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| SYSTEMOF CULTURAL TOURISM PRODUCTS' FRAMEWORK ON TOURIST DESTINATIONS —A Case Study of Suzhou City |
| ZHENG Hai-yan, XU Hong-gang, DAI Guang-quan |
| Center for Tourism Planning & Research, Zhongshan University, Guangzhou 510275, China |
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Abstract Cultural tourism is the key component of tourism products as Cultural tourism products are rich and of high quality in Suzhou.However, the studies on how to develop the cultural tourism in a competitive and sustainable way are rarely seen.Based on the literature review obtained from the experiences from European cultural tourism development, the authors point out that the effective and sustainable cultural tourism can be only gained when local culture is grown in such a way as three layers are fully considered and integrated.The first layer of cultural tourism has to be maintained in order to enhance the image and the competitiveness of the city to at tract investment and business.
Secondly, the culture tourism has to be developed to at tract specialized group who are true cultural tourists.The tourism products are mainly composed by trails of local famous people in history, art performance, museums and the Su embroideries in China.All these products are for the segmented cultural sophisticated and normally rich tourists.
Thirdly, mass cultural tourism products have to be developed to bring the economic benefits to the urban tourism destination like Suzhou.The mature and the dominant mass tourist products are gardens, amusement parks, old water towns, such as Zhouzhuang.
The authors also analyze the interactions between three layers of tourism products.The development of the first and secondary layers of tourism products expose the cultural diversity and present attractions to the layer of mass cultural tourism.Mass cultural tourists are therefore educated and can appreciate the more sophisticated and diversified cultural tourism product s.In this way, the formerly specialized cultural tourism products are developed to be a mass product.More economic benefits can be obtained.On the other hand, with the development of mass tourism and the expanding of cultural exchange, local culture will be enriched and become more colorful and diversified than ever.Therefore, an intergratedly developed of the three kinds of cultural products can produce a benign feedback structure to maintain a proper pipeline of tourism new products.
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Received: 05 August 2001
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2003, Vol. 18 
