China's Exploding Tourism Economy: Three Examples

Few things demonstrate the rapid rate of modernization and postmodern tourism consumption in China as does the rise in tourism activity and the country's tourism economy. I just returned from a couple of weeks in China attending a conference, a field trip and giving some guest lectures at a university.  

The trip took me to Zhangjiajie National Park in Hunan Province for a tourism conference, and post-conference field trip by tourist bus to the old city of Feng Huang (Phoenix) in Hunan Province, and to the city of Weihai in Shandong Province where I visited Shandong University.  Here are few comments on what I learned from each of these places.

The cable car at Zhangjiajie National Park, Hunan Province, China

(1) Zhangjiajie - This tourism conference is held every two years in different locations in China.  This was the seventh meeting, and the sixth one in a row that I have attended.  It was also the largest event yet, with almost 300 mainland Chinese participants.  We only had about 20 international participants, do I think to the poor global economy and the lack of Zhangjiajie's lack of international renown (though it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

More than ever before, I was amazed and pleased at the quality of research papers that Chinese students presented, as well as their increased English speaking capabilities.  I remember the first conference that I attended in Guilin in 2000, and the few painful efforts that a few Chinese scholars made to present in English.  By contrast, this year about half of the paper sessions were in English and half were in Chinese, giving international participants a wider range of sessions to attend than ever in the past.

Lesson: The quality of academic scholarship in China is growing rapidly, and the newest crop of students and lecturers will soon be making a significant mark internationally.

Tourists line up for the boat ride at Feng Huang old city in Hunan Province, China

(2) Feng Huang - On Google+ I commented that Feng Huang was a Chinese version of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany. This is both in terms of the atmosphere (old buildings renovated and filled with tourist-oriented shops and foods), and the masses of tourists that are found there during the peak summer season.  I had never heard of Feng Huang (Phoenix) before this conference, and the photos that I could find of it when I put the conference website together showed old buildings and almost no people! (see http://www.geog.nau.edu/igust/China2011/)

First, it took us 7 hours, instead of four, by bus to get there due to the massive traffic jam as we approached the city.  The crowds in the old city (which is along a river and surrounded by a new city) were like Disneyland on a crowded summer weekend!  I had seen this in several popular tourist destinations in China in the past, including at Zhangjiajie National Park during a one-day conference field trip.  It seems that all of the top tourist attractions in China these days are overrun with tourists during the summer season. Most are on group tours, and, interestingly, many Chinese tourists also complain about the over crowded conditions.

Lesson: "Carrying capacity" has always had a very different meaning in China compared to other parts of the world.  As the world becomes ever more populated (approaching 7 billion), issues of capacity, visitor experience, and economic motivations will increase, and China's rapidly growing middle class may be at the cutting edge of this.

More photos of Fenghuang can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/alanalew/FenghuangChina

The "international beach" (popular with Russians) at Weihai, Shandong Province, China.

(3) Weihai - I have never seen a Chinese city like this one. It has a population of about 150,000 people (very small by Chinese standards) spread out along a series of long, sandy swimming beaches.  Traffic jams are almost non-existent, and the pace of life is much slower than in I am used to seeing in China. About a third of the people at breakfast at my Shandong University hotel were Russian families who come here from Siberia to enjoy the beach.

Speaking of China's growing wealth, however, I have never seen more constructions taking place in one location in my entire life of travel -- and that is saying a lot!  Almost all of the construction (90% perhaps) is for vacation homes and timeshares.  People from all over China, as well as from nearby South Korea, are wanting to buy a piece of life on the beach in Weihai. I really wonder what is going to happen over the coming few years as thousands of new vacation units (mostly apartments, but also some villas) come onto the market.  It seems like there will be a glut of units, which could push down prices and put a crunch on maintenance and upkeep.  One other issue is that the weather in Weihai, while great in the summer, is very windy in all of the other seasons, and very cold in winter!

Lesson 3: Never underestimate the ability of the real estate industry to sell paradise to tourists.  Weihai is the ultimate experiment in this, though I have heard that a similar real estate market is also found on Hainan Island in southern China.

