A Study of the Cultural Development Path and Strategy of Chengdu as a Global City

Zhang Li＊

Beijing Academy of Social Sciences

Abstract: Chengdu should promote its cultural development as a global city, for this move can help raise its international profile, strengthen its urban culture as soft power, give consideration to both the “hard environment” and “soft services”in building its urban culture, and ultimately meet the quality requirements of a global city in all respects. While drawing on the successful experience and practices of top global cities, Chengdu should base itself on the unique resources and reality, explore the profound urban culture, and take its urban culture global in a bid to develop into a renowned cultural city of international influence.

Keywords: Chengdu; global city; cultural development

The Chengdu Urban Master Plan (2016-2035) (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) contains four strategic orientations for urban development.The Plan identifies Chengdu’s primary goal of developing into a gateway to the world, an international hub, and a world-renowned cultural city, delineating its development route from an inland city to a national center, and eventually to an international metropolis. The Plan also specifies the following tasks: (a)to continuously strengthen the core functions of a global city; (b) to further develop the export-oriented economy; (c) to significantly improve the city’s comprehensive strength,economic growth, and social development; (d) to enhance the city’s capacity to gather factors and stimulate the development of surrounding areas; and (e) to create a convenient and pleasant urban environment ideal for frequent international exchanges. From a global perspective, global cities all have their own representative cultural industries and characteristic cultures, and the formulation and implementation of a corresponding cultural development strategy are at the core of building a global city. At present, Chengdu is striving to develop into a global city. During this process, the international profile of its urban culture as soft power is of great importance to its economic growth and social development. Given that, constant emphasis should be placed on raising this international profile.

Overview of the Current Cultural Development of Chengdu as a Global City

In terms of social and economic development, Chengdu is the largest and the most developed economy in western China, with a population of about 21 million and a GDP of nearly RMB2 trillion(2020). Since it was included in the list of national central cities in 2016, with the support of the overall national strategy, Chengdu has made full use of its two greatest advantages, namely, unique geographical location and profound historical and cultural resources in urban development, focusing on developing its urban culture as soft power. It has placed special emphasis on local characteristics in the creation of urban cultural ecology, the advancement of urban cultural tourism, and the improvement of cultural and creative industries. It has worked hard on exploring cultural values that can be promoted internationally from local cultural resources, shaping an inclusive urban culture, and explaining its special connection with world culture. In recent years, Chengdu has been going through a transition from resource promotion to brand building when taking its urban culture global. Specifically, it now attaches more importance to the value of local people, environment, culture, and ecology, working towards its new goal of international promotion which highlights lifestyles and cultural experience, and advocating its urban cultural concept of “fast-paced city, slow-paced life.” The purpose is to promote to the world a Chinese city full of cultural heritage and modern vitality.

Sustained Cultural and Creative Vitality of Chengdu

Chengdu has rich and diverse urban cultural resources and is known for its strong cultural vibe. The long-standing Tianfu culture (i.e., the Chengdu Plain culture), with its core values being “innovation and creation; elegance and fashion; optimism and inclusiveness; friendliness and public good,” is the spiritual home of the citizens of Chengdu, and also part of soft power which enables Chengdu to compete with other global cities. The Tianfu culture is forming the best possible way for Chengdu to go global.Since the release of the Action Plan for Building a Cultural and Creative Center of Western China(2017-2022), Chengdu has kept advancing the creative transformation and innovative development of the Tianfu culture, building a unique brand of urban culture, and using culture as a major driving force for innovative development and economic transformation and upgrading. The free and inclusive cultural vibe of Chengdu has nurtured many outstanding cultural producers who have made remarkable achievements in traditional literature, cyber literature, animation, gaming, food culture, fashion, leisure and lifestyle,intangible cultural heritage (ICH), and theater. Their contributions, in turn, have made Chengdu a unique existence on the landscape of Chinese urban cultures and laid a solid cultural foundation for the development of the content economy. Chengdu has shown vigorous vitality and strong competitiveness,particularly in emerging cultural and creative industries, which feature technology, social network, and pan-entertainment. In the “Chinese City Rankings 2018 by Vitality in Emerging Cultural and Creative Area,” a barometer to China’s cultural and creative industries, Chengdu topped the list, surpassing“established giants” such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Such an impressive achievement was made thanks to its excellent performance in indicators of vitality concerning industry, personnel, policy and communication, and it reflected the great development potential for Chengdu in emerging cultural and creative industries. In the World Cities Culture Report 2018, completed by the organizing committee of World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF), there was a detailed analysis of Chengdu, including its global integration and soft power, among other indicators. Based on the analysis, the WCCF considered the local culture of Chengdu highly open and inclusive, reckoning the city to be an emerging global city imbued with the pioneering spirit, and adding that Chengdu had all essential elements of a world-class city and the capacity to develop rapidly into a global city, in light of multiple indicators showing its significant global influence and high international prestige.

