On April 19, the 12th China (weifang) culture and art exhibition fair opened in weifang, shandong province. Hui xin 'an, theSecretary of Weifang municipal committee, said inhis opening speech that culture is the soul and business card of a city, and also an important force for urban construction and development. This year is the beginning of the integrated development of culture and tourism in weifang. What the problemsarewe face during the integration of culture and tourism? How many resources are available? What are the priorities in future development?
In the view of Chu Baojie, head of publicity department and member of the standing committee of weifang municipal committee of CPC, the problems existing in the integration of culture and tourismmainly focus on the below four aspects. Firstly, there have not formed joint efforts to develop cultural tourism due to some local party committees and governments do not pay enough attention to the related work. Secondly, the cultural tourism model which still focus on the sightseeingis not reasonable, we are lacking ofthe new tourism produces which concern about the leisurevacation, cultural experience, and fitness regimen. Thirdly, the innovation is not sufficient in cultural tourism industry. Most scenic spots are short of cultural connotation and creative ideas, especially lack of therelated performances with excellent traditional cultural characteristics of Weifang. Fourthly, the whole quality is low because there are very few enough big, good or high-endprojects. The overall capability is too weak to compete and make any influence in external of city .
“Cultural creative industry and tourism industry are top ten Shandong development drive forces which need be transferred from the old to the new. The cultural tourism industry has been designated as one of the Weifang cultivate top ten industry. The fasten development of cultural and tourism integration is the mainly solution to accelerate the driving force transformation from the old to the new in cultural field.” said Tian suying.
new integration paths are exploring to match local realities
Chu baojie said that the current integration of culture and tourism, Weifang Qingzhou, Linqu and other counties have made some bright spots, however, presently, many excellent cultural resources in weifang are still under the development, which is far from project transformation, capital transformation and product transformation.
"At present, the most important thing is to known well what the resource, cultural industry and tourism industry are in each county area, then make adeep research about the integrated development of cultural tourism which focus on the history and culture, to change the 'natural resources' into' cultural goods. Chu baojie believes that cultural elements should be closely combined with ecological resources which follows the idea of"culture is the soul, tourism is the body, and commerce is the power" to build a tourism industry with deep integration of culture and ecology, to promote the transformation of resources into industry. In order to accumulate experience for the integrated development of culture and tourism, some related demonstration activities should be carried out, as well a number of demonstration areas, typical projects and major activities should beselected and demonstrated soon.
