An Investigation About its Structure and Trend
Academic planners refer to professors and researchers in universities and relevant research institutes who take part in the practice of tourism planning. Compared with developed countries, academic planners in China play a bigger role in the promotion of the development of the tourism industry, tourism research and tourism education. For example, the first regional tourism plan was initiated by a group of academic geographers when they were engaged in the national land survey and use planning in the 1980s (Fan and Hu, 2003). According to the National Tourism Bureau in 1998, among all the first registered tourism organizations, 69 percent were from universities, 21 percent from social research institutes and 10 percent from science research institutes. These academics are also the main force in the theoretical development of tourism research in China, and at the same time educators of tourism students.
For a long time, the triple roles (i.e. as researcher, planner, and teacher) of academic planners have been reinforcing each other, and indeed serving as an ideal model of linking academic institutions to industries. However, after 20 years of rapid development of tourism planning in China, the shortcomings of the triple-role model of the academic planner have gradually presented themselves, mainly in the academic field. Some researchers commented that studies done by the academic planners are more like a plan or a report rather than a profound scientific research. These studies are normally composed of two parts: a description of a practical problem and the solutions. Most of them do not follow the rigorous process of scientific enquiry. As a result, the researches may help in solving the real world problem but contribute little academically (Bao and Zhang, 2004). Others argue that this is the research paradigm that fits well with the development stage of the tourism industry and has provided foundations for the future research. Overall, with the development of tourism and tourism research, the triple-role model of the tourism planner cannot be sustained and will be replaced by a new paradigm.
This chapter first reveals the background of the emergence of academic planners and the characteristics of tourism plans undertaken by these planners based on a literature review. By applying a qualitative system enquiry method, the study attempts to build a model to understand the structures which determine the changes of the research paradigms. The final discussion is about the problems of the new paradigm.
Demand for Tourism Plans
Since 1978 when the reform and the open-door policy was initiated, China’s tourism industry has become the most promising and fastest growing sector of China’s tertiary industry. According to statistics from National Tourism and Travel Administration, there were 108 million international tourists in 2004, a growth of 18 percent and 10 percent compared with the numbers for 2003 and 2002 respectively. The total inbound tourism income was US$25 billion, a growth of 43.7 percent and 22.6 percent compared with 2003 and 2002 respectively. The number of domestic tourists reached 930 million, with total revenue of RMB400 billion, a growth of 5.9 percent and 3.1 percent compared with 2003. There were 28 million outbound tourists, a growth of 38.5 percent and 68.7 percent compared with 2003 and 2002 respectively.
Observing the economic opportunities brought along with tourism development, governments at all levels are eager to use tourism as an economic booster. Tourism industry is given a high priority on the governments’ agenda; 25 provincial governments nationwide make tourism industry their pillar industry, leading industry, or key industry (Wei, 2002). Tourism plans as a tool to manage and promote tourism development have been institutionalized.
As a result, demand for tourism plans as the first step to tourism development is rising. Regional tourism plans are required for the local governments to integrate tourism into regional development, budget resources, and reserve land accordingly. Strategic and conceptual plans of resort areas and attractions are screened for potential tourism projects and used as tools to attract investments. Site plans are needed for the approval of construction projects. In summary, the need for tourism plans has been growing rapidly.
Shortage of Tourism Planner Professionals
Along with the boom of the tourism planning industry, there is a great need of tourism planning professionals. Traditionally professionals most relevant to tourism planning are urban planners who have been engaged in recreational planning as part of urban plans. However, since traditional recreational planning is mainly for welfare purposes, the planners are strong on physical design, but weak in socio-economic analysis. As a result the traditional recreational planner cannot really meet the goal of promoting economic development through tourism. In addition, urban planners and architects look down on tourism and recreational planning because tourism is considered to lack scientific foundations. The entry of foreign experts and consulting companies into the Chinese planning market has been constrained because of the lack of accessibility, lack of understanding of the local situation and high costs. That’s why the first contract between the Sichuang Government and WTO on provincial tourism planning attracted a lot of attention. In the market for tourism planning, there is a shortage of professional planners.
Chances for Geographers to Play a Major Role in the Tourism Plan Market
Although there is a shortage of tourism planning professionals, the trust between clients and the tourism planners still plays an important role in reaching business agreements. Because the history of tourism planning is short and there is a lack of standard procedures to control and evaluate the quality of the tourism plans, it is technically difficult to set details of a tourism plan in the contracts. Even after the National Tourism and Travel Administration issued “General Guidelines of Tourism Plan” and “Management Guidelines of Tourism Development Plans,” this problem remains the same because these guidelines cannot really solve the uncertainties in signing contracts because of a lack of details and considerations about the diversification of tourism development, although they have great implications for the promotion of the overall quality of tourism planning (Zhai, 2001). During the planning period and the post-planning period, there are always requests to the professionals from the clients to change and adjust the plans. Therefore, trust-building and cooperation are very important cultural factors for clients to choose planners. University professors tend to be more reliable than business firms, especially in regional tourism development where local government is the client.
