The 11th Party Congress of Yunnan Province proposed to focus on creating "three name cards", and the 5th Party Congress of Baoshan City also proposed to "working hard to become an international cultural tourism resort". To implement the spirits of the Party Congresses of Yunnan Province and Baoshan City as well as the requirements made by Secretary Wang Ning during his visit to Tengchong, Tengchong will be problem-oriented, based on world-class tourism resources, bring a distinctive experience to the world by virtue of its unique culture and natural landscape, promote the transformation and upgrading of Tengchong's tourism industry and high-quality development, and make every effort to build a World-famous cultural tourism city.
Clearly Understand the Deficiency of Tengchong in Building a World-famous Cultural Tourism City
Tengchong is famous for its culture and tourism. For a long time, Tengchong's tourism has mainly focused on the Rehai Volcanic Geothermal Region and the layout of Heshun Ancient Town. However, with the rapid development of Tengchong's tourism, Tengchong's traditional core tourism resources have highlighted many shortcomings.
(I) The overall tourism competitiveness is not strong. Compared with other hot cities in the Province, Tengchong tourism is in a situation of being "low" both in the number of tourists received and the per capita consumption level. According to the data of 2019, Tengchong received 19.588 million tourists, 1.034 million less than that of Dali (20.622 million) and 15.562 million less than that of Old Town of Lijiang (35.15 million). The per capita consumption of tourists to Tengchong is RMB 1,234, which is RMB 712 less than that of Dali (RMB 1,946) and RMB 865 less than that of Old Town of Lijiang (RMB 2,099), which means a quite distinct gap.
(II) The tourism hardware facilities are "not hard". Restricted by factors such as lagging economic development and insufficient investment, etc., the tourist reception facilities are weak, and there are no large-scale international convention & exhibition centers or high-quality tourist reception centers. The development of scenic spots is lagging behind, lacking in planning and management. The scenic spots are mainly aboriginal natural scenery, religious sites and ancient village architecture, with low-grade products, thus belonging to primary sightseeing-type tourism products. There are few products of new business forms, such as boutique scenic spots, boutique hotels and high-end homestays, etc. Moreover, the integration of culture and tourism develops slowly: transportation, communication, electric power and other infrastructure are relatively lagging behind the demand of tourism development. At present, there are only two modes of internal and external transportation, namely road and air. Generally speaking, the modes of transportation are still in a development hierarchy of low level, small transportation capacity and high cost.
(III) The software engineering of tourism development is not good. There is a lack of tourism management talents in such fields as high-star hotel management, high A-level tourism scenic spot management, cultural tourism publicity & marketing, etc., tourism practitioners such as bilingual tour guides, etc. and cultural talents such as Tengyue cultural inheritors, etc., as well as rural tourism talents who know well about the countryside and are good at management and operation, etc.
(IV) The tourism brand image recognition is not high. The image publicity of the City is ambiguous, from "World Tengchong · World Heshun", "China Tengchong · World Heshun", to "Eden at the Foot of Gaoligong Mountains" and so on, and there is no unified publicity slogan, brand image or symbolic publicity LOGO. The elements such as the Rehai Volcanic Geothermal Region, Heshun Ancient Town and the Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan, etc. have not been built into brands that can attract tourists in a high-frequency, high-quality and high-quantity manner.
(V) The position in the border tourism market is not prominent. The position in the tourism cooperation circle taking Northern & Western Myanmar, Eastern & Northeastern India and Yunnan Province as the core is not prominent, and the characteristics of Tengchong are not further highlighted in international tourism platforms.
Accurately Exploit the Advantages of Tengchong in Building a World-famous Cultural Tourism City
Tengchong has world-class tourism resources, and it is a scenic area as a whole, thus enjoying advantageous conditions for tourism development. To build a World-famous cultural tourism city, it is necessary to fully understand and find out the actual situation, and then turn world-class resource superiority into development advantages.
(I) Tengchong enjoys world-class climate resources. Belonging to a subtropical monsoon climate, Tengchong is a "big natural oxygen bar", with a good air quality rate of 97% throughout the year. It has the largest Ericaceae plant - "King of Rhododendron Protistum", the largest artificial taiwania flousiana forest - "Tiantai Mountain Taiwania Flousiana Forest" in the world, the millennium king of taiwania flousiana known as a "living fossil", the "Southern Yangtze in border areas" known as "Tengyue Granary", Jietou Town - the "garden basin" surrounded by Gaoligong Mountains, Gingko Village in Jiangdong County - the largest ancient gingko village in China, Hemu Village in Mazhan County - No.1 camellia semiserrata village in China, and Yunfeng Mountain - the famous Taoist mountain in Western Yunnan with the only chionanthus retusus tree in Yunnan. Furthermore, it also has 86 villages included in the "Chinese Traditional Village List".
