Northern Qinling Mountains Forest Park Sustainable Development Of Tourism Research

The north slope of QinLing has been considered a proper area for forest tourismindustry due to its scenic beauty, Lush forest, great biological diversity numerous cultural sitesand easy accessibility, and thus there have been 16 forest parks established in the past l8 years.However, nearly all these parks are now facing both economic difficulties and environmentalproblems. Therefore, it is highly significant to study on how to develop these forest parks into anationwide hot tourism belt with a sustainable development strategy.This paper consists of four parts. Part one gives a clear definition of the study area anddiscusses the concept and evolution of the sustainable tourism development theory.Part two examines the current situation after a comprehensive analysis of the forest parks interms of their history resources, revenue, investment, soft- and hard-ware construction,environment protection, management, marketing and product development.Part three aims to tind out all the insustainable factors from both macro- and micro-perspectives. From the macro-perspective, the paper considers the reasons why most of the forestparks are operated in a disorder with much repeated construction and stereotyped products andservices to be lack of a comprehensive master plan for the belt as a whole and the insufficientsupport system. From the micro-perspective, all the forest parks in this area are suffering fromunqualified personnel, poor visitors management, capital insufficiency, simple marketing andobsolete products mainly because the travel industry is rather new to them as most of them wereconverted from the forestry industry not long age.Part four is the key section. It puts forward l0 specific strategies for the forest parks todevelop sustainable tourism in the light of the insustainab1e factors identified in the previous part.First, a corporation group including all the forest parks on the north slope of QinLing should beformed with the direct leadership and support of the Shaanxi provinciaI government to get all theparks under orderly and unified operation system. Second, a comprehensive master plan for all theexisting forest parks in the area as a whole should be developed to ensure the optimal benefits.Third, capital management should be enhanced and more ways found to raise enough funds forfurther development. Fourth, all the parks should combine to make a stronger promotion strategywith proper marketing mix and modern technology methods to approach a bigger market. Fifth,the forest parks should further develop letter products and services with more participation andlearning chances, and offer more travel souvenirs with local characteristics. Sixth, a rationalhuman resources management system should be established so that the personnel of the parks canbe better trained and developed. Seventh, to ease the environment pressure, the accommodationand service centers of the forest parks should be better built in the nearly towns or places outside.Eighth, visitors should be better managed and directed so that they will not act against theobjectives of the parks. Ninth, it is high time to introduce the corporate image identificationstrategy for the forest parks group. And finally, all the forest parks should make full use of thecurrent external support system and more efforts should be made for better external environmentto develop sustainable tourism in these forest park.