Qingdao Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2018 Exclusive Interview: Datong, a city expressing humanist ideals

Upgrade the Tourism Experiences of Tourists

Convenience: namely, time saving. The urban traffic planning is reasonable, the external traffic connections are diversified and the tourists can reach their destinations fastest. The scientific internal traffic planning has been realized. The traffic is fast and convenient. The tourists can quickly reach the scenic areas and slowly tour.

Comfort: namely, the urban infrastructure construction. The first impression of a city on tourists is the public services and facilities of the city. The tourists can very happily travel in the scenic areas on the condition that both the urban infrastructure and the city appearance are good.

Culture: Culture is the soul of the comprehensive city competitiveness. A city flourishes if its culture is strong. Datong is a city with resplendent culture and its cultural tourism industry is the main development direction of its resource-based economy transformation. Adhere to take the cultural tourism industry as a strategic pillar industry and focus on the development of health maintenance tourism, the Great Wall tourism and rural tourism. The tourist development of Datong focuses on constant discovery of the historic culture and folk culture as well as the Yungang Grottoes, Mount Heng and the Ancient City of Datong. In the future, we will develop a series of stage works and conduct live-action performances based on the cultural accumulation of Datong to enrich the night life of Datong. Yu Qiuyu, a famous scholar, used to praise that Datong was the only city in China that had expressed the humanist ideal. If a tourist wants to understand the beauty of the city, the tourist must deeply learn about its culture and find its cultural beauty. The tourist should not only look at the scenery and landscapes, but also appreciate the culture and broaden his or her own horizon.

Build the City Brand Image

First, create multiple new business cards for the urban tourism. In recent years, our city has been selected as one of the member cities of the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and it has become the only prefecture-level city of Shanxi Province included in the National-level Tourism Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones. It has become the first prefecture-level city releasing the professional tourist index in China by cooperating with Xinhua News Agency. In addition, we provide convenience and references for the tourist travel, provide analytic tools for the tourist resource optimization and allocation and scientifically guide the tourism development of Datong according to the quarterly released Report on the Tourist Development Indexes of Datong, China.

Second, build a batch of influential tourist brands. After many large international and national events were consecutively held, many tourist brands with domestic or even international influences such as Datong Ancient City Lantern Show, the National Hot-air Balloon Tournament, Datong International Cycling Tourism Competition, the International Half Marathon Competition, Harley International Tour Competition and Yungang Cultural Tourism Month have formed. Meanwhile, the 4th Cheng Long International Action Film Week with rich contents themed “World Heroes Gather in Datong of the World” was grandly held lately.

Third, build a batch of attractive tourist products. Unique, abundance and superiority of the cultural tourism resources of Datong are becoming known by all walks of life. A lot of conceptual tourist route brands such as Ancient Religious Buildings, Buddhist Art, Great Wall Landscapes, Ancient City Lantern Show, Datong Blue, Red Classics, Volcano Knowledge Popularization and Hot Spring Resort Leisure have been praised by most consumers. Many combined tourist routes have formed and the brand development of many tourist route products has been promoted. Last year, Datong was included in the Most Beautiful Chinese Destination City List and selected as one of the Best Summer Resort and Tourism Cities and one of the Top Ten Characteristic Tourism Cities along the Silk Road.

Datong of the World Welcomes Tourists from All over the World

Datong takes “building the whole Datong into a first-rate international citywide tourist destination” as its target. In the building process, Datong will be more open, learn relevant tourist operation experiences from the excellent tourist cities of the world, and learn from and exchange experiences with the ancient cities of the world. In recent years, the international visitors to Datong have been increasing constantly. In such a situation, Datong should improve itself according to the international tourist city standards, promote the international exchange and warmly greet guests from all over the world. Datong of the World means that Datong wants the people of the world to know Datong, understand Datong, come to Datong, be reluctant to leave Datong and come to Datong again.