Study On The Tourism Development In Historical Villages And Towns Of Shanxi Province

Historical villages and towns are the representatives of the old settlements that had been in existence at least by 1949 and still stay in general good conditions at present time. In addition to their great value in history and culture recording, tradition inheriting and construction art appreciation, they have enormous potential in tourism development. Protecting the historical towns and villages, and in the meantime developing tourism out of them to bring their educational, aesthetic and recreational functions into play is a good alternative to leaving them as they are. Despite possession of enormous historical villages and towns, Shanxi has not done a good job of tourism out of them. On this background, firstly, an SWOT analysis to the province's tourism development of historical villages and towns, as well as a quantitative evaluation of the all tourism resources of this category is made, followed by a series of measures advised to take to improve the effect of exploitation and development. The measures include general development strategies, a regional development plan, a sequential development plan, and classification plans according to the towns and villages' conditions and features. Secondly, based on the information collected in the real site investigations, an inductive analysis to the status quo of the tourism development in these villages and towns as well as to the elements that obstruct the sustainable development in tourism is made, followed by measures to cope.