As a result, academics whose specialties are closely related to tourism and planning have the opportunity to fill the gap in the tourism planning market. Geographers, who have gained experiences in regional development planning, are more likely to identify the potentials for tourism development within the region, and they have become the first tourism planners. Of course, academics from many different backgrounds, such as economists, architects and other related areas, have also gradually begun to show their interest in this area as the demand for tourism planning has risen dramatically.
Accumulation of Tourism Planning Theories and Cases
Although tourism planning began in the 1950s in Hawaii and was widely carried out in France and the UK in the 1960s (Wu, 2000), the theories and models of tourism planning obtained internationally were not accessible to Chinese tourism planners at the initial stage. Soon after the development of tourism plans, it was not practicable to directly transfer the theories and methodologies in urban planning, sector industrial planning or land use planning to tourism planning. The academics had to explore and develop new theories and methodologies to formulate plans and to solve particular tourism problems based on their experience and knowledge.
Through a short review of the process of tourism planning models, learning by doing can be easily perceived. In the early 1980s, when tourism planning was initiated in China, planners’ efforts were concentrated on identifying the potential tourist attractions, categorizing them and revealing the importance of tourism development to government officials and entrepreneurs. During this period, one of the greatest achievements of tourism research was the formulation of technical indicators to appraise tourism resources by the Geography Institute of the Chinese Academy (Fan and Hu, 2003). With the development of tourism, planners realized the importance of market analysis in tourism plans. Therefore, some of the market theories and methodologies were applied into these tourism plans. Research on tourists’ behavior and market segmentation were also carried out with significant achievements. Liu (2001) pointed out that traditional tourism planning dominated by the market-oriented planning models has been broken and will gradually be replaced by tourism recreational planning, landscape, and environmental design.
Along with rapid tourism development, intangible problems have accumulated and been gradually perceived by the stakeholders. It is clear that the economic, social, and environmental implications of tourism development must be examined to sustain tourism development. Thus, economic analysis based on the input–output models was also carried out to identify the significance of the tourism economy in regional development. Community tourism and industrial aspects of tourism were also the focus of tourism research in this period. In this process, the special model of community participation in tourism development is proposed. It has been found that in China it is more important to share the importance of the benefits with the local community than fully participating in the tourism process.
As a result, compared with the tourism planning done by foreign professional tourism planners, Chinese tourism plans tend to address more issues which are unique to the locals. The identification and solution of problems in tourism plans are usually based on scientific enquires. Research-oriented plans are the characteristics at this stage.
However, since the tourism plans are done by academics, some of the tourism plans are more academic than practical. The clients commented that some of the plans were “well structured but not operational,” and “some of the plans seems like scraps cited from text books, and therefore are not practical” (Peng, 2000; Wei et al., 2001, p. 13).
Growth of Tourism Geography
Due to the active participation of geographers in tourism planning, they have received more financial support for their research projects. As a result, tourism geography has boomed as a new discipline. Bao et al. (2003) conducted a statistical analysis of all the articles published in these journals (see Table 11.1) from 1978 to 2003 according to their subjects. Tourism geographers, who had a low profile in academic society, began to flourish, while tourism departments originating from management school and economics schools were not able to experience the same development.
Planning Sponsored Funds for the Research
Despite the increasing importance of tourism in the national economy and the rising status of the tourism research in the academic society, the present funds of tourism research from the Chinese government is minimal. Researchers seeking funding for tourism studies find themselves to be marginalized. For example, the geography department of the National Science Foundation in China is the only official department which funds tourism related research. However, Song and Leng (2004), of the National Scientific Foundation, summarized the funded projects on human geography for over the period of 12 years (Table 11.2) and it could be seen that tourism research received limited grants.
Table 11.1 Tourism geography literature in 10 geographical journals, 1978–2003
Table 11.2 Statistical analysis of free application projects on human geography supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China in 1991–2003
Unlike other agencies such as the Construction Ministry and the National Land Research Ministry, which are important funding sources for the research projects within their sectors, the China Travel and Tourism Administration does not fund tourism research. Therefore, tourism researchers have difficulties competing with academics in other disciplines in terms of research funding.