Steady Development of the Characteristic Cultural and Creative Industries of Chengdu

Chengdu is internationally known for its rich cultural heritage resources, which provide the basic cultural conditions for local cultural and creative industries to continuously generate ideas of content innovation, accelerate their development and expansion, and create an effect of industry agglomeration.With strong government support and promotion, the local cultural and creative industries begin to thrive and have developed more effectively, particularly after the release of the Action Plan for Building a Cultural and Creative Center of Western China (2017-2022) and the introduction of the development goal of “building a national benchmark city for cultural and creative industries and a creative city that is globally competitive.” The fact that cultural and creative industries have grown into a pillar of the local economy, along with their increased market vitality and optimized industrial structure, well prepares Chengdu for becoming a major center for cultural and creative development. Eight cultural and creative industries with obvious advantages have taken shape in Chengdu, which respectively are information services, creative design, media and cinema, modern fashion, cultural and sports tourism,education consulting, music and art, as well as exhibition and advertising. Together, the eight industries account for more than 90 percent of the added value of the whole cultural and creative market. In terms of spatial pattern, the cultural and creative industries of Chengdu are opening up new prospects,which are primarily supported by a “dual-core” structure (i.e., downtown Chengdu and Tianfu New Area), significantly driven by “two belts” (the Longquan Mountains and the Longmen Mountains),and extensively shared by “three zones” in the north, south, and west of Chengdu (i.e., Xindu District,Shuangliu District, and Pidu District). In 2020 the newly-built cultural and creative parks in Chengdu covered a total area of nearly 10 million square meters; the share of cultural and creative industries in local GDP reached about 10 percent; there was a rapid increase in micro and small-sized cultural and creative businesses above designated size and standard; a number of cultural and creative projects of great significance and influence were completed to improve people’s livelihood. Such performance marked a big step forward in building a world-renowned city of culture and creativity. So far, Chengdu has launched eight state-level and 22 (Sichuan) provincial-level demonstration bases and 15 (Chengdu)municipal-level demonstration parks for the development of cultural industry, and also 31 (Chengdu)municipal-level demonstration parks and two state-level maker spaces for the development of cultural and creative industries. The state-level cultural and creative industrial bases and parks in Chengdu mainly fall into the following categories: animation and gaming, digital media technology, technologyenabled culture (which is among the first batch of state-level demonstration bases of this category),advertising, and music. The effects of clustering, duplication, and collaboration are on the rise in cultural and creative industries (Wang, 2019). According to incomplete statistics, Chengdu has more than 1,000 enterprises engaged in digital culture and creativity, of which more than 100 enterprises have delivered an annual output value of RMB100 million and above (Yuan & Yang, 2020). In 2020 Chengdu hosted the “CCI in Tianfu, Jinxiu on Cloud”-themed investment attraction event, with newlysigned major cultural and creative projects totaling RMB16.651 billion (Lai, 2020).

Efforts Made by the Cultural Tourism Industry of Chengdu to Boost Full-Range International Cooperation in Cultural Tourism