More photos of Weihai can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/alanalew/WeihaiChina

As usual, China never ceases to amaze -- especially from a tourism perspective!

Us and Them among Tourists in Taiwan

Tourists are humans and tend to behave as any other human social animal.  One human behavioral characteristic is to form social groups that include some (“Us”) and exclude other (“Them”).

I saw this recently during my second visit to Taiwan in the past eight months.  I went to Sun Moon Lake in the central Taiwan mountains which is possibly the biggest single tourist attraction in Taiwan for mainland Chinese tourists.  In the last couple of months, mainland Chinese tourists have become the largest single source of tourists to Taiwan, replacing Japanese tourists who have declined considerably following the earthquake and tsunami. Almost all Chinese tourists tour Taiwan on package group tours, and it seems that most of those tours include Sun Moon Lake.  We saw the following statistics on display at the new, post-modern Sun Moon Lake Visitors Center:

Growth in Mainland Chinese to Taiwan & Sun Moon Lake

Year – Number – % visiting Sun Moon Lake

2008 – 89,970 – 74.2%
2009 – 600,969 – 92.5%
2010 – 1,165,549 – 98.8%

The growth has been quite phenomenal, and there was a news story a couple of weeks ago about how the Taiwan stock market is has been strong due to the large number of mainland Chinese tourists expected this year.

What I was told by my hosts/guides was that because so many mainlanders now go to Sun Moon Lake, other tourist groups have stopped going there. The two other groups, in particular, that have largely (not completely) stopped going to Sun Moon Lake are the domestic Taiwan tourists and the Japanese tourists. There are some districts and sites in Taipei that I have been to that are mostly Japanese, including a Cantonese restaurant where we had to wait to with mostly Japanese people out on the sidewalk to get a seat.  Many of them were holding Japanese guidebooks of various kinds that recommended the restaurant.  I really liked the food, which had a uniquely Japanese delicacy to it.

There are other places in the world where visitors segregate based on culture and ethnicity.  There are Mediterranean resort islands that are almost all German-speaking next to an island that is all French-speaking, for example.  And most of the tourists to Barbados in the Caribbean are British and Canadian, while visitors to nearby Martinique is mostly French, and St. Lucia is mostly American.

Most of this segregation is due to business efficiencies, though there is also some desire among some tourists to congregate with their own, which gives them a bubble of security, even when in a different country.  My hosts/guests, for example, told me that Taiwan domestic tourist avoid Sun Moon Lake because (1) it is too crowded and (2) occasional political conflicts between mainland and Taiwan Chinese. It seems to me that in some ways, Sun Moon Lake has become a sacrificial site for increased mainland Chinese tourism. 

Off hand, I do not know of similar examples here in the US where such ethnic separation in tourism is so clearly defined.  I would be interested to hear about such places if you know of any.  And I wonder if we might see this in the future as the US becomes ever more culturally diverse.

(Geography Note: Sun Moon Lake is actually a reservoir that was created on top of a wetland area with a smaller lake in which the local aboriginal Thao people fished.  The Japanese added some dams to make the original lake larger and to generate hydroelectric power when they ruled Taiwan (1989 to 1945), and the R.O.C. Taiwan government created the current version of the lake around 1970.)

I Hate Being Liminal - on the transition to home from a trip abroad

[Photo: View of the Li River from my conference hotel in Yangshuo, China]

I think I just experienced one of the longest travel-related liminal experiences ever (at least for me).

Liminal experiences are those that are characterized by transitions from one state of being to another. Tourists experience liminality when they transition from a home-based state of being to a travel-based state. Liminality also occurs during rights of passage, such as graduating from school, becoming married, becoming a parent, or becoming a new employee of a company. The liminal experience is one of becoming something different, and is potentially transformative, with a shedding of the old and a creation of something new, but also a period of vulnerability and weakness in the face of an uncertain future.

The transformative potential of travel is one of the major reasons that many people want to travel. Even when a trip is fully planned and fully chartered and catered, there is still the possibility, if not probability, of meeting new people, seeing the unexpected, and doing something that is totally unconnected to one's home. The period of liminality, the transition between being a resident-in-place and being a tourist-on-the-road, normally occurs when the tourist is in transit between their home and their destination. For most people it is a period of expectation, anticipation and hope – the emotions are generally positive, though there could be some strain related to the exertion of travel.

