How to Develop Chinese Rural Tourism in the Context of New Urbanization?

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School of Business Administration, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan 114051, China

1 Development situation and connotation of new urbanization and rural tourism

1.1NewurbanizationChina’s urbanization rate was only 10.64% in 1949, and it increased to 17.92% in 1978. Since the reform and opening up, China’s urbanization rate has increased rapidly. It was more than 30% in 1996, and more than 50% in 2011, and reached 56.1% in 2014, as shown in Fig. 1. Compared with Western developed countries, the urbanization in China started late but is developed rapidly, and excessively pursuing speed but ignoring the quality has triggered a series of urban problems. Thus, in 2014, China officially started construction of new urbanization to emphasize integration, coordination and harmony of urban and rural areas, and promote coordinated development of large, medium and small cities, small towns, and new rural communities. This indicates that the process of urbanization in China has entered into the stage of laying equal stress on quality and speed.

Fig.1 The change in China’s urbanization rate after 1949

1.2RuraltourismWith rural areas for activities, rural tourism uses unique rural resources of agricultural production, rural life and rural ecological environment, to provide various forms of tourism for urban residents such as sight-seeing, leisure, education, health building, entertainment, shopping and vacation. Since the reform and opening up, the government has implemented the strategic plan of building a new socialist countryside, which opens the prelude to rural tourism. With the government’s increasing attention and shift in people’s ideas of rural tourism, rural tourism gradually booms, and becomes an important form of domestic leisure tourism. The development of Chinese rural tourism industry for nearly 30 years is shown in Table 1.

2 Interaction between new urbanization and rural to-urism

2.1Roleofnewurbanizationinpromotingruraltourism

2.1.1Providing a huge market demand.With the rapid increase in socio-economic level, people have the higher demand for tourism and the like after meeting the most basic physiological needs and security needs, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. People living in cities and towns prefer pastoral life and rural experience in order to alleviate the quick pace and stress produced by large-scale mechanized production. Thus, the new urbanization construction provides a broad market demand for the development of rural tourism.

2.1.2Offering superior policy support.In the implementation of new urbanization strategy, local governments include rural tourism in township development plan, enact laws and regulations to regulate rural tourism activities, offer support in land management, financing, employment, household registration reform and social security, and regulate market access, information management, organization construction and marketing. Government’s policy support and institutional norms provide a solid guarantee for rural tourism.

2.1.3Providing good economic support. New urbanization construction increases the investment in rural tourism, constantly promotes various kinds of infrastructure construction, makes transportation more convenient and services more perfect, brings a great convenience to urban residents’ travel in rural areas, and provides a solid protection of traffic and logistics.

Table1Chineseruraltourismindustrydevelopmentfornearly30years

YearDevelopment1990sRuraltourism,asanimportantpartofeco-tourism,wasvigorouslypromotedbytheWorldTourismOrganizationandotherinterna-tionalorganizations,andgraduallydeveloped.1998ChinaNationalTourismAdministrationdetermined"1998:ChinaUrbanandRuralTour"astourismthemeyear.2003ShanghaipromulgatedChinasfirstlocalstandardofruraltourism:FarmhouseServiceQualityLevelClassification.2006NationalTourismAdministrationidentified2006as"ChinaUrbanandRuralTour"themeyear,andthesloganwas"newcountryside,newtourism,newexperience,newtrend".2007CentralDocumentNo.1attachedgreatimportancetothedevelopmentofruraltourism,andNationalTourismAdministrationproposedandactivelypromoted"ChinaUrbanandRuralTour"themeyearevent,andlaunchedRuralTourismProjectof100CharacteristicCounties,1000CharacteristicTownshipsand10000CharacteristicVillages.2008TheThirdPlenarySessionofthe17thCPCCentralCommitteeproposedtakingtheroadofagriculturalmodernizationwithChinesecharacteristics,andacceleratingtheformationofanewpatternofurbanandruraleconomicandsocialintegration.2010Morethantwentyprovinces,autonomousregions(municipalities)developedtherelevantnormsandstandardsconcerningruraltourismorfarmhouse.

2.2Roleofruraltourisminpromotingnewurbanization

2.2.1Meeting urban demand and increasing residents’ income.There will be increasingly high work and life pressure for the urban residents in modern society, and rural tourism just plays a role in relieving the pressure on urban residents. Rural tranquil and comfortable living environment and abundant resources often become good carriers for urban residents to release the pressure. At the same time, the development of rural tourism can effectively absorb surplus rural labor force, and improve the income level of residents in tourist destinations; government intervention is also beneficial to the development and protection of local culture with characteristics.

2.2.2Achieving thein-situurbanization of tourism. Rural tourism is not simply to use scenic spot to attract tourists, and in fact it is an experience-based travel in rural areas. This form of tourism has strong linkage effects, and can create service-oriented industry clusters similar to industrial layout. Through this innovative model of urbanization, it can effectively solve many urban problems caused by the transfer of a large rural population into cities.

3 Main problems in China’s rural tourism development

Through many years of development, Chinese rural tourism has made great strides, showing good development prospects. However, it is still in its infancy, and there are still many problems to be solved in the development process. Rural tourism is not included in the urbanization construction, and the development of rural tourism products is not well combined with new urbanization construction. It tends to focus only on the immediate economic interests, leading to serious homogeneous rural tourism competition, without highlighting rural "personality". And rural tourist destinations are mostly in rural areas with insufficient investment in infrastructure, so it can not meet the basic needs of tourists, and the tourists in many places show dissatisfaction. All these are inconsistent with the huge rural tourism demand generated in the rapid development of China’s urbanization.

4 Recommendations

4.1MakinggoodplansbasedonlocalconditionstohighlighttheruralcharacteristicsRural characteristics are the key element to attract the urban population, so the development of rural tourism should be based on the rural "personality" different from the urban landscape. On the basis of learning from other outstanding rural tourism demonstration sites, it is necessary to seek the best combination among various factors such as geographic location, resource characteristics, customs and economic development. Based on other development models, there is a need to focus on local characteristics to create rural tourism brands with characteristics. Therefore, in the development process, it is necessary to improve economic and social benefits, and avoid excessive invasion of external culture threatening the dominant position of local culture, to maintain the development of rural tourism. The real look is the key to success.

4.2Improvinginfrastructureandachievingin-situurbanizationofruraltourismSound public service infrastructure is the basis for enhancing rural tourism development, and also the necessary conditions for promoting in-situ urbanization. Urban residents, as the main source of rural tourism, enjoy sound infrastructure and services in urban areas, so they place a higher demand on infrastructure and services in rural areas. Therefore, in terms of public tourism facility construction, it is necessary to effectively solve the traffic problem, and open up travel lanes in cooperation with the transport departments; in terms of food and accommodation construction, it is necessary to pay attention to the health standards of tourism environment and reception facilities, and carry out regular disinfection. At the same time, it is necessary to increase investment in rural roads, parking lot lighting, sanitation facilities, medical care facilities, post and telecommunications facilities, educational facilities, and cultural facilities.

4.3Keepingpacewiththetimesandusingtechnologytocreateurban-ruralintegrationNew urbanization promotes the development of wisdom cities, enhances the integration of urban and rural plan and public services, and strengthens rural service network construction. For the development of rural tourism, it is necessary to make good use of network technology and "smart travel" to create new tourism style. It is necessary to strengthen rural infrastructure construction and network coverage, use Wechat, microblog and other media channels for rural tourism publicity, and perfect DIY tourism APP to make rural tourism more convenient. Keeping pace with the times and making good use of technology is the key to long-term development of rural tourism.

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