(II) Tengchong enjoys world-class geological wonders. Located on the edge of two continental plates of Eurasia, Tengchong has formed unique geological wonders due to the collision of the two continental plates. Gaoligong Mountains has abundant sunshine and precipitation, suitable for the growth of all kinds of animals and plants. Consequently, northern & southern flora and fauna exchange and gather together, and the biological resources are very rich. It is known as the "World Species Gene Pool" and a "Shelter for Animals and Plants" and has been awarded as a "World Biosphere Reserve" by UNESCO. There is a cenozoic volcanic cluster in Tengchong, with volcanic rock flows covering an area of about 1,000 square kilometers and volcanic lava exposed in an area of 490 square kilometers. There are 99 volcanoes with obvious massifs, which has once been recommended by Mr. Wang Yi - the Minister of Foreign Affairs - as the "magnificent geothermal volcanic cluster in Tengchong". There are 88 hot springs in Tengchong, which means one in 100 square kilometers on average. Hot springs in Tengchong are rich in a variety of trace elements beneficial to human body, with such 8 hot spring types as sulfur spring, hydrogen sulfide spring, silicate spring and hydrogen spring, etc. among the 12 types of medical mineral springs in China. The magic combination of hot springs and colorful natural landscapes forms unique natural wonders.
(III) Tengchong enjoys a world-class cultural heritage. Relying on the "Shu-Hindu Road", cultural heritages such as the Nanzhao Ancient City Site, the Eight Strategic Passes & Nine Mountain Passes, and the Eighteen Locks, etc. have been formed. Tengchong has become the trade center of Western Yunnan, one of the earliest regions in China to open up to the outside world and an important jade processing trade distribution center in Southeast Asia. Jade processing in Tengchong has a history of more than 600 years. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "jade is originated from Tengyue". "Amber Memorial Archway & Jade Bridge" and "Treasure Street" have witnessed the trade prosperity of jade processing in Tengchong. In the continuous jade processing trade for hundreds of years, Tengchong has established a good reputation that "Tengchong has no fake jade", and has been awarded the titles of "No.1 Jade City in China", "Amber City of China" and "Capital of Amber" successively.
(V) Tengchong enjoys a world-class geographical superiority. Tengchong has been an important transportation hub in Southwest China since ancient times, an important gateway to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and also an important node connecting the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor. Firstly, it has the world-famous Stilwell Road; secondly, it has the world-famous population geography boundary; thirdly it has a booming opening-up platform. At present, relying on Baoshan's platform of "One Route & Two Parks", Tengchong has given full play to the advantages of China's most convenient land route to South Asia and Southeast Asia, promoted the construction of international big pathways and air ports at full speed, fully promoted the construction of the Houqiao-Kambaiti Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone and the Myitkyina Economic Development Zone, accelerated the interconnection and economic exchanges with Myanmar, and achieved remarkable results in foreign exchanges and cooperation.
(V) Tengchong enjoys a world-class cultural influence. Tengchong people have a relatively early history of "going out". They went out of Tengchong more than 2,000 years ago to do business in Myanmar and India. Overseas Chinese from Tengchong created the brilliance of Yunnan-Myanmar business in Myanmar. They traded in Myanmar, India and other parts of China, and Tengyue Business Group was well-known at home and abroad. Tengchong now has nearly 350,000 overseas Chinese, Chinese and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, distributed in 24 countries and regions including Myanmar and Thailand, etc., of which more than 80% are in Myanmar and Thailand. The biggest difference between Tengchong and other border counties in China is that the Han culture is always in the dominant position. For a long time, the Han culture, the minority cultures in border areas and foreign cultures have merged with each other here, forming a regional culture taking harmony and peace as its core connotations, and openness and inclusiveness as its basic characteristics.
(VI) Tengchong enjoys world-class anti-Japanese cultural resources. Tengchong people are descendants of the border guards. For thousands of years. Having inherited the spirit of safeguarding homeland, they love China, defend the border, yearn for peace, writing a soul-stirring history of the Three Expeditions to Luchuan, the Margary Incident, Zuo Xiaochen's Fight against Britain, the First Uprising in Tengyue to support the Revolution of 1911, and the Scorched Earth War, etc. Especially during the Anti-Japanese War, Tengchong has become a hero city that attracts worldwide attention, leaving its own mark in the China-Myanmar-India war zone, which has a profound impact on the world war situation and is the main battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan. Up to now, there are still many relics and sites coming from the Anti-Japanese War, including the national anti-Japanese War memorial facilities - the Tengchong Memorial Cemetery and the Memorial for Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan, the China-India Highway, the Hump and the Flying Tigers, etc. Zhang Wenguang, the first leader of the Revolution of 1911 in Yunnan, Li Genyuan, the senior statesman of the Republic of China, Zhang Wende, the anti-Japanese county magistrate, Ai Siqi, the Marxist philosopher, Yang Qingtian, the propagator of the revolutionary kindling in border areas, and other famous people emerged.
