Shaanxi Province, The Depth Of Tourism Product Development Research

Tourism has become one of the most important industries in Shaanxi province as her tourism resources enjoy exceptional advantages. However, the growth rate of tourism industry in Shaanxi has comparatively slowed down in1990's. One important reason is that Shaanxi has not been supplying tourism attractions with much cultural content and involvement, which tourists need. Facing the great opportunities (also challenges) of the Development of China's West and China Getting into World Trade Organization, Shaanxi is bound to further develop tourism products (attractions) that better meet the increasing market demand. From the marketing perspective, this paper makes an overall study on the tourism market needs and the tourism assets of Shaanxi, and puts forward seven tourism productdevelopment strategies in Shaanxi.The paper consists of 4 chapters. Chapter one studies the basic theories of product development andexplains that the development of tourism product must follow a marketing, systematical,and sustainabledevelopment way with local characteristics. It also discusses the importance of products life cycle, thedominating role of the government., the 'macro-tourism, macro-market, macro-industry' strategy,and the growth pole theory of economy in tourism product development.Chapter2 examines the tourism assets and environment in Shaanxi province. Shaanxi is richly endowed with great historical, cultural and natural sites for tourism. However, the tourism products are provided in such a shallow simple and old way that tourists can not fully enjoy the great values from the attractions. The chapter also points out that the tourism service quality needs to be improved and high level personnel trained, and that the Development of China's West and China into WTO are great opportunities for Shaanxi tourism product development Chapter 3 analyses both the world and domestic tourism market characteristics and their trends.Tourism market is becoming fully segmented and special tours are rising as tourism is booming over the whole world. Tourists pay more attention to experience and involvement and prefer optional tours. The major features of both inbound and domestic tourism markets are analyzed based on market surveys in Xian. Then the inbound tourism, using the background trend line, and domestic tourism are predicted tobe fast growing in coming years, with visitors' preference to optional tour, culture tour and demands diversification as the major trends. Shaanxi tourism market is further segmented and the target markets are chosen.Chapter 4 is the crucial part of the paper, discussing the specific strategies for tourism product development in Shaanxi. The ultimate goal of further development of tourism product is creating values for tourist The tourism product in Shaanxi should be positioned to history and culture touf, and the ways to develop historical and cultural values in tourism products are suggested. Besides Xian as the biggest tourism center, and the 4 existing tour routes, 2 sub-tourism centers should be built, and 4 sub-tourism routes with 5 typical tourism features be formed in Shaanxi. The paper attaches great importance tobranding and proposes that 8 famous tour brands should be established, with the ancient capital Xian,Zhou Dynasty,Qing Dynasty Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty customs on Loess Plateau, Mount Hua and Mount Taibai as the themes. Twenty-four special tours are offered to rationalize the product structure in Shaanxi. Then 4 strategies are suggested to improve service quality and 5 polices be carried out to better the macro-environment for tourism product development.