Study on Resort Life Cycle and Its Countermeasures in Lijiang

2017 International Conference on Information, Computer and Education Engineering (ICICEE 2017) ISBN: 978-1-60595-503-2

Study on Resort Life Cycle and Its

Countermeasures in Lijiang

Ling-juan Tai and Jun Du

ABSTRACT This paper divides the tourism life cycle of Lijiang into three stages by Butler's theory, and forecasts the amount of tourists in Lijiang in 2017-2020with Gompertz growth curve. The research shows that the contradiction between the increasing tourist quantity and the decline of the environmental carrying capacity will affect the sustainability of Lijiang's tourism development. In order to alleviate the environmental load of Lijiang tourism, this thesis advises developing ecological tourism in Jinshan to rich the tourism products, expand the tourism industry chain and promote the sustainable development of Lijiang. KEYWORDS Resort life cycle; Gompertz model; Lijiang; Jinshan rural tourism INTRODUCTION With the expansion of urbanization and the acceleration of the pace of life, people's desire to return to "honest life" is becoming more and more intense. The ancient town tourism resources have gradually become an important type of modern tourism development [1]. However, the ancient town tourism resources in China generally lack of theoretical guidance in early development planning and management. With a sharp increase in traffic, the environment, ecology and space of tourist destination are overburdened. At the same time, the tourism quality is limited by the space [2-3]. In view of the differences in tourism resources, ecological environmental capacity, connotation of tourism products and developing stage, the tourism resources of the ancient town cannot be planned and adjusted systematically. In order to realize the sustainable development of tourism to the town, a reasonable assessment of the tourism life cycle evolution process should be made.

______Ling-juan Tai, The School of Management and Economy, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China, [email protected] Jun Du, Kunming University, Kunming 650214, China

603 This paper takes Lijiang tourism as the object of study. Combining with the changing process of tourism environment carrying capacity and major events in Lijiang ancient town, this paper analyzes the evolutionary process of the life cycle of Lijiang by Butler’s Life Cycle theory, and puts forward regulation countermeasures on reducing the pressure of tourism environment and prolonging the life cycle of Lijaing scenic spots according to the characteristics of the ancient city and the spatial distribution characteristics of its suburban tourism resources. LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS OF TOURISM DESTINATION IN LIJIANG Natural geography survey of Lijiang Lijiang is located in northwest of Yunnan, the middle reaches of Jinsha River, the junction of Tibetan Plateau and Yunnan Guizhou Plateau. Its north is Diqing, south is Dali and Chuxiong, West is Nujiang, and east is Sichuan Province. It is a multi ethnic community dominated by Naxi people [4]. Lijiang has more than 20 developed scenic spots, Lugu Lake, Laojun Mountain, Dayan ancient town of Jade Dragon Snow Hill，Tiger Leaping Gorge and so on. Its core, Dayan ancient town, is the main agglomeration ground of sightseeing, shopping and food for tourists. Qualitative analysis Compared with other cities in China, the tourism industry in Lijiang started relatively late. After more than 30 years of development and construction, the scale of tourist market in Lijiang has been expanding (Table 1). At present, Lijiang has become a world-renowned tourist brand with three World Heritage sites. The annual variation curve of Lijiang tourists from 1993 to 2016 is obtained based on the statistical data in table 2(Figure 1). According to Butler Tourism Life Cycle theory and the relevant historical data, the development process of Lijiang tourism industry can be roughly divided into three stages, namely exploration stage (1985 ~ 1995), participation stage (1996 ~ 2008), development and consolidation stage (2009 to present). Table 1. Visitor Volume and Annual Growth Rate in Lijiang from 1993 to 2016. Year Number of Tourists （ Tourist Growth Rate （ Year Number of Tourists （ Tourist Growth Rate 10000 person-time） %） 10000 person-time）（%） 1993 31.58 - 2005 404.29 12.25 1994 47.00 48.83 2006 460.09 13.80 1995 70.00 48.94 2007 530.93 15.40 1996 106.30 51.86 2008 625.49 17.81 1997 135.00 27.00 2009 758.14 21.21 1998 153.00 13.33 2010 909.97 20.03 1999 215.00 40.52 2011 1184.05 30.12 2000 258.00 20.00 2012 1599.10 35.05 2001 322.10 24.84 2013 2079.58 30.05 2002 337.51 4.78 2014 2663.82 28.09 2003 301.48 -10.68 2015 3053.00 14.61 2004 360.18 19.47 2016 3519.91 15.29