The enterprises of the Chinese tourism industry are relatively small and lack the financial power and incentives to fund tourism research. Although some consulting services on management are indeed contracted to academics, due to the time, cost constraints and information security, the researchers cannot fully conduct independent research. Therefore, financial resources and the opportunities to get access to data in tourism planning projects enable academic research activities, including academic conferences, PhD dissertations etc.
Dominance of Tourism Planning and Development of Postgraduate Studies
Planning-oriented research has great impacts on the growth of graduate studies. Among the tourism-related courses, development-oriented courses (e.g. tourism courses from the perspectives of geography, culture, ecology, planning, and MICE) and managerial curriculums (e.g. tourism courses from the perspectives of statistics, accounting, law, marketing, tour guiding and services) are two major components of the tourism curricula in tourism schools or departments in China. According to Yuan et al. (2005), of the total courses offered by the schools of tourism, there are about 111 development-oriented courses and 180 managerial courses. The percentage of development-oriented courses in the tourism curricula indicates that the importance of these courses is widely recognized, although there are fewer of these courses compared with managerial courses.
Wu and Li (2005) further pointed out that among all the tourism-related colleges and universities, 38 of them (65.5 percent) are tourism development-oriented. Furthermore, 12 of the development-oriented schools specialize in tourism planning and design, tantamount to the number of schools which specialize in tourism management (see Table 11.3).
Triple Role of Research-Planning-Teaching
In summary, academics in geography and other related areas have opportunities to participate in tourism development. Many academics have become active tourism planners and tourism industry entrepreneurs, while they remain educators and researchers, as in Figure 11.1. This model benefits both the tourism industry and the tourism research.
Table 11.3 Number of schools entitled to grant Masters’ degrees for tourism management and their academic backgrounds
Source: Materials offered on the official websites of relevant schools (Wu and Li, 2005)
Figure 11.1 The triple role model of the academic planner
First, this model facilitates tourism research in China. By formulating tourism planning for the industry, the researcher is going through the experiential learning process, a model described by Kolb (Kolb, 1984; Kolb et al., 1979). Kolb (1984) perceives experiential learning as a four-stage cycle: observing, thinking, practicing and cognizing.
In order for planning to be effective, academic planners have to observe the tourism phenomena closely, to obtain the statistical data, and conduct interviews with stakeholders, etc. Problems can then be identified and underlying structures built. Based on the model, trends are predicted and plans formulated accordingly. During this process, theories are also formulated, tested, and then improved. In the meantime, these new findings are taught to tourism students.
This triple-role model can help to transfer knowledge and bring innovation to the tourism industry. Tourism is regarded as an industry which is weak in innovation. The Chinese tourism industry is especially weak in innovation because it is dominated by small tourist enterprises lacking in capital and motivation to innovate. Thus universities and research institutions serve as some of the main sources of knowledge and technical support for the industry.
Students can learn to understand the real world problems and become familiar with the tourism industry by working in tourism planning projects supervised by their mentors. Meanwhile, they can also contribute new ideas in critical issues.
In order to understand the observed patterns and predict the future behavior, a qualitative system dynamics method, a methodology for studying and managing complex feedback systems, such as one finds in business and other social systems (Sterman, 2000), is applied to explore the underlying structure.
Figure 11.2 Planning sponsored tourism research
The model is composed of two basic structures: positive feedback and negative feedback (see Figure 11.2). The positive feedback loops are those which lead to growth, such as the increasing importance of the industrial funding and the dominance of tourism geography in the academic world. It can be seen that research and practice are reinforcing each other. Along with the rapid development of the tourism industry, many practical problems arise. The tourism industry provides funds which attract tourism academics into the market and help to solve practical problems. The industry thus relies more on them and turns to these academics when new problems arise (see positive loop “+1”).
Part of the funds obtained from the industry is used in relevant academic research. So academic progress is made and new knowledge is gained. Equipped with new knowledge, academic planners become more competent in solving real world problems for the industry (see positive loop “+2”).
The second basic structure is negative feedback loops that are generated during this process. These negative feedbacks create constraints on further development of the researcher–professional–teacher model. First, as tourism planners, the researchers are under pressure to ensure economic benefits, even financial benefits, within a short period of time. Sometimes solutions are given without scientific reasoning. These practices have impacted on tourism research. As a result, academic papers also tend to be policy–and solution–oriented. The issues which are not directly linked to perceived immediate economic benefits, such as the impacts of tourism development, planning theories, tourism behavior analysis and spatial analysis of tourists flows, have been neglected to some extent (Bao and Zhang, 2004; Wu, 2000).