(VII) Tengchong enjoys world-class resources with national characteristics. There are 25 ethnic groups living in Tengchong, among which Lisu, Dai, Hui, Bai, Wa and Achang are ethnic minorities, with a population of 59,715, accounting for 8.66% of the total population. In recent years, by insisting on taking the awareness of "firmly building the Chinese national community" as the main clue, Tengchong has solidly implemented the essential directive spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping during his visit to the Wa village in Simola, and successfully established a national demonstration city of national unity and progress; continued to enhance the protection and inheritance of national cultural heritage. There are 12 intangible cultural heritage conservation programs for ethnic minorities in the City, notably, the martial arts competition, the Lisu's Knifeladder-Climbing Festival and other excellent performances have formed their own characteristics and advantages throughout the country.
(VIII) Tengchong enjoys world-class Chinese medicine cultural resources. The warm and humid monsoon from the Indian Ocean, the warm sunshine from the Tropic of Cancer, the even rainfall from the Bay of Bengal and the volcanic ash soil over ten thousand years have created the reputation of Tengchong as the "Hometown of Yunan Medicines". People often describe the abundance of Chinese herbal medicine resources in Tengchong by saying that "people sit onto three herbs when taking a seat". According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 430 species of wild Chinese herbal medicines in Tengchong, with more than 40 rare species. Tengchong medicines are known as one of the "Three Treasures of Tengchong".
(IX) Tengchong is a world-class model of harmony between man and nature. Firm the development goal of "a healthy living destination in the world", implement the beautiful Tengchong construction of "five beauties and one best", and realize "water flows in the city, the city is built in the forest, and the road is in the green". Tengchong has developed the big health industry of "health food, health medicine, health sports and health tourism", insisted on the development path of "turning the City into a park, industry parks into a scenic area, factories (villages) to a scenic spot and products into a present", and constructed ecological research bases such as Beihai wetland, Ancient Gingko Village and National Volcano-geothermal Geopark, etc.; built ecological protection demonstration sites such as Gaoligong Mountains National Nature Reserve and Laifengshan National Forest Park, etc.; built eco-industry demonstration sites such as Heshun and Jietou, etc.; built ecological demonstration bases such as national civilized city, national sanitary city and national garden city; built ecological governance demonstration sites such as "Ten-mile Lotus", "Ten-mile Sakura" and "Ten-mile Peach Blossom", etc.; successfully established the national practice & innovation base of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets".
Fully Explore the Path for Tengchong to Build a World-famous Cultural Tourism City
Look into the future, culture will be the foundation of Tengchong whilst tourism is the lifeline. From a new starting point, to achieve great progress and development, Tengchong's tourism industry shall closely focus on the new development stage, implement the new development concept, integrate into the new development pattern, comprehensively reshape Tengchong's tourism at a high level and with great efforts, promote the transformation from sightseeing type to health wellness and from ancient town & volcanic geothermal tourism to all-for-one tourism, break the ice in all aspects and make a gorgeous turn, and guarantee to enter the first echelon in the Province during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
(I) Make every effort to build a world-class cultural experience destination. Tengchong will adhere to a thought of "promoting tourism with culture and manifesting tourism with culture", dig deeply into the times connotations of ecological culture, geological culture, silk road culture, jade culture, anti-Japanese war culture, overseas Chinese culture and so on, and make every effort to apply for a national historical and cultural city; strengthen the protection and restoration of the Memorial for Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan (Memorial Cemetery), consolidate the Stilwell Road and other anti-Japanese cultural resources in Western Yunnan, and build an anti-Japanese cultural experience zone in Western Yunnan; promote the integration of "intangible cultural heritage + tourism" and "performing arts + tourism", launch a number of featured villages, tourist towns and scenic spots with themes including shadow play, Tengchong rattan plaiting, earthenware and oil-paper umbrellas, etc., and create a number of tourism performing arts brands exemplified by "Dream Tengchong" and "Torch of Faith"; build a number of cultural tourism projects focusing on the Tengyue Ancient City Cultural Exhibition Area, the Overseas Chinese Museum and the Nanzhao Site, etc., and plan a number of film and television shooting bases represented by Heshun Ancient Town and Qushi Heiyu River; scientifically plan and build hiking routes for scientific investigations and studies such as volcano geoparks, Gaoligong Mountains, etc., guarantee to build Heshun Ancient Town successfully into a 5A tourist