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Figure 1. Annual Variation Curve of Tourist Population in Lijiang from 1993 to 2016. The exploration Stage. Before 1990, Lijiang had low popularity and tourism resources were not developed. Lijiang Hotel and Lijiang Guesthouse are the best tourist reception facilities in the area. Attracted by the mysterious Naxi culture and ancient relics of Lijiang, There have been traces of foreign explorers, but very little in quantity, most of them are open tourists with strong curiosity. These tourists are usually Backpackers interested in exploring the unknown world, experiencing nature and making friends. They don't have high requirements for accommodation. The participation Stage. In 1990s, under the guidance of the Yunnan provincial government's tourism development strategy in Northwest Yunnan, Lijiang began to invest in tourism and vigorously improve transportation facilities. Airport Road and the tourist road from Lijiang ancient city to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain were built. At the same time, the management level and service quality are continuously improved, and the total amount of tourists is increasing year by year. Especially after the "2.3" earthquake in Lijiang in 1996,The local government seized the historical opportunity of restoration and reconstruction, strengthened infrastructure construction, transformed the development environment of tourism industry, and promoted the healthy development of tourism pattern from the foreign affairs reception type to the general industrial type and then to the pillar industry. With the help of professional technical force, the government has made efforts to build Lijiang tourism brand and won many world heritage titles. In 1997, Lijiang ancient city has won the title of World Cultural Heritage. In July 2003, the "Three Parallel Rivers" reserve was listed in the World Natural Heritage list. In August of the same year, Dongba ancient books, as the carrier of Dongba culture, were listed in World Memory Heritage list by the UNESCO. In October 2004, Lijiang was put into the scope of China's great Shangri-La Ecological Tourism Zone. These important events have milestone significance in the development history of tourism industry in Lijiang, and accelerated the pace of integration between tourist areas and the international tourist market. Tourism growth was negative in 2000. This change is mainly due to interference from external factors (The influence of SARS epidemic).But the duration is short, the overall change is not large, and so it does not affect the overall growth trend of Lijiang tourist growth rate (Figure 1).

605 The development and consolidation stage. In July 2009, "bridgehead strategy" promoted the overall development of the southwest region once again. With the help of this trend, Lijiang began to promote the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry and create a famous cultural tourism city. According to the data in table 1, after 2010, the tourists in Lijiang exceeded 10 million passengers, and increased by about 10 million every three years. The inflated development scale aggravated the burden of tourism environment carrying capacity, which led to the decline of tourism service quality, made the tourist commodities intermingled and the market confusion. Although there has been no stagnation or negative growth in tourist volume, the contradiction between supply and demand of tourism has become increasingly prominent. Life cycle evolution model of tourism destination In order to further explore the change law of tourist destination life cycle of Lijjiang, this paper statistics the change of tourist amount between 1993-2016 in Lijiang by linear, exponential, logistic and Gompertz mathematical models, and establishes a model consistent with the characteristics of Lijiang tourism life cycle to forecast and analyze the amount of tourists in the future. Chose the time as the independent variable, and the annual passenger flow as the variable, the regression analysis is carried out by SPSS. The results are shown in table 2. Table 2. Regression results by different fitted models.

Model Regression Coefficient F value Significant Level Straight Line 0.718 56.067 0.000 Index 0.970 706.086 0.000 Logistic 0.970 706.086 0.000 Gompertz 0.996 5339.341 0.000 The modified regression coefficient is an index to measure the Goodness of Fit. It can judge whether the fitting model can pass the significance test through the significance level (Sig.) is greater or less than 0.05[5]. As the correction of regression coefficient is higher than 0.6, the results can be accepted, and the corrected regression coefficient greater fitting degree is better. In table 3, the corrected regression values of each model are greater than 0.6, while the value, 0.996, in the Gompertz model is the largest one. It shows that this model can reflect the change of tourist quantity in Lijiang with time. x Gompertz growth curve model is = Lay b , in the model, “y” is the theoretical prediction recipients number, “x” is the time series, and L, a and b are parameters [6]. After linearizing the model, the parameters are got, a = 144.2762 ,b = 002.1 , L = 001.0 . The tourist volume of Lijiang from 2017 to 2020 is predicted through the Gompertz growth curve model, the result is in table 3.

