FROM LOW-CARBON TOURISM TO LOHAS TOURISM: FURTHER ADVANCE OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
MA Ji-gang1,2, SONG Jin-ping2, ZHANG Rui-hong2
1. Department of Tourism, Kunming University, Kunming 650214, China;
2. School of Geography and Remote Sensing, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Abstract Development of sustainable tourism should not only concern on the environmental protection such as energy conservation and emissions reduction in the process of tourism, but more attention should be paid to the treatment of ‘sub health’ in itself. LOHAS tourism--a kind of ideological trend rooted in the anti-consumerism is reflection of enjoyable traditional tourism in the postmodern society. Many scholars abroad have carried on researches on LOHAS tourism in related fields, already gained abundant and mature achievements theoretically and practically. LOHAS was a trend of times and becomes a new power to promote social development by affecting multiple levels such as social, political, cultural and environmental terms. However, domestic researches on LOHAS come out lately and few achievements were attained. These studies were more active in business and marketing fields than in academic research fields, let alone the attempts to link it with tourism. Therefore, this article analyzed the nine factors of LOHAS tourism, and compared it with traditional tourism/Low-carbon tourism, then developed that LOHAS had characteristics of health and inclusiveness. Low-carbon which was based on energy conservation and emissions reduction attached importance on the environment, but LOHAS tourism which was based on the personal health emphasizes more on mankind itself. By the way of advocation of healthy tourism consumption concept, the development of industrial-chain and suitable marketing, LOHAS tourism could guide human to change their past tourism tradition and establish new tourism pattern in terms of environment and human-centered. In conclusion, Low-carbon tourism and LOHAS tourism were two concepts that come down in one continuous line.
2012, Vol. 27 
