Focus on the needs of tourists and cultivate and expand green tourism consumption

Mondo Tourism Updated on 2024-02-01

**The Economic Work Conference proposed to promote consumption from post-epidemic recovery to continuous expansion, cultivate and expand new consumption, vigorously develop digital consumption, green consumption, and healthy consumption, and actively cultivate new consumption growth points such as smart homes, cultural and entertainment tourism, sports events, and domestic "trendy products". This points out the direction for further unleashing the consumption potential of green tourism and promoting the green development of the tourism industry.

In recent years, China has cultivated and created a relatively rich green tourism product system, and strives to meet people's diversified green tourism consumption needs. **Departments, associations, and enterprises have integrated green concepts into the whole chain in key areas of tourism consumption to promote industrial transformation and upgrading. For example, the implementation of the tourism industry green certification system, the introduction of the "National Green Tourism Demonstration Base Standards" and other related standards, the establishment of green hotels, green scenic spots and other standard systems.

In the next step, to cultivate and expand green tourism consumption, we should aim at the trend of consumption personalization, diversification and structural upgrading, focus on the needs of most tourists, and start from the link that makes the masses have the most sense of gain.

From the perspective of core demands, the demand for green tourism consumption focuses on the two stages of pre-trip and in-line. Tourists need green tourism information services before traveling, and they not only need green tourism information services, but also green and low-carbon transportation services, reception services and convenient services for the people.

Before traveling, tourists can obtain green tourism information services mainly through tourism public service agencies, tourism service providers and social networks. For example, the official enterprises operated by tourist cities, rural tourist spots, scenic spots, hotels and B&Bs, etc., and the green activities they carry out to benefit the people. In the process of tourism, tourists can improve the greenness of tourism consumption by choosing greener tourism reception facilities and travel methods. For example, spending at tourism reception facilities such as green tourist hotels, homestays, and shopping malls, as well as choosing more environmentally friendly means of transportation during long-distance travel.

Green tourism consumption is based on the premise of protecting the environment and maintaining ecological balance, and it is a tourism activity that allows people to get close to natural landscapes and obtain physical and mental pleasure. The yearning for the coordinated development of man and nature is the intrinsic appeal and main driving force for people to choose green tourism consumption. Enriching product categories and improving consumer experience is the key to solving the pain points of green tourism consumption and unleashing the potential of green tourism consumption.

It is necessary to focus on the introduction of policy planning, strengthening the construction of key areas, and optimizing financial and financial safeguard measures to consolidate the foundation for the green development of the tourism industry and release the potential of green tourism consumption.

First of all, it is necessary to highlight planning and guidance, including local exploration, ministry-local co-construction, and ministry-to-commission promotion.

Secondly, it is necessary to focus on key areas such as green tourist attractions (spots), accommodation, and transportation, and give full play to the leading effect of demonstration creation, the forcing role of ecological pre-examination, and the docking role of public services, so as to promote the green development of tourism.

Thirdly, it is necessary to make good use of financial and fiscal tools to enhance the sense of gain of green tourism participants.

Finally, multi-channel and widely publicize policies and regulations related to green tourism consumption.

At present, local practice is based on resource conditions and focuses on improving people's livelihood. Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, has seized the key area of transportation, integrated green tourism resources with smart tourism greenways, improved the accessibility of the latter, facilitated people's green travel, and cultivated green tourism consumption demand. In 2016, the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Party Committee established a public welfare post mechanism for ecological management and protection, which not only promoted ecological protection, but also drove nearly 180,000 poor people in the province to get rid of poverty, and enhanced people's sense of gain with the development of green tourism.

It is worth noting that in the process of exploring the establishment of a childbirth-friendly society in China to cope with the challenges of declining birthrate, aging, and regional population increase and decrease, high-quality ecological space has effectively promoted the mutual development of local practices such as child-friendly, women-friendly, and community-based elderly care and industrial practices such as parent-child tourism, research and study tours, and elderly sojourn and health tourism.

In this regard, all localities can explore the connection between green tourism and child-friendly cities, women-friendly cities, home-based community pensions, green communities, and the construction of harmonious villages, and promote the integration of green tourism with culture, education, sports, agriculture, forestry and grassland, health, traditional Chinese medicine and other fields.

Enterprises can further enrich the green tourism consumption scenarios and improve the green tourism consumption experience of tourists through the green transformation of internal operations and the whole value chain.

On the one hand, it is necessary to take the application of new energy technology and green management measures as the starting point to improve the green level in internal operations. For example, the widespread application of new energy technologies will help shape the current and future green tourism consumption scenarios. On the other hand, it is necessary to promote the transformation of the whole value chain from multiple levels, such as green management of the first chain, green cooperation of ecological partners, green innovation of products and other levels, so as to provide support for the expansion of green tourism consumption.

From the perspective of industry practice, ** travel platforms tend to carry out green product certification, such as the "sustainable travel" label on the Ctrip platform covering more than 100,000 green travel products. Taking the Slender West Lake Carbon Neutral Ecological Scenic Spot in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province as an example, the scenic spot receives about 1.16 million tourists annually, adopts new energy technology and carries out carbon monitoring, with a total carbon dioxide emission of more than 3,500 tons, and the new carbon storage of vegetation and lakes is equivalent to more than 950 tons of carbon aggregate. Carrying out green ** redemption points activities and advocating conservation and environmental protection are also areas of exploration for many scenic spots.

In the future, focusing on the innovation of green tourism consumption scenarios, tourism enterprises and institutions, scenic spots, and rural tourism spots should take the initiative to improve the level of industry-university-research cooperation with tourism colleges and scientific research institutions.

Tourism industry associations, tourism enterprises, platform enterprises, financial institutions and tourism-related enterprises in relevant links can explore the joint launch of green tourism consumption action plans, and cultivate green tourism consumption growth points in the form of green tourism research season, homestay season, food season, commodity season, etc. Through the issuance of green tourism consumption vouchers, points and other means, release the potential of green tourism consumption, and create a good trend of green tourism consumption. (Author: Xiong Na, Associate Researcher, China Tourism Academy) (*China Tourism News).

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