The Beijing Winter Olympics brought a historical miracle to the development of China’s ice and snow tourism. It is both an opportunity and a challenge to reap the extra dividends of the times and to develop China’s ice and snow tourism. By selecting 18 academic papers, this special issue deeply discusses the status quo and the future measures of ice and snow tourism in China from three aspects: ice and snow tourism development and management, the ice and snow tourism experience and its influencing factors, and ice and snow tourism impact assessment. Moreover, one part entitled “Tourism Culture and Ecotourism” has been set up to emphasize those cutting-edge research topics. It is worth mentioning that this issue is in-depth and has profound connotations. First of all, the research area ranges from national to regional to the city-level, including both longitudinal and horizontal research. In additon, the research methods are practical, innovative, and at the frontier of scientific research, and include industrial correlation analysis methods, kernel density, spatial autocorrelation and other geospatial analysis methods, content analysis methods, sentiment analysis methods, structural equation models, Delphi methods, spatial statistics methods, geographic detector method and many others. In general, this special issue combines qualitative research with quantitative research, provides a variety of theoretical perspectives such as perceived value theory, institutional evolution theory, etc., and builds various useful models like the pre-competition evaluation model for ice and snow tourism heritage, the consumption skill-travel radius decision-making influence model under the moderating effect of the ski resort comprehensive leisure environment, the evaluation model of the suitability of glacier tourism resource development, the model of the relationship between tourists’ experience value and loyalty in the context of ice and snow tourism, among others. These studies are expected to provide theoretical and practical guidance for the development of ice and snow tourism in the post-Winter Olympics era, and help ice and snow tourism develop in a sustainable and high-quality direction.
Preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics have promoted the rapid development of ice-snow tourism in China, which contributes to achieving the goal of having “300 million people participate in ice-snow sports”. This paper analyzes the status quo and problems associated with the growth of ice-snow tourism in China based on the methods of documentation and field investigation. The results indicate that China’s efforts have born abundant fruits. Notwithstanding, there are still some problems due to the limited time and hastened process of ice-snow tourism development, including unreasonable exploitation, low-quality products and services, imperfect investment and financing system, inadequate management, a single marketing mode, and insufficient talent teams. Compared with developed countries in Europe and the United States, ice-snow tourism in China is in the stage of rapid development. To achieve the high-quality development of ice-snow tourism in China, this paper proposes actions from eight aspects which involve policy, products and services, marketing, safety management and control, talent teams, standardization construction, science and technology, and community participation. This study can provide references for the high-quality development of ice-snow tourism in China, as well as perfecting Chinese theoretical research on ice-snow tourism.
Ice-and-snow tourism (IST) is a booming industry, and the development of its industrial clusters reflects its regional development quality. Taking 1985-2021 data for China’s IST enterprises, this study used industrial cluster identification and industrial correlation analysis to explore the development of IST industrial clusters. The following results were obtained: (1) China’s IST initially formed hotspot industrial clusters in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Northeast, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Chengdu-Chongqing, and Xinjiang regions. (2) Multiple industry forms failed to become deeply integrated into development, indicating a need to optimize the structure of the IST industrial chain. (3) The development environment of IST industrial clusters in each province showed differentiated characteristics. (4) IST industrial clustering was affected by both internal and external factors. External factors were grouped into climate and ice-and-snow resources, government policies and sports events, and economic fundamentals and market conditions. Internal factors included industrial association and industrial integration in the IST industrial cluster. Based on this study’s identification of the characteristics of China’s IST industrial clusters, countermeasures are proposed for their optimal development.
The role of tourism in social and economic development and stabilizing the Olympic legacy has been widely discussed. Beijing is the first “Dual-Olympic City”. For the first time, the Beijing Winter Olympics has adopted a model of three competition areas, which has attracted much attention to the study of its tourism legacy. In the legacy plan, the construction of the “Beijing-Zhangjiakou Sports Culture and Tourism Belt” was proposed. The development of ice and snow tourism and the cultivation of the ice and snow tourism market is also reflected in many policy documents and government actions. The scientific planning before the competition laid a good foundation for the sustainable development of its ice and snow tourism heritage. This research combines Olympic legacy research with tourism destination theory, and focuses on ice and snow tourism directly related to the Winter Olympics and the significance of pre-event planning for legacy protection. At the same time, the improvement of the quality of ice and snow tourism destinations is embedded in the pre-Olympic legacy, and opinions and suggestions on how to ensure the stability of the legacy after the games are given. This study uses the literature review method and the second-hand materials survey research method, then through establishing a tourism legacy pre-game evaluation model and the use of geographic information, government reports, policies, publicly released statistics and news reports, etc.. It explores the legacy of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, aiming to lay the foundation for preserving the continuous value of the ice and snow tourism legacy during and after the Olympics. The results indicate that the Beijing Winter Olympics has made relatively complete plans and reliable progress in both tangible and intangible legacy. Complete tourism infrastructure, an optimistic sport and cultural atmosphere, and the improvement of residents’ health concept and sports awareness have become boosters for the development of ice and snow tourism in the Beijing-Zhangjiakou region.
Ski resorts are one of the bases for the development of ice-snow sports and tourism, and they are also a hot topic of social concern. Taking 117 ski resorts in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as the research object, geospatial analysis methods such as kernel density and spatial autocorrelation were used to explore the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of the ski resorts. The geographic detector was used to deeply explore the underlying factors influencing the spatial and temporal distribution of ski resorts in terms of policy factors, natural factors and economic and social factors. This study found that the spatial and temporal distribution of ski resorts in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region showed a significant Olympic event-driven characteristic. From 2009 to 2021, the spatial pattern of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei ski resorts has changed from “single-core development”, to a “single-core with multi-point” layout, and then to a “multi-core” layout. The spatial pattern has changed from agglomeration to diffusion. Cold and hot spots of the spatial and temporal characteristics in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei ski resort have shifted from north to south, from the initial suburbs of Beijing to the southern cities of Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and other cities in Hebei Province. The spatial and temporal distribution of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei ski resorts has been influenced by many factors, from “GDP per capita” to “population density” to “policy quantity”, showing a shift from “Economic-driven” to “population-driven” to “policy-driven” processes.