Chengdu’s relentless efforts to promote its cultural tourism worldwide over the years are of great help to its transformation into a modern global city. In 2020, the Cultural Tourism Index Lab conducted a comprehensive evaluation to reflect China’s foreign communication via major international social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. The result showed that of all provincial-level divisions (provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government),Sichuan ranked second only to Beijing by the index of international communication of cultural tourism via new media. Moreover, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, based on the characteristics and advantages of local cultural tourism resources, has launched a series of cultural tourism promotions to meet overseas demand, such as “Let the World Feel Chengdu—International Promotion of Urban Cultural Tourism” project. These promotions managed to draw international attention to the Ba-Shu culture (i.e., the local culture of Sichuan and Chongqing) and traditional Chinese culture and showcased the unique charm of cultural travel in Sichuan, an inland area known for being “cozy,inclusive, vigorous and beautiful.” Chengdu continues to empower its tourism by creating 60 tourist destinations under the theme “New Travel—Trendy Chengdu” and holding a series of events such as “Chengdu International Tourism Expo” and “Global Travel Merchants Gathering in Chengdu.” In 2019 Chengdu had 280 million visitors and generated total tourism revenue of RMB466.35 billion,a year-by-year increase of 25.6 percent (Ye & Deng, 2020). Chengdu has already hosted a range of international sports events and is scheduled to host more, which is conducive to its building of a famous city of cultural tourism. In 2019 Chengdu hosted the 18th World Police and Fire Games and also won bids to host several major sports events, including the 2021 FISU World University Games, the 2022 World Team Table Tennis Championships, and the World Games 2025, and to co-host the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. Also, in 2019, the Chengdu Marathon became the first marathon in China to have been confirmed as a candidate race of Abbott World Marathon Majors. Apart from sports events, the year 2019 also witnessed the staging of numerous music and art events in Chengdu, among which were the 12th Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music, the 25th “Autumn in Chengdu” International Music Season, as well as more than 1,700 musical performances and over 3,000 street shows. As a result,Chengdu’s music, cinema, and television industries saw an over 20 percent growth in both output value and investment (Luo & Li, 2020). Chengdu has sought all-around international cooperation in cultural tourism. Aiming to open up a wide range of cooperation channels across the tourism service chain, it has established strategic partnerships with more than ten international tourism organizations.

Annual Increase in Chengdu Citizens’ Willingness and Level of Urban Cultural Consumption

Chengdu was among the first batch of national pilot cities for cultural consumption and was also selected among the first batch of national demonstration cities for cultural and tourism consumption by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the PRC in 2020. Cultural consumption is becoming an important part of consumer spending in Chengdu. Of all Chinese cities, Chengdu ranks fifth in terms of box office, second in terms of the number of physical bookstores, and first in terms of total number of museums. These achievements pave the way for a boom in cultural consumption,and at the same time, stimulate the development of cultural tourism and cultural and creative industries (Wang, 2019). Over the past few years, Chengdu has kept raising its international profile as a global tourist destination. In such a context, in order to build a world-renowned cultural city and an international consumption center, Chengdu has shaped a cultural tourism consumption pattern which takes the “three cities and three capitals”①The “three cities” refer to a world-renowned city of culture, a world-renowned city of tourism, and a world-renowned city of sports events; the “three capitals”refer to a world-renowned capital of gastronomy, a world-renowned capital of music, and a world-renowned capital of convention and exhibition.blueprint as the guideline, the growing needs of tourists and citizens as the orientation, the night-time economy, the weekend economy, and other types of new economies as the engines, the multi-pole, the multi-point cultural consumption activities as the pillars, the “cultural tourism plus,” and the “culture-tourism integration plus” as the dual core. Chengdu continues to expand the channels of urban cultural consumption to facilitate its sustained growth (Xiang, 2020).

Experience from Top Global Cities in Taking Urban Culture Global

Judging from the cultural development of top global cities, each of them has developed a distinctive urban cultural style and successfully shaped an international image through the development of its urban culture. This can be exemplified by top global cities such as London and Paris, whose urban cultures are well-known and influential worldwide. The successful experience and practices of these top global cities can shed light on Chengdu, a city that is striving to take its urban culture global.

Attaching Importance to the Improvement of Urban Culture and the Popularization of Public Cultural Services

