By ZHA JIANGUO

and TONG WEI

On Aug. 10, a symposium on the integrated development of culture and tourism was held at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai.

Wu Ruijun, dean of the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences at ECNU, said that the important development trend of the tourism industry lies in promoting the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industrial structure and pushing ahead with the integrated development of culture and tourism at a deeper level. The integration of the two industries will combine traditional Chinese culture with history and tourism, in a bid to enable tourists to get a better understanding of the local culture. Therefore, scholars should focus on issues of consumer demand and clarify the theoretical foundation of the integrated development of culture and tourism. Scholars and experts should provide solutions to specific issues and suggestions to policy-makers through investigations, research, analyses and conclusions. From the perspective of national governance and industrial development, scholars should combine contents with entities, so as to stimulate the integrated development of culture and tourism.

Rong Yueming, director of the Institute of Literature at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that, as the tourism industry has trended toward imbalanced development, researchers need to analyze and clarify the characteristics of its market structure and entities, along with any differences in terms of regions, degree of development and tourists’ demands. We can further advance the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry and the innovation and passing down of culture through constantly promoting theoretical studies, strengthening statistical support for industrial development, and introducing effective measures for the transformation and upgrading of the whole tourism industrial chain.

Qian Zhi, director of the Reform Research Department at the Development and Research Center under the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, said that, in order to achieve the combining of culture and tourism at a deeper level and accomplish high-quality research, we need to better understand such key words as systems, platforms, entities, achievements and theories. Through investigations and studies, we can discover issues, causes and demands. On this basis, we can properly introduce social capital, improve supporting facilities, establish platforms convenient for market entities step by step, and enhance cultural attraction, so as to promote the integrated development of culture and tourism at a deeper and higher level.

Zeng Yuan, deputy director of the Shanghai Management Office of Cultural Affairs, Reform and Development at the Publicity Department under the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, said that, in the macro sense, market entities in the course of the combining of culture and tourism include governments, consumers and others, extending into such areas as finance, law, funding and consumption. In order to provide support for Chinese culture to go global, we need to speculate on how to coordinate the interests of different parties, fully leverage cultural and tourism resources, innovate with development models and create tourism brands with regional characteristics.

Dai Bin, president of China Tourism Academy, said that, to achieve the integration of culture and tourism through market entities, we need to figure out the relation between culture and tourism in a new age, and we need to concentrate on the realistic restrictions facing market entities. He suggested that, in the course of research, we should not only conduct theoretical studies, but we should also practice in culture and tourism markets to produce valuable and profound investigation reports. We should also make efforts to strengthen field research and data collection, select excellent cases at home and abroad for conducting in-depth studies, and hold talks with different market entities, in a bid to promote theoretical foundations and innovative practices in terms of market entities. Moreover, we should take into consideration talent cultivation and discipline construction in research and guide more young scholars to participate in investigations and studies to contribute to the development of the culture and tourism industry.