The concept of "big tourism" encompasses aspects such as a tourism-friendly environment, a steadily growing tourist population, and the continuous enhancement of social and economic benefits brought by the development of the tourism industry.
Approved by the State Council, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Strong Tourism Country." This plan sets forth objectives, including establishing a more solid pillar industry status for tourism by 2030, further leveraging its role in stimulating domestic demand, promoting employment, and invigorating the market, and steadily increasing the proportion of value-added from tourism and related industries in the Gross Domestic Product.
In recent years, China's tourism sector has experienced rapid expansion. Focusing solely on domestic travel, domestic tourist trips reached 6.522 billion in 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of 16.2%. Expenditure by domestic residents on travel amounted to 6.30 trillion yuan, a rise of 9.5% compared to the previous year.
The plan targets achieving 8.3 billion domestic tourist trips and total domestic travel spending of 7.7 trillion yuan by 2030. However, alongside the surge in tourist numbers, certain issues have become increasingly apparent.
For instance, while popular cities and scenic spots are often overcrowded, per capita spending has not grown correspondingly. Incidents of price gouging by some attractions and service providers persist. The practice of cordoning off areas to charge fees, which harms the overall tourism environment, remains difficult to eradicate.
These phenomena are incompatible with the goal of fostering large-scale tourism development. Tourism is a major and pillar industry; only by reinforcing the "big tourism" concept can its comprehensive value be fully realized and its healthy development promoted.
Building a Tourism-Friendly Environment
Creating a tourism-friendly environment requires addressing both overt chronic problems and covert obstacles. This means regulating not only industry practitioners but also government and management entities.
Issues like exorbitantly priced food, tour guides forcing shopping, and hotels arbitrarily canceling reservations are examples of overt chronic problems. In this regard, it is essential to further standardize the tourism market order and promote the development of an efficient, well-regulated, fairly competitive, and collaboratively supervised tourism marketplace.
Such problems are gradually diminishing under the combined effects of stringent regulation and increased consumer awareness, representing relatively easier challenges to solve.
The more difficult task is eliminating covert obstacles that may appear compliant but severely damage the overall tourism environment. Recently, Mount Tai Scenic Area drew widespread public attention for installing razor wire fencing.
Although the scenic area management committee offered explanations, such as pest and fire prevention, these cannot conceal the primary motivation of increasing ticket revenue by restricting access. This incident significantly impacts the region's overall tourism appeal, and without decisive and sincere corrective measures, the negative effects will persist.
Enclosing areas for profit is a short-sighted approach. Years ago, the West Lake scenic area in Hangzhou removed its fences and opened to the public for free, which generated substantial tourism revenue and enhanced the city's overall image. Embracing "openness" as a key characteristic requires sufficient strategic vision.
Furthermore, in building a tourism-friendly environment, mishandling any detail can have severe consequences. Negative impacts are easy to create but difficult to erase. While enjoying beautiful scenery, tourists also keenly sense the "warmth" of their surroundings. A significant "temperature gap" can greatly diminish the appeal of the scenery.
A destination's tourism image is the external manifestation of its influence and attractiveness, characterized by its holistic nature. It serves as a crucial factor in tourists' decision-making and directly impacts local tourism economic development. This is a serious consideration for all regions developing their tourism industry and a vital component of "big tourism."
Fostering Growth and Economic Benefits
Regarding promoting steady growth in tourist numbers and enhancing the social and economic benefits of tourism development, the key lies in providing more high-quality, marketable, and suitable tourism products. This ensures tourists have appealing places to visit, are willing to spend time there, and are inclined to consume.
The plan explicitly calls for enriching the supply of high-quality tourism, closely integrating public welfare with consumption stimulation, and promoting tourism as a lifestyle, a learning method, and a means of personal growth. It also emphasizes implementing the paid leave system for employees and encouraging flexible, staggered vacation periods.
It is important to recognize that tourism is termed "big" because it is linked to over 110 industries. Its industrial chain is long, involving numerous segments, and it exhibits a multiplier effect where "the prosperity of one industry drives a hundred others."
In recent years, the deep integration of tourism with culture, sports, agriculture, transportation, commerce, industry, aerospace, and other fields has made the trend and benefits of "tourism plus all industries" even more pronounced.
In summary, tourism is increasingly becoming an emerging strategic pillar industry, as well as a livelihood and happiness industry with distinct characteristics of the times. To this end, overt chronic issues must be eliminated, and covert obstacles resolved, thereby jointly laying a solid foundation for the large-scale development of the tourism industry.
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