The international cultural influence of a city depends on how it builds and develops its urban culture. A city should be anchored in culture and embody this cultural context in its roads, buildings,public spaces, as well as citizens’ words and deeds. Only in this way can the city truly present its cultural and historical profundity to the world and become one that people care about, like and long for.Urban cultural construction involves building more public cultural facilities, improving public cultural services, raising the citizens’ cultural literacy, and so on, which are all crucial to a city’s cultural charm and attraction to foreign tourists. Take Paris, arguably the world’s most famous city, as an example.Paris has made tremendous efforts and investments in its cultural development. First, at the policy level,it has kept introducing favorable financial policies and increasing investments in the cause of arts and culture. Second, at the operation level, it has formed a regular operating mechanism in dealing with specific cultural affairs. Direction des affaires culturelles de la Ville de Paris (Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Paris) is a competent cultural institution responsible for the maintenance and construction of the city’s cultural landscape, the daily management and maintenance of local museums,theaters, libraries, conservatories and churches, the approval of funding for cultural development,the all-around support of artistic creation, the organization of public cultural events, the creation of an urban cultural vibe, and the popularization of arts and culture among the general public. To boost cultural development, Paris strives to enhance the preservation and transmission of unique traditional culture, as well as the exploration and development of new forms of arts and culture. While preserving and promoting the valuable and charming cultural heritage, Paris has also been actively pushing the boundary of arts and culture, building fashion and cultural brands, setting up special funds to develop new art forms, and increasing financial input in street art. These measures ensure Parisian culture is always at the forefront of the advancing global trends. In the meantime, Paris values the “public service” nature of arts and culture and promotes arts and culture-related public services that benefit the general public. There is a special urban arts council which consists of experts and citizens dedicated to making cultural decisions to meet the needs of the public, timely injecting new vigor into the local arts and culture of Paris, and attracting the public (the younger generation in particular) to arts and culture so as to bring arts and culture to the widest possible audience. In terms of cultural heritage preservation, the government of Paris has worked hard on motivating its citizens to join this cause. The third weekend of September has been designated as the city’s European Heritage Days, when many heritage buildings and precious historical documents normally inaccessible are open to the public. This purpose is to cultivate a sense of cultural preservation among Parisians in a subtle way. Such a vibe,full of arts and culture, makes Paris the focus of worldwide attention. London is not second to Paris in creating a cultural and artistic vibe to attract tourists. The government of London encourages citizens to get more involved in urban cultural activities to raise their cultural and artistic literacy. According to relevant statistics, about 50 percent of Londoners attend various cultural events and arts festivals in a year; London libraries as a whole have an average of over 50 million visitors every year; the combined visitors to museums and galleries in London can reach 30 million per year. Both Paris and London have managed to create a fascinating cultural vibe from the inside out by improving their urban culture and implementing public cultural policies for the benefit of the people. With unique cultures and arts,the two cities are able to stand out from other cosmopolises and have long been world-class tourist destinations popular with foreign tourists.

Integrating a City’s Unique Resources to Build a Famous Brand of Cultural Tourism

To take a city’s culture global, we should sort out and integrate its cultural tourism resources,keep a foothold in its natural ecology, and further explore its culture and history. By developing cultural tourism-related products and projects, we can promote the integrated development of culture and tourism and upgrade the natural and cultural landscapes of tourism value in a holistic and coordinated way. We should form a representative brand of cultural tourism to attract tourists and build a good reputation. In recent years the Forbidden City (also known as the Palace Museum) in Beijing has made a remarkable breakthrough in the integrated development of culture and tourism, becoming an online sensation and quickly emerging as an internationally wellknown brand of cultural tourism. This “Forbidden City effect” has also helped promote Beijing’s urban culture and increase its recognition and presence globally. In fact, all successful cultural tourism brands, no matter which cities they belong to, have some commonalities to follow. First,it is necessary to promote the integration of cultural tourism with cultural and creative industries.Specifically, we should boost the cultural tourism economy by innovative means, optimize the established concept of cultural tourism services, attach great importance to tourism’s cultural value, advance cultural empowerment, work harder on brand culture, enrich products with more cultural elements, improve products’ cultural quality and value, enable creative transformation and improvement of cultural resources, and develop cultural tourism-themed products and projects with high brand value through the exploration of urban cultural and historical resources. Second,it is important to understand both the cultural needs of tourists and the needs of the tourism market. On this basis, we should develop a diversity of cultural tourism products, create a sound and complete value chain of cultural tourism, innovate cultural tourism forms, and transform functional zones for cultural tourism. Third, the characteristics of urban cultural tourism need to be highlighted when it comes to the development of urban cultural tourism resources and the production of cultural tourism products. We must carefully design and develop the urban landscape, arts, culture, historical relics, architecture, and streets to transform our city's defining cultural features into tourism products and truly combine its characteristic cultural resources with tourism resources. Yet, at the same time, we should also avoid the repetitive production of homogenized tourism products and devote ourselves to the development of new cultural tourism with fine cultural connotations.

