategies to solve them. After all, practice brings true knowledge. As the saying goes, you need to be strong to make iron. The successful development of a tourist attraction, especially this kind of man-made landscape, often relies on its own characteristics.

Scenic spots must not only consider their own geographical environment and humanistic background, but also properly combine transportation, humanities, and social development conditions to create a unique landscape culture. Blindly seeking common ground will only lead to public dissatisfaction. Aesthetic fatigue makes it a "one-time" attraction, making it difficult to maintain a long-term stable growth in the number of tourists.

In addition, as a developer of a scenic spot, you must have long-term planning and scientific planning. You cannot take it one step at a time. You must strive to absorb the unique connotation of the local area and create a long-term output that can give people sensory and spiritual enjoyment. An attraction for double enjoyment.

Whether it is the ancient town of Longtan Water Town or other attractions, they are all facing the problem of homogeneity, and Longtan Water Town is just a microcosm of China’s tourism industry. We all look forward to breakthroughs in attractions in various places. , to create a scenic spot with unique style and local charm, instead of a cookie-cutter homogeneous scenic spot that makes people want to go no further after just one glance.