With people's increasing attention to healthy lifestyles, the integration of traditional medicine and health tourism has become a major development trend of the big health industry. In recent years, exchanges and cooperation between China and ASEAN countries in the development of traditional medicine and the cultivation of new forms of health tourism have been continuously strengthened, and a new pattern of high-quality development of cultural tourism has been jointly opened.
Major hospitals in Guangxi have launched medicinal diets and teas with the same origin as medicine and food to promote the development of health tourism. Photo by Guo Kaiqian.
Health tourism is developing rapidly
With the deepening of people's health concept, the concept of traditional Chinese medicine to prevent diseases before they occur and prevent changes from existing diseases is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. According to statistics, on Xiaohongshu, there are 26 daily topics of health preservation700 million high readers, of which 1.6 billion are read by Chinese medicine health, Chinese medicine**, Chinese medicine conditioning, Chinese medicine tea, etc. are all popular search terms, and most of the sharers of these related content are young people.
At present, the demand for tourism consumption is changing from tourism to leisure and vacation, and driven by the continuous enhancement of people's health concept, health and cultural tourism forms such as 'pension + cultural tourism', 'medical + cultural tourism' and 'sports + cultural tourism' are emerging. Fan Zhou, chief expert of the National Culture and Tourism Research Base and president of the Beijing Jinghe Cultural Tourism Development Research Institute, said that this has created a favorable time and place for the organic integration of traditional medicine and health tourism.
Not only in China, but also in ASEAN countries, there is a deep understanding of the integrated development trend of traditional medicine and health tourism. Myanmar's Deputy Minister of Health Ayton believes that health tourism is becoming more and more popular around the world, and countries are paying more and more attention to the development of health tourism and investing in this field, which not only provides high-quality medical resources for patients and tourists abroad, but also stimulates regional and national economic growth.
Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism of Laos, Enthong Khao Phan said that health tourism is a fast-growing industry, and some ASEAN member states and China have great potential in this regard, and the Lao health department is actively strengthening cooperation with China in the medical field. It is understood that SPA is a popular experience project in Southeast Asian tourism, and the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism is cooperating with the Lao Ministry of Health to actively implement spa service standards.
Continue to explore "traditional medicine + health tourism".
Integrated development
After the new crown epidemic, the strong health demand of the whole people has brought broad prospects for the development of the big health industry. China and ASEAN countries continue to explore the integrated development of "traditional medicine + health tourism", showing a two-wheel drive pattern of market and policy.
In China, the development of health tourism has been quite effective. Qichun County, Hubei Province, China's "Ai Capital", has created a number of health tourism routes and a 3-hour healthy walk ecological health circle in the urban area, etc., and has initially formed a tourism reception system led by resort hotels and homestays, with tourist restaurants and boutique supermarkets as the main body, and farmhouses and moxibustion experience halls as supplements, and at the same time, more than 30,000 people in poor counties have been lifted out of poverty through planting, processing wormwood and moxibustion training.
Ruikang Hospital Affiliated to Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the first batch of traditional Chinese medicine health tourism demonstration bases in Guangxi and one of the top ten traditional Chinese medicine health tourism brands in Nanning. The hospital focuses on the integration of Zhuang Yao medicine and health and cultural tourism, and summarizes 73 Zhuang Yao medicine techniques, Zhuang medicine line moxibustion, Zhuang medicine bamboo can** are favored by the majority of patients and tourists. In addition, the hospital has also developed health exercises such as hydrangea exercises and three-qi health exercises, as well as more than 20 kinds of medicinal diets and teas to promote the development of health culture tourism.
Deepen the ASEAN-China cooperation mechanism on health tourism
China and ASEAN are separated by a strip of water, and both have profound cultural accumulation and a complete inheritance system in traditional medicine, which has obvious advantages in strengthening cooperation between the two sides in health tourism and promoting the joint construction of the "Belt and Road".
Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history. China has signed special cooperation agreements on traditional Chinese medicine with nearly 50 foreign countries, regional authorities and international organizations, established and supported the construction of China-ASEAN traditional medicine exchange and cooperation centers, cooperated with Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand to build overseas centers of traditional Chinese medicine, and built exchange platforms such as the China-ASEAN Traditional Medicine Forum and the China-ASEAN International Forum on Traditional Medicine and Health Tourism. Cooperation in traditional medicine has become an important part of the ASEAN-China community with a shared future.
Focusing on the development of traditional medicine and health tourism, China and ASEAN countries continue to deepen their willingness and consensus on cooperation. "China and ASEAN countries are rich in traditional medicine resources, not only have differentiated and diversified advantages, but also share similar health concepts, there is huge commonality and potential for cooperation, providing a broad space for cooperation between China and ASEAN countries in the tourism industry. Xu Rong, the second-level inspector of the Bureau of International Exchange and Cooperation of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, believes that the China-ASEAN health tourism cooperation mechanism should be deepened, and the exchanges and cooperation between the first country, institutions, universities, parks and professionals should be promoted, innovative ideas, upgraded services, expand the breadth and depth of discussions, explore talent training and project implementation, and promote the implementation of a number of high-quality health tourism cooperation projects for the benefit of the people of China and ASEAN countries.
China Culture Daily, December 22, 2023
A special report was published in the second edition.
China and ASEAN countries "hand in hand" in traditional medicine and health tourism
Editor-in-charge: Chen Chen.