Cultural Tourism Resources Evaluation Of AAAA Scenic Areas In Shanxi Province

The essence of tourist activities is actually the sum of a series of activities the tourists carry out on the "tourism resources" through "tourist market". While the "tourism resources" research on the objective vector of tourist activities, the vector itself could only succeed in achieve its main value with the subjective "tourists".On the one hand, the study of tourism resources has to be set out from the perspective of "tourists" (humanism) to realize the character of tourism resources -"attractions"; On the other hand, to produce the ultimate tourist activities, "resources" must also use the media - "market", as the tourism market also produce counter-reaction to tourism resources.Based on the existing study results, this paper tries to re-interpret the structural character of tourism resources of by means of summing up and inducting academic point of view, particularly further explores and develops the tourism resources of cultural identity on the basis of existing "natural and humanism tourism resources -two classification system" on the basis of this paper, and finally proposes "natural resources" and "cultural resources" Category concept.Basically speaking, culture is all the outcome of mankind's own material and spiritual wealth. Being different from the natural attribution of "natural resources", "cultural resources" focused on "humanistic" nature, which explains the classification of tourism resources, "Nature and Humanistic - system " in the field of tourism academy. However, the concept "culture" is more closed to the media "market" which should not be overlooked in tourism activities. Such concepts as "Cultural industries", "cultural market" and others related to the culture are widely accepted in the market. By comparison, such concepts as "human sciences", "humanism" and other humanities trend to be more academic. Therefore, the concept "Cultural Tourism resources" is more modern and extensive; meanwhile, the interpretation of cultural introduced to the tourism resources is more representative and operational. As now the evaluation system of tourism resources develops to be more quantitative and multi-level with the introduction of multi-factor compound evaluation means, and apply the flexible factors standards to highlight "specialty" of resources, which precisely attributes to the "culture" inheritance. In short, the concept of cultural tourism resources is able to highlight the nature of tourism market and tourism resources.With the actual situation of tourism resources in Shanxi province, we can find out that the concept "culture" is practically representative and unique in Shanxi province. Historically speaking, Shanxi Province itself is the typical represent of 5000-year Chinese Culture in all levels, thus the existing rich cultural relics, external or internal, just fit the purpose of cultural tourism resources evaluation.According to the existing standards and systems of humanist tourism resources evaluation, based on the cultural characteristics and the nature of categories, from the point of view of the situation of present tourism market, particularly the one in Shanxi province, this paper proposes four culture sub-factors consisting of religion or regional belief, historical traditions, ethnic custom, and regional heterogeneity, and also assesses the value of tourism cultural resources with three standards, including the heterogeneity of cultural tourism resources, that is, their own values; systematic evaluation of cultural resources, that is, the compound of cultural tourism resources in scenic areas, and the capacity of market performance.At present, the cultural tourism resources in Shanxi Province are mainly beard with the forms of tourist scenic markets, and by the end of 2007, the AAAA-class tourist scenic areas are the carrier of the influential cultural tourism resources in Shanxi Province. Therefore, we tried to establish a resource assessment on the cultural tourism resources of existing AAAA-class tourist areas in Shanxi Province, by means of social surveys and interviews with experts and etc, apply the cultural resources evaluation system to Shanxi Province, and discuss its role of cultural "push" and "pull" in the tourism industry."In conclusion, the cultural resources evaluation of AAAA-class scenic areas in Shanxi province will not only benefit to expand the research of tourism evaluation, which is the infrastructure work of tourism development and planning, but also provide reference to the management and marketing of AAAA-class scenic areas in Shanxi Province. Although there may inevitably exist some faults or bias in the theoretical explanations or evaluation criteria, we still hope that this theoretic exploration would contribute to the basic research of tourism - tourism resources study, and to the practical work of strategic conception of cultural tourism in Shanxi Province.