Zhu and Liu (2004) made a comparison of the main research themes between two prestigious journals, Tourism Tribune of China and Annals of Tourism Research in the USA (Table 11.4) through the analysis of the key words. The result shows that “tourist behavior and market,” “tourism impacts,” and “theories and methodologies” received much more attention in tourism research overseas, while domestic tourism research are more policy–oriented, focusing on “tourist resources and planning” and “economics and management of tourism.” Social and environmental problems associated with tourism development, such as the distribution of tourist revenue, conflicts between hosts and tourists, and deterioration of natural environment, are overlooked to a certain degree in domestic tourism research.
Table 11.4 Comparison of topics of tourism literature between Tourism Tribune and Annals of Tourism Research, 2004
Source: Zhu and Liu, 2004
Methodologies used in tourism development and planning papers were limited to the traditional qualitative and descriptive methods (Bao and Zhang, 2004; Zhang and Lu, 2004). Overall, compared with the growth of the tourism planning activities, quality research in tourism has lagged behind.
Meanwhile, some academic planners who are occupied by planning activities inevitably spend less time teaching and have their students take part in the planning process as apprentices, without giving them systematic training. Therefore the quality of the education of tourism students is uncertain.
Changes of Tourism Plans from Demand Side
With the acceleration of tourism development and globalization, competition among tourism destinations has become more and more intensive. The performance of local government in China is basically evaluated by the number of tourists. The expectations of short–term benefits of the tourism plan are high. Tourism plans are requested to be operational, focusing on the short-term marketing plan, projects portfolios for attracting investments, and destination branding. In some places, the clients prefer an event plan rather than a tourism master plan because an event brings conspicuous effects in a short time. As a result, academic planners who are experts in developing master development plans in a systematic and sustainable way have begun to lose competitive advantage.
Growth of Tourism Planners
As discussed above, there has been an increase in the number of graduates majoring in tourism planning or related subjects. Despite the fact that tourism education in China suffers from many problems, such as poorly designed curriculums, lack of qualified teachers and low popularity of tourism faculties, it is clear that the trend is for more qualified graduates who will take part in and make contributions to tourism planning in China (Huang, 2001).
Apart from the graduates, an increasing number of international consulting companies have begun to think seriously of moving into the Chinese tourism planning market, after China’s entry into the WTO and the opening of its planning market. With the rapid growth of tourism and accumulated experience, the domestic clients also find it feasible and desirable to contract tourism plans with foreign companies in order to be more competitive to attract investment (especially foreign investment) and make their attractions known to more people. Professionals from urban planning institutes also enter and increase the supply of tourism planners. All these factors are raising the level of tourism professionals to a high level.
Pressure for Academic Planners to Focus on Academic Research
Tourism research and knowledge, like tourism development, are also accumulating rapidly. Apart from studies by tourism geographers, academics from other disciplines, for instance, anthropology and history, are attracted to tourism research and most of their studies focus on academic, not practical problems. What is more, international tourism studies and knowledge have become accessible to Chinese academics. The standards and criteria to evaluate academic research are moving toward international practice. By analyzing the citations of two journals, Tourism Tribute, a tourism journal, and Economic Geography, a non–tourism journal, respectively, it can be seen that citations began in 1993 and the number of citations for each paper continues to increase, reflecting the tendency for domestic researchers to follow the international academic standards (Zhang, 2002). The problem–solution paper is hardly acceptable. Academics are now under pressure to withdraw from consulting services to do academic research.
These external factors strengthen the negative feedbacks and reduce the cohesion of the triple role. The gradual withdrawal of academic planners from the planning market is illustrated in Figure 11.3.
Figure 11.3 The split of the roles of academic planners
Researchers across the globe in applied sciences such as tourism are facing the same problem: it is necessary for them to ideally play the role of researcher, teacher, and practitioner in order to fully comprehend the problems they intend to deal with, to turn scientific ideas into drivers of industrial innovation, and to pass valuable knowledge down to the next generation. But, in reality, it’s difficult to find a balance between these roles.
Although it seems that Chinese academics are gradually turning from the consultation–oriented role to the research–oriented role, the new paradigm also is problematic. In the short run, industries and policymakers will lose access to cutting–edge research and knowledge. In the long run, in the face of strong international competition of tourism destinations and the stresses on tourism resources, the sustainability of tourism development is uncertain. Academic research will also lose ground.
The shift of the paradigm also reflects the stress of globalization on the direction of Chinese tourism research and the local rationality of a triple-role model. Within the tourism world, academics must compete globally and therefore must follow international standards. For the competitiveness of the industry, a strong linkage between industry and academics is necessary. Maybe a shared vision and understanding in the academic world on the rationality of the existing triple-role model should be reached, and then a controlled changing paradigm will facilitate both the academic and the industrial world.
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