attraction, try to build Jiangdong Ginkgo Village, Tea Expo Park of Gaoligong Mountains and Simora Wa Village in Zhongzhai, Qingshui successfully into 4A tourist attractions, and guarantee to realize the goal of building two 5A, ten 4A and one hundred A-level scenic spots; speed up the implementation of Jietou smart flowery marathon tracks, thousand-mile fitness trails and thousand-mile cycling tracks, build an international sports school, more than 10 health sports training bases, introduce more than 100 health sports clubs, continue to hold brand events such as Tengchong Marathon, Gaoligong Super Trail Race, Grandfondo International Cycling Race and National Ice Hockey Championship, etc.; take dragon boat races and fishing games as media to accelerate rural tourism; guarantee that the total tourism revenue will reach more than RMB 60 billion by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
(II) Make every effort to build a world-class pastoral complex. With the goal of "increasing the color of the countryside, increasing farmers' income and increasing the beauty of the countryside", through planning & design, cultural endowment, landscape upgrading and other means, Tengchong will build a number of pastoral complexes that meet the tourism and leisure demands with high standards, such as "Simora" and "Grand Heshun". According to the requirements of such four elements as "positioning, pattern, style and path", relying on unique landscape resources such as forests, terraces, rivers, flowers, ancient tea forests and cliffs, etc., Tengchong will plan and build a number of high-quality and high-end hotels halfway up mountains; summarize and generalize the experience and practices of the "Palian Art Village" and the "Flower Love" Project in Laozhai, Qingshui, and strive to turn all 86 traditional villages into A-level scenic spots during the 14th Five-Year Plan period by means of feature upgrading, highlighted characteristics and appropriate support, which will become the new highlights of Tengchong tourism.
(III) Make every effort to build a world-class SPA heath wellness resorts. According to the thought of "scientific planning, orderly development, rational utilization and comprehensive promotion", Tengchong will learn from the concepts of world-class hot spring resort and heath wellness destinations such as Noboribetsu Hot Spring in Japan and Evian Hot Spring in France, etc., intensify investment attraction, introduce famous hot spring management enterprises at home and abroad, actively explore the diversified development of "Hot Spring Plus" from the aspects of mechanism innovation, element innovation, business form innovation, product innovation, management innovation and service innovation, etc., launch a number of high-quality, diversified and differentiated hot spring products, vigorously promote the construction of the Tengchong Dam Hot Spring Health Wellness Belt and the Binglang River Characteristic Border Style Hot Spring Health Wellness Belt, accelerate the construction of a number of hot spring health wellness projects, and build Tengchong into a world-class hot spring health wellness resort.
(4) Make every effort to build a high-quality tourism service platform. Tengchong will continuously improve its infrastructure level, accelerate the construction of border-connection expressways and airport runway extension lines, etc., strive for the early start of the Mangshi-Tengchong-Houqiao Railway to build a regional transportation hub; accelerate the introduction of 3A hospitals and promote the combination of "health wellness + medical care"; plan to build a tourism exhibition center and actively participate in various international exchanges and cooperation; solidly promote the construction of smart tourism platforms, comprehensively enhance the functions of the Tengchong section of "travelling in Yunnan with a mobile phone", so that visitors to Tengchong can enjoy "making a clean sweep" of "gourmet, accommodation, traveling, shopping and entertainment" through "one platform"; make distinctive and highly recognizable advertising slogans, logos and city videos, etc. of Tengchong, constantly launch Tengchong's tourism brands; strengthen cooperation with well-known media, use "Internet" thinking to attract "traffic" to the maximum extent; take the initiative to dock with tourist boutique routes and scenic spots in Dali, Dehong, Nujiang and other places, form the "8" shaped loop line with Tengchong as the tangent point of two circles, realize the pattern of Tengchong-Ruili tropical style tours and Tengchong-Lushui mountain canyon tours, promote Tengchong's tourism to radiate to the surrounding areas and expand to the whole province, the whole country and the whole world.
In the next step, Tengchong will closely focus on the target position of "building a World-famous cultural tourism city", adhere to the original aspiration of "promoting tourism with culture and manifesting tourism with culture", make great efforts to improve the quality of all-for-one tourism towns, scenic spots and resorts, become a genuine destination & distribution center, play a diversion role in the tourism circle of Western Yunnan, enhance Tengchong's tourism quality, guarantee the sound development of the tourism industry, and promote Tengchong's cultural tourism from "high-speed growth" to "high-quality development". (Cheng Dejun, Secretary of Municipal Party Committee of Tengchong)
Source: Tengchong Culture & Tourism
