Network Governance And The Construction Of Urban Tourism Standardization System

The tourism standardization in China has achieved remarkable results in aspects of standardizing market order, improving service level, safeguarding consumers’ rights and interests, developing management means and increasing the competitiveness of the tourist market since China formulated, promulgated and implemented the Start-Rating Standard for Tourist Hotels for the first time in1987. The Chinese tourist industry is now at the stage of improving quality in an all-round way, creating tourism brand and participating in international competition, imposing new requirements on the standardization of the tourist industry. As one of the first batch of five pilot cities (districts) for national tourism standardization, Suzhou has gradually cooled down the construction of the standardization system since the vigorous construction of demonstration cities for tourism standardization in2011, and is ultimately difficult to escape the set pattern of "campaign-style establishment".Suzhou has encountered difficulties in promoting the construction of the tourism standardization system. On the surface, it would seem that this is because there is insufficient coordination between government departments and it is unable to form a cohesive force, and enterprises, guilds and the public have not taken positive participation in the construction, but the root cause is the absence of governance model.On the basis of arranging existing literatures for the tourism standardization system, this paper analyzed the governance issues involved in the construction of the tourism standardization system through network governance mode. The paper first briefly described the series theories on tourism standardization and the research findings of our predecessors, and set forth the concept, features and functions of tourism standardization and the reason for promoting the tourism standardization through network governance mode. Then the author established an analytical framework for the tourism standardization system from several aspects, i.e. the concept, features, modes, influencing factors and Public-Private Partnership ("PPP"). After that, taking the construction of the tourism standardization system in Suzhou for instance, in combination with the feelings in personal participation, the author conducted in-depth analysis for the governance cooperation and the Public-Private Partnership ("PPP") during the construction of the tourism standardization system in Suzhou, and summed up several issues in the construction, such as unmatched powers and resources between vertical government departments, the lack of platform between horizontal government departments and the weak cooperation basis between public and private. At last, the paper put forward proposals for the construction of the urban tourism standardization system from four aspects as follows:pinpointing the government roles, establishing a bottom-up construction mode, improving various mechanisms and making laws to ensure the implementation of common standards.