606 Table 3.Tourist Volume Forecast in Lijiang from 2017 to 2020. Year 2017 2018 2019 2020 Person-time (ten thousand) 4016.7 4868.6 5908.9 7181.2 The result is shown by Table 4. In the next four years, the average annual growth rate of visitors in Lijiang is about 9 million Person-time, the average annual growth rate was 19.56%. Compared with the past five years (2012-2016), the average annual growth rate of tourists has dropped by 24.62%, but visitor numbers are still growing. At present, Lijiang tourism is in the rapid development stage of its life cycle. If there is no special event, its passenger volume will continue to increase rapidly in the coming years. Therefore, the environmental carrying capacity of tourism will become an important factor what limits the tourism life cycle in Lijiang to develop soundly. In order to realize the sustainable development of tourist industry, relevant departments should extend the existing leading tourism products, enrich the connotation of tourism products, optimize the product structure based on the tourism development framework and the macro demand orientation of the market that are constructed by predictive data. TOURISM AREA LIFE CYCLE EXPANSION COUNTERMEASURES- JINSHAN RURAL TOURISM At present, Lijiang has established a stable and clear brand image, the increasing number of tourists has brought great pressure to the limited space in the ancient city. At the thirty-sixth World Heritage conference in 2012, the World Heritage Committee adopted a proposal what allow to adjust the boundaries of Lijiang ancient city and build a buffer zone. After that, the area of Lijiang ancient city will be adjusted from 3.8 square kilometers to 7.279 square kilometers.But compared to the huge passenger flow, the ancient city is still crowded. Therefore, the development of new scenic spots and scenic spots should be accelerated with the depth development of original scenic [7]. Lijiang Jinshan Bai Nationality Township (Jinshan town) is located in the southeast suburbs of Lijiang. It has developed traffic, and has good accessibility with excellent tourist attractions, such as Laojun Mountain, Old Town of Lijiang, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Tiger Leaping Gorge, the first bay of the Yangtze River, Stone City in Baoshan, and Lashi plateau wetland. The rich tourist resources and the geographical advantages of being adjacent to the ancient city can meet the demand of Lijiang tourism for space, and also enrich the tourism products and expand the tourism industry chain of Lijiang. The diversity of tourism resources in Jinshan Jinshan Township has good regional advantages and rich tourism resources. It is located in the outskirts of the suburbs, and is the South Gate of Old Town of Lijiang. The village is dominated by Bai and Naxi nationality. It has a deep historical background and a strong ethnic cultural atmosphere. There are rich

607 cultural tourism resources and natural tourism resources, such as Wande Palace, Lijiang Men Site, Kainan Study Station, Snake Hill Forest Park, and Tortoise Mountain. Some agricultural production bases, such as Guifeng Sika Deer Breeding Base, Rose Garden, Provide favorable conditions for developing rural eco-tourism [8]. Expand the tourism space Since 2011, the tourist number in Lijiang has exceeded 10 million, and some tourism hot spots have developed to saturation status. The ancient city is the core of Lijiang tourism, the huge tourist flow aggravates its burden. Jinshan country, located in the southeast suburbs of the ancient city, is propitious to divert tourists from the ancient city both in time and space. Rich tourism products Jinshan country has a good condition to build a prototype of the ancient city. The development of Jinshan tourism should combine holiday tourism with sightseeing tourism that is not only helps to boost the competitiveness of the tourism industry, and achieve new progress in development scale and industrial quality, but also can increase visitors’ tourist content and prolong their stay time in Lijiiang. Extension industrial chain The increasing tourists in Lijiang ancient city have also increased the demand for agricultural by-product products, while the ancient city cannot be self-sufficient because of its narrow space. At present, handicrafts in the ancient city are collected from other provinces that have a large number of commercial nature, so that it weakens the function of promoting regional culture and promoting economic development. The establishment of the production base of agricultural products and handicrafts in Jinshan country is conducive to the development of characteristic tourist handicrafts and the inheritance of folk handicrafts, at the same time to promote the processing and sale of local raw materials, perfect the tourism industry chain of Lijiang, reduce tourism costs substantially, promote employment and drive local economic development. CONCLUSION This paper takes Lijiang tourism as the research object, divides the tourism life cycle of Lijiang into three stages by Butler's theory, namely the exploration stage (1995 before), participation stage (1996-2008), development and consolidation phase (2009 to now), builds a Gompertz Growth Curve with tourist volume, and then forecast the amount of tourists for 2017-2020. The analysis shows that the contradiction between the sustained growth of tourists and the decline of environmental carrying capacity will restrict the sustainable development of tourism in Lijiang. In order to further solve the contradiction between supply and demand in tourism destination, this paper suggests developing ecotourism in Jinshan country to optimize the tourism life cycle of Lijiang.

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