Focusing on Cultural Experience to Improve and Upgrade Cultural Festivals and Events

To take a city’s culture global, we should also plan and hold large international cultural events and arts festivals with global popularity and local cultural characteristics. In this regard, the world-famous Paris Fashion Week sets an example by combining cultural and creative industries with tourism. Every spring/summer or fall/winter fashion season, tourists worldwide flock to Paris to spend the vacation or participate in peripheral activities. At the Paris Fashion Week, hundreds of fashion shows are staged to promote fashion design. As a combination of fashion design base and fashion design expo, this event provides value-added services, such as platform promotion, fashion culture spreading, and brand incubation. Now, it has formed a full-service fashion industry that covers photography, advertising, and logistics, substantially boosting the development of tourism and the consumption of fashion and culture in Paris. To create cultural events and art festivals of international influence, we should emphasize the quality to make first-rate products and develop them into famous brands, while gradually introducing more peripheral cultural and tourism products and services in a bid to enhance the comprehensive effect of festival tourism. First of all, we should upgrade the existing cultural events and art festivals by expanding their scales, improving their configurations, and aligning them with advanced international standards so that they can develop into those featuring both Chinese culture and international influence. We should make full use of international platforms such as international art festivals, film festivals, TV festivals, expositions, and book fairs, carefully select cultural themes and products on display, prepare well for the participation in relevant events (exhibitions and festivals), actively promote cultural tourism products and services overseas, strengthen the cooperation with institutions which function abroad, and diversify means and channels for product introduction and promotion. Also,we should leverage non-governmental organizations, private enterprises, and other cultural forces,extend the scope of exchanges and cooperation in cultural tourism, communicate and collaborate with friendly sister cities around the world on cultural tourism, and work with qualified overseas commercial performance organizers with good reputations to bring more Chinese cultural events and art festivals to international audiences. In addition to necessary support from the government, the building of famous brands of cultural festivals and events also involves the following moves: Improving the market-oriented operation mechanism, grasping the global trend of cultural development and the new dynamics of international cultural exchanges, understanding the market and the target audience,and thinking outside the box. Various social forces can help create new forms and channels to host cultural festivals and events instead of being limited to conventional means of communication dominated by performance and exhibition. Moreover, it is necessary to increase participation in multilateral exchanges with international players and explore feasible patterns or approaches to building international cultural events and art festivals by drawing on the successful experience of others.

Diversifying Investors to Tackle the Bottleneck in Cultural Tourism Development

The government has an important role in guiding and promoting the integrated development of culture and tourism. Still, the integrated development of culture and tourism cannot rely entirely on the government, and social capital and market should be brought to full play in resource allocation. For now, the lack of funding remains a major obstacle to the integrated development of culture and tourism,which requires financial input from the government and also the input and participation of social capital. Accordingly, we should diversify investors, strike a balance among all parties concerned, guide and attract a variety of social capital forms into the industry of cultural tourism, and work together to promote the integrated development of culture and tourism. We must also tackle the difficult problem of financing cultural tourism. One possible solution can be the building of a financing platform for cultural tourism under policy guidance. In fact, London used to encounter a similar bottleneck when it was advancing towards a “creative London.” Its final solution was to coordinate all cultural development-related divisions and institutions at both the (London) municipal level and the state level to form a collaborative mechanism aiming to make London a “world-class cultural tourism hub of excellence and creativity.” In order to solve the problem of limited funding sources, London began to raise funds through private enterprises and foundations in addition to the government’s financial input and by initiating the first culture-themed special-purpose lottery. Thanks to the strong cultural support from the government, cultural institutions in London can now receive around GBP 1.1 billion funding annually; cultural and creative businesses can receive financial support and cultural export incentives from the government; intellectual property rights can be better protected as part of the efforts to create favorable external conditions and social environment for the development of cultural and creative industries in all aspects. In order to mobilize a broader range of private initiatives and draw more creative wisdom, the mechanism operates in a government-private partnership, bringing together government officials, creative business executives, and prominent figures from cultural and artistic circles to assess and discuss the development potential and possible problems of the cultural and creative industries of London. These moves, backed up by social forces and capital, have contributed significantly to the sustained development of local cultural tourism and the international spread of the urban culture of London.

Existing Problems and Deficiencies Facing Chengdu in Taking Its Urban Culture Global

Given the actual performance over the past few years, Chengdu has made substantial progress in raising the international profile of its urban culture. Yet, considering the global landscape of cultural interactions and China’s long-term cultural exchanges with foreign players, the urban culture of Chengdu remains relatively small in terms of both scale and influence, and Chengdu still lags behind top global cities in urban development.