However, there is a second liminal experience that is a bit different. This experience occurs at the end of the trip, when the tourist is returning home and transitioning from being a traveling-guest to a resident-host. In this case, the emotions may be either positive or negative. Negative emotions may be related to reverse culture shock, which arises when a tourist "goes native" in an exotic destination and must readjust to "going native" in their home place. Going native during a trip actually refers to developing a sense of attachment to a place. This attachment may be to the physical place, a culture in that place, or an individual(s) that was met during the trip. In each of these instances, the return home is accompanied by a sense of separation and loss. That loss may be addressed by an attempt to develop or maintain a longer-term relationship with the travel destination through repeated visits or other commitments and activities.

For example, I experienced a deeply moving trip to the Shan State of Myanmar in 2005. I blogged about that trip – basically keeping an online trip diary (http://golden-triangle.blogspot.com). After the trip, I continued for a year to post and discuss news items about Myanmar. Eventually, however, my attachment to the people and culture of Myanmar waned and I stopped blogging about the country, though I still hold it in a special place in my memory. Tourists also develop an attachment to each other, mostly when traveling as a group of some kind. The sociologist Ning Wang has referred to this social bonding as "touristic communitas," and it too can result in a sense of loss when the trip comes to an end. Close friendships can form that continue via long distance, and which may remain strong, though they are more likely to fade with time.

In both of the post-trip instances cited above, intentional efforts can be made to continue attachments to place and attachments to people beyond the trip. This effort is part of the remaking of self that is one of the goals of travel and tourism. (I believe this is the major reason why people travel.) The effort varies considerably from one person to the next. For some, the attachment is a mild one where the destination simply occupies a check mark on the list of places that have been visited – a kind of trophy or bragging right. For others it is more meaningful, either in terms of personal relationships or professional relationships. The permanence of these relationships will also vary considerably, though maintaining strong ties over a distance can challenge any relationship. We might think of the liminality of the return trip as never really ending so long as an intentional effort to maintain a place, culture or person relationship continues.

That being said, there is another way that the liminal experience of a return trip can seemingly last forever. That is when the tourist is ready to return home before the trip has ended. And that is what I just experienced. I just got back from a trip to China to attend a tourism conference in Yangshuo (near Guilin). Prior to the conference, I traveled with a colleague in the Business School at Northern Arizona University who had a conference to attend in Chengdu (Sichuan Province). So I spent about five days touring the Chengdu area prior to the tourism conference, which lasted for an additional four nights. I also spent layover nights in Shanghai on my way to Chengdu and again on my way home from Guilin. Altogether, I was gone for 15 days. However, after touring Chengdu and then attending my tourism conference, with a very full day of outdoor activities in Yangshuo (which was very, very hot and humid), I was pretty burned out and was ready to go home.

However, I did want to see the larger city of Guilin (where the airport is located). I had been to Guilin four times (first time in 1988) in the past and wanted to see how it might have changed since my last visit in 2001. Also, my colleague had never been to Guilin and also wanted to see the city. Finally, he also arranged for us to get free accommodations in exchange for guest lectures at Guangxi Normal University. But just like in nearby Yangshuo, Guilin was very, very hot and humid, and the hotel we stayed in was the lowest quality of the entire journey (no internet, cockroaches, and in need of new carpets -- though it was free!). On top of this, I was coming off of an emotional high from the great meeting we had in Yangshuo, and feeling the loss of separation (as described above) that often accompanies the end of these meetings (which I help to organize every two years in China). So, as much as I wanted to see Guilin, I really wanted to just go home. I was done with my trip in Yangshuo and I had entered a liminal state of mind, which made me feel somewhat weak and emotionally vulnerable (not feelings that I get very often).

