Benchmarking the international first-class and building our province into a world tourist destination are four key points.

Text/Li Xianyue

World tourism destination is the embodiment of a country’s comprehensive strength. Analyzing the successful experiences of the world tourism destination powers/regions, such as Spain, Japan, the United States, Germany, Singapore, New Zealand, etc., and summing up their development measures can bring some inspiration for our province to build a world tourism destination.

Promoting the integrated development of tourism and multi-industries with the concept of grand tourism has become a common model for the development of powerful countries/regions in the world. The integration of American tourism with transportation, finance, education and equipment manufacturing provides a strong guarantee for the development of tourism. Perfect public service facilities such as the developed aviation industry in the United States have laid the foundation for social services; The advanced financial service system provides convenience for tourism investment and consumption; High-level education industry provides a large number of high-quality professionals for tourism, and tourism also feeds back the development of these industries.

In view of this, our province should adhere to the idea of "building a journey with literature and displaying literature with tourism", build the support of multi-industry inclusive development, work together, stimulate new kinetic energy, and jointly promote the construction of world tourist destinations.

Promoting the construction of world tourism destination with great strategic thinking

In 2003, Japan began to "build a country by sightseeing", and made it clear that sightseeing is the focus of policy support in the 21st century. The tourism industry continued to grow, and ranked first in the global tourism competitiveness in 2021. Spain has always placed tourism at the top of the national economic development strategy and strictly controlled the quality of tourism development, and its tourism industry has always maintained the top three in the global tourism competitiveness.

The provincial party committee and government attach great importance to strengthening top-level design and high-level promotion, which has formed a large-scale tourism work pattern of provincial and municipal linkage and departmental cooperation. From 2022 onwards, according to the concept of "holding a meeting and prospering a city", provinces, cities and States will hold a tourism development conference every year to build a "1+13" Hunan tourism development conference model. We should continue to increase policy support from the aspects of projects, finance, investment and financing, forest land use, talents, etc., and accelerate the construction of a world tourist destination.

Constructing the International Competitiveness System of World Tourism Destinations with Core Attraction

New Zealand has developed rich rural tourism products and local specialty commodities, and created a harmonious sharing space for rural quality life, animals and natural landscapes, giving full play to the core attraction of rural tourism. Spain has taken the initiative to meet the diverse needs of the international market and developed core products such as "coastal scenery", "rural tourism" and "cultural tourism", which is highly targeted.

According to the development requirements of "big tourism, big industry and big market", Hunan can fully explore and display the unique beauty of "antique, green, red and night" in Hunan, and create five business cards of "fantastic landscape, classic red, urban culture and urban leisure, historical culture and farming culture" to form the core attraction and make Hunan tourism popular all over the country and go global.

Building a livable and tourist-friendly service space for world tourism destinations with host-guest sharing

World tourist destinations often build livable and tourist-friendly service spaces through perfect basic service facilities, personalized services and in-depth participation of local residents, so as to realize host-guest sharing. For example, the rapid improvement of Japan’s tourism competitiveness is mainly due to the continuous improvement of aviation, hotels and other infrastructure, which guarantees tourists a comfortable travel experience in hardware facilities. Singapore put forward the slogan of providing five-star services for tourists, and built the whole country into a garden city, which not only fully satisfied the quality life of local residents’ eating and living, but also fully considered the tourists’ experience.

To build a world tourist destination, Hunan should strengthen the sense of sharing between host and guest, coordinate the daily leisure and holiday needs of local people and the multicultural tourism needs of foreign tourists, and let the broad masses share the fruits of cultural and tourism development. Empowering rural revitalization with cultural tourism, cultivating civilized rural style and promoting tourism to enrich the people; Enhance the city’s distinctive features with the concept of "integration of scenery and city, sharing between host and guest", carry out civilized tourism in depth, and implement the "action plan for tourists’ satisfaction in Hunan"; Comprehensively improve the tourism infrastructure with the concept of "travel is service" and build a smart platform of "one yard tour of Hunan". Take tourism as a happiness industry and constantly improve people’s sense of happiness and acquisition.

Implement comprehensive promotion and precision marketing strategy with the concept of big market

Improving the popularity and reputation of world tourist destinations requires the joint efforts of the government, industry, enterprises and the public. The powerful countries/regions in the world attach great importance to the brand building and value export of tourism image, and carry out comprehensive promotion and all-staff, whole-process and all-round marketing strategies in the face of the vast international market to continuously expand the influence of tourism destinations. Spain has a strong national marketing organization, and the government has set up a tourism promotion bureau to carry out precise marketing and maintain a good continuity and systematicness in the national tourism brand strategy.

Hunan should be integrated into the national "the belt and road initiative" major development strategy with a more open attitude, deepen international tourism cooperation, and make overall arrangements and organize tourism image publicity and product promotion around the tourism image brand of "Three Hunan and Four Waters Meet Hunan". Accelerate the internationalization of Hunan tourism in official website, and build a new pattern of "One Network No.4" new media matrix (official website, Wenlv Hunan, WeChat, Weibo, Tik Tok and Video). Hold Hunan International Cultural Tourism Festival, stabilize and encrypt the international routes of key Asian cities, open new intercontinental routes between Europe and America, open more direct flights to Africa, and strive to turn Changsha and Zhangjiajie into RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) national regional transit hubs and gateway hubs to Africa, and build them into international tourism center cities as soon as possible.

(The author is the vice president and professor of the School of Social Development and Management of Hunan Women’s University. This article is a key scientific research project of Hunan Provincial Education Department (No.20A264).