Soft Environment for Urban Culture Yet to Reach International Standards

A global city is characterized by a high-quality soft environment for urban culture, a friendly cultural vibe conducive to international exchanges, as well as public cultural facilities and services up to international standards. At present, Chengdu cannot compare with top global cities in the above aspects. Although the urban culture of Chengdu is distinctive enough, its international competitiveness remains relatively weak. Such weakness is mainly reflected in the fact that there is still room for further improvement in urban cultural development and citizens’ cultural literacy.Moreover, Chengdu should accelerate the alignment of its software and hardware services which support the urban cultural development with international standards in order to provide convenience for international exchanges, make it easier to access the external environment and public services(such as transportation, information, sightseeing, life, and work), and create favorable conditions for foreign cultural exchanges.

Exploration, Integration, and Innovation of Local Cultural Resources to Be Further Enhanced

Chengdu’s historical and cultural resources have not yet been fully explored and utilized, its cultural intensity not significantly increased, its cultural memories not profoundly studied, its cultural brand not forcefully promoted, and its culture-industry integration not satisfactorily completed. As a result, the cultural products of Chengdu do not feature much added value and innovation, which is detrimental to its competition with other global cities. Relevant cultural management authorities need to adjust and streamline the hierarchical structure so as to strengthen the survey, sort-out, protection,inheritance, and promotion of cultural resources, and to create a better and more relaxed environment for the further exploration, utilization, innovation, and creation of cultural resources.

Cultural and Creative Businesses and a Cultural Tourism Cluster of International Influence to Be Fostered

In recent years, Chengdu’s cultural and creative industries have gained considerable momentum.However, compared with other Chinese cities whose cultural and creative industries are already well developed (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc.), Chengdu has a much smaller proportion of cultural and creative industries in its local GDP, which means the local cultural and creative industries contribute less to the city’s economic output. Besides, no single cultural and creative business in Chengdu is worth over RMB10 billion, to say nothing of one worth over RMB100 billion. There is a lack of leading unicorn enterprises in industries such as creative design, information services, cinema and television,and fashion. In the eight biggest cultural and creative industries, including cinema and television,creative design, and modern fashion, Chengdu has not yet exhibited significant competitiveness and still lacks defining industrial characteristics and core strengths. Currently, there are multiple problems in local cultural and creative industries. Specifically, its investment and revenue growth in cultural tourism is unsatisfactory and therefore needs to be increased; its competitive edges remain weak; no obvious brand effect is generated yet. These problems have, to varying degrees, prevented the local culture of Chengdu from going global.

Shortage of Versatile Talents in Cultural Tourism

Chengdu has a comparative advantage in building the scholastic system of cultural and creative programs in colleges and universities, for it has already formed a mechanism for training cultural and creative talents. Even so, there are structural contradictions concerning the practitioners of cultural tourism, which are mainly reflected in a lack of talents (particularly professionals familiar with both Chinese and international cultural tourism markets and international service trade rules,versatile talents adept at cultural management, interdisciplinary researchers, skilled technicians,and high-end experts), and the imbalance between the demand of emerging cultural and creative industries and the actual supply of cultural and creative talents. To resolve the above contradictions,the government should regard talents as the most powerful driving force of development, create a favorable social environment to attract talents, build a city that is international talents-friendly, and allow talents to have their development needs satisfied at multiple levels and in an all-around way.Only by doing so can Chengdu expect to bring in top versatile talents in cultural tourism from across the globe.

Suggestions on How to Take the Urban Culture of Chengdu Global

In view of the main problems in taking the urban culture of Chengdu global, while drawing on the successful experience and practices of top global cities, Chengdu should base itself on its unique resources and reality, strengthen the construction of urban cultural hardware and software facilities,explore the profound urban culture, and focus on the overall design and specific implementation of the strategy for raising the international profile of its urban culture. These efforts are made to help Chengdu rank among top global cities by urban culture as soft power and turn it into a more inclusive and creative city. Considering comprehensively Chengdu’s urban culture already exhibited in the goingglobal process, the next step is to focus on four aspects as below.