The Shanghai Airport Hotel (aka the 168 Hotel) was a very pleasant surprise, with weak but workable internet access, at Y398/night (about US$58/night),. This gave me a good rest for my cross-Pacific flight the next day. I dislike LAX (really bad internet options), but was lucky to be able to change a seven hour layover there into a one hour layover, getting me home sooner than expected. So I have almost completed my liminal transition, I almost over my liminal anxieties, I am reconnecting with conference colleagues to build on the new relationships made there, and I am glad I went to Guilin, despite all the challenges. Now, we'll see how long it takes to get over the jet lag, which is always worse for me when upon returning to Arizona from Asia...

[Photo: sign inside my hotel room at the old Chinese hotel I stayed at in Guilin, China.]

Hmmmm ... Lonely Transit Through Guangzhou, China

"Lonely" not in the sense of being sad, but rather being the only one.

This was probably the strangest airport transit/transfer that I have ever done. It worked, but was really different.

It was a strange ticket from the start: PHX (Phoenix) to LAX (Los Angeles) to CAN (Guangzhou, China) to KUL (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), and returning by the same routing. AirTreks.com got me a really good price on China Southern Airlines -- an airline that did not even show up on the major air search engines (though it does carry more passengers than any other airline in China). However, AirTreks was not able to reserve seats for me. They gave me a phone number for China Southern, but that only took me to a pay-per-call directory assistance service. China Southern's website is not very helpful either.

A Chinese colleague at work got me the China Southern phone number in China, which I called using Skype.com. Through their English-speaking operator I was able to reserve seats on all of my flights, except the leg from KUL to CAN.

The inbound flights went well, without any problems. Flying from KUL to CAN on the return, however, was strange. First, they could not check my bags all the way through to LAX. However, since baggage claim is always after immigration, I told them that I did not have a visa for China so I would not be able to pick up my bags there to check them in again. They told me to just go to the Transfer Desk to take care of this, and that the checkin agent's supervisor would call Guangzhou to let them know about my bags.

I was carrying books from China to distribute to contributing authors from our last conference, and that put me 10kg over my checkin limit (which was 20kg). However, I then paid 800 Ringgit (US$235) to upgrade to business, which also increased my checkin weight.

(When I left Guangzhou, I had put the books in my carry-on. However, when you go to the gates, they weigh anything that looks heavy and I had to go back to China Southern and check the books. I first went to a wrapping station when they put packing straps around the books for 10 RMB. Because of that, they did not catch that I had too much weight on that flight.)

So I get to Guangzhou and look for the Transfer Desk. I see a transfer are, but a guard stops me and tells me to go through customs. After customs I see a place to purchase a Chinese visa, so I go there to see if I need to get a visa. The lady asks how long it is between my flights (8 hours) and says that I do not need as visa. So I go up to the immigration counter and tell him that I am in transit. He calls a supervisor over who takes me to the side and has me fill out an Entry Card and a Departure Card.

After some time, a China Southern employee shows up and takes my ticket, passport and baggage claim tags. I tell him that I would like to know the cost of upgrading to business class. He comes back and tells me that business is full (I am not sure if I would have paid the upgrade cost or not). He then goes away and after awhile another China Southern employee shows up and gives me my passport, new boarding pass, and new baggage claim tickets.

I was by myself most of the time, though a group of four Asian girls were also brought over to the side after awhile, though I think for different reasons. Could it really be that Guangzhou's Baiyun International Airport has so few international transit passengers (going from one international flight to another international flight) that they deal with them one-one, like me? It sure seems so.

The China Southern employee takes me through the immigration gate and around the side and back to the gate area. Then she takes me to a room that says "First Class Lounge" -- though I think this is really business class or for transit passengers only. There are a high speed internet computers, food and drinks, soft cushion chairs, and a few power outlets where I can recharge my computer's battery. This is good. I am not in business class, but I am getting to use a business class-like lounge. (You can pay to use a lounge like this in some airports -- but not here in Guangzhou, at least as far as I can tell.)

China remains an enigma. As modern as it is becoming (and both Guangzhou's airport and its urban ladscape are very modern!), some things remain arcane. My trip to Guangzhou this time was to attend a conference that I have been helping to organize for the past eight years -- because the Chinese university is unable to accept credit card registrations from international participants, and my university can. I would have thought that by now that situation would have changed, but it has not. It is just another of the the many thing about China that makes you go hmmmm....