Enriching and Improving the Urban Culture of Chengdu to Form a Complete Urban Cultural System

Based on the current development of its urban culture, Chengdu should reflect this cultural context in the comprehensive urban construction and in its citizens’ words and deeds to naturally reveal its profound cultural deposits and charming historical heritage. In terms of urban development planning,the essence of Chengdu’s urban culture should be appropriately echoed by or reflected in the urban cultural construction to shape a distinctive cultural identity for its overall environment and improve the ethos of its urban culture with added value. Chengdu should increase public cultural facilities, optimize its urban landscape design, and enhance the soft environment of cultural development according to its city positioning to build an urban culture recognition system. These measures can help create cultural symbols unique to the city of Chengdu, highlight the values and characteristics of Tianfu culture, and form a well-structured and differentiated atlas of the urban culture of Chengdu in people’s minds.

Improving the Ecological Construction of Cultural and Creative Industries to Create Cultural Unicorns of International Influence

Cultural and creative industries are highly interrelated with other industries, which means it is necessary to further develop related supporting industries and service systems in areas such as intellectual property protection, financial services, cultural and creative research and development,convention and exhibition, and economic agency. These supporting industries can harmoniously co-exist and cooperate with cultural and creative industries and, more importantly, help improve the ecosystem. Chengdu should grasp the trend of combining modern technology with cultural and creative industries in order to explore its cultural and creative industries’ possible linkage with the digital economy, “IP economy” (culture-themed economy), traffic-driven economy, and consumer economy, to promote the transformation and upgrading of cultural and creative industries for highquality development, to give full play to the Internet technology and other high-tech means as advanced productive forces, and to create cultural unicorns of international influence. Meanwhile,more efforts should be made to introduce and build leading cultural and creative businesses and platforms, guide the extension of the depth and breadth of the industries, further attract investments,improve the system of policy guarantee, introduce more Fortune Global 500 companies, unicorns,well-known brands, and technology pioneers in an orderly way and step by step, gather international elements in the cultural and creative industries, and form an international effect in the cultural and creative community.

Facilitating High-quality Development of Cultural Tourism to Build Global Brands of Cultural Festivals and Events in Chengdu

Adhering to the concept of “culture first,” Chengdu should further combine tourism and culture organically and plan and design for the key areas of its urban tourism in a unified way to highlight the local characteristics of Tianfu culture. The city should also develop characteristic tourism products targeting overseas markets, seek cooperation between local cultural tourism and overseas regional cultural tourism for joint development, increase exchanges of cultural tourism dynamics with counterparts abroad, and take the local cultural tourism global. From a broader perspective, Chengdu should take the initiative to incorporate its urban cultural development into the national strategy of Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone construction, prioritize the inheritance and promotion of local culture and history, and continue to improve and upgrade its cultural tourism economy. Based on its local culture, Chengdu should draw on the successful experience of worldrenowned cultural events and art festivals to plan and create large-scale events which feature distinctive Tianfu culture and Ba-Shu culture (Sichuan-Chongqing culture) and enjoy international popularity.

Accelerating the Training of Versatile Cultural Talents to Boost the Cultural Development of Chengdu as a Global City

Chengdu should closely follow the development trend of cultural tourism and build a talent chain for the whole industry to secure scarce talents in the international competition for cultural influence among cities. Particular efforts should be made to train and introduce the following types of talents: (a) leaders with innovative and pioneering spirits who are capable of managing giant multinational cultural corporations; (b) talents experienced in cultural and creative idea generation, event planning, and artistic creation; (c) managers with strategic thinking and a profound understanding of international marketing and capital operation; (d) cultural agents who are familiar with international rules and good at media marketing; (e) professionals specializing in finance, asset valuation, certification, insurance, inspection, and intermediary services. Also, Chengdu should further strengthen the building of a cultural and creative talent training system, formulate policies to encourage the integration of college resources, and improve courses and programs in modern design,art and fashion, and animation in order to create a talent pool for building a world-renowned city of culture and creativity.

Conclusion

In a time of intense competition among global cities, the development opportunities for a city no longer stay at the material level, and the cultural image and international influence of a city are also of great importance to its going global. The increase of Chengdu’s international influence primarily relies on its cultural development, and the successful shaping and promotion of Chengdu’s cultural image in the international arena is key to the improvement of its international competitiveness. Regarding future urban development, Chengdu needs to accelerate the building of its urban culture in all respects,improve the quality of the urban culture, and transform itself into a major subject of international cultural competition, as well as a center for cultural production, cultural exchange, and cultural consumption. There is a real need to increase the international presence of Chengdu’s urban culture,and also raise its international profile and competitiveness as a global city.