Chongli is one of the venues for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Since 2009, the government of Chongli has emphasized the development of a tourism strategy, which gradually contributed to alleviating regional poverty. With data collected from 2009 to 2019, ski tourism and the regional economy in Chongli were analyzed using the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) Model. This analysis indicated, first, there were three stages in the relationship between ski tourism and the regional economy in Chongli, including weak coordination (2009-2011), starting coordination (2012-2015), and strong coordination (2016-2019). Second, sport tourism, such as ski tourism, is likely to contribute to the regional economy and alleviate poverty. Third, the case of Chongli illustrates that policy and sports events are significant for helping a place to develop sports tourism, in addition to making full use of local resources. Finally, the development of skiing tourism has had a positive impact on citizens’ and farmers’ incomes, though it may have impacted citizens more. This research suggests that regional resources are essential for the development of sport tourism and the promotion of regional economies. Developing regions should seize the bonus period of sports events and policies. More attention should be paid to the differences between urban citizens and farmers in order to establish a better redistribution system. Considering the climatic factors, more studies need to analyze the sustainability of ski tourism in developing regions.
The skiing economy is a typical experience economy, so understanding the experience of ski tourists is essential to the development of the destination. To enrich the tourism experience research in the emerging ski market, this paper studies the 7118 online reviews of beginner skiers by selecting the main ski resorts in China as a case study. The content analysis method and sentiment analysis based on the domain lexicon and custom rules are combined to explore the perception characteristics of the beginners from the two aspects of experience dimension and experience satisfaction. Three main results were found. (1) The five main dimensions that affect the ski tourism experience of beginners are interaction perception, price perception, reputation perception, risk perception and functional perception. (2) For beginners, skiing is the primary purpose of tourism instead of being the critical factor of the positive reviews. They pay more attention to the pleasure produced by interpersonal interactions. (3) From 2014/2015 ski season to 2010/2021 ski season, the positive sentiment of beginners had no obvious change, while the negative sentiment showed a continuous downward trend, and the negative sentiment was mainly distributed among reviews on price, low temperature and service. This paper not only expands the research perspective of ski tourism, but also provides managerial inspiration for ski destinations interested in attracting beginners from the emerging ski markets.
Under the initiative of “encouraging 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports” and the guidance of the ‘Evidence-based’ policy-making process, this study takes the Hierarchical Model of Leisure Constraints as the theoretical framework to empirically explore the constraints influencing the participation of residents in Southern China in ice and snow sports. After factor analysis, the constraint dimension of residents’ participation was obtained, and the constraints of participants and non-participants were evaluated and compared by Propensity Score Matching (PSM). The results indicate that Chengdu residents have potential interest in and demand for winter sports, and the constraint dimensions are: facilities and services, companions, time, and personal feelings. The predisposition scores of the experimental group and the control group revealed that the constraints on interest, relevant knowledge and skills, and personal feelings of the participating group were significantly lower than those of the non-participating group, while the other constraints were not significant. We suggest that efforts should be made to increase the effective supply according to local conditions in order to reduce structural constraints, and the social attributes should be integrated into ice and snow sports to resolve the inter-personal constraints.
The successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics has brought historic opportunities for the development of ice and snow tourism in China. An index system for the evaluation of tourist satisfaction in ice and snow tourism destinations was constructed from the target layer-factor layer-index layer approach in this paper. Taking tourists with ice and snow tourism experience as the research object, and integrating a questionnaire survey and the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method, a total of 840 valid questionnaires were collected to assess the satisfaction of tourists in snow and ice tourism destinations, and the promotion model of tourist satisfaction in ice and snow tourism destinations was put forward. This process led to three main results. (1) Ice and snow tourists in China are characterized as young and better-educated, with college students aged 19 to 25 as the main consumer group. More than 70% of ice and snow tourists are pretty satisfied with the current development of ice and snow destinations in China, and are willing to participate again. (2) Other than “ice and snow souvenirs”, tourists’ perceptions of importance are all higher than the level of perceived satisfaction, and the importance values of the 13 indicators including “Scenic spot security” and “Diversity of ice and snow entertainment and sports” are especially high, showing that tourists have high expectations and demands of the destinations. However, the perceived satisfaction level of tourists for all indexes is generally low, mostly at the general satisfaction level, indicating that ice and snow tourism destinations have only partially met the demands of ice and snow tourists, and there is still much room for improvement. (3) After IPA analysis, five suggestions for improving the satisfaction of tourists in ice and snow tourism destinations were put forward, including diversification of the tourism business model, construction of tourism facilities, a market diversified cultivation model, a humanized mode of tourism service and a refined management model. The results of this study will help to enrich the theory of ice and snow tourist satisfaction and promote the high-quality development of China's ice and snow tourism in the post-Winter Olympics era.
The successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics has provided a new opportunity for the popularization of ice-snow sports and making improvements in the efficiency of ice-snow tourism in China. Taking Zhangjiakou City in Hebei Province as the research object and using questionnaire analysis and the structural equation model (SEM), this paper examined several hypotheses of the relationship between tourist experiential value and tourist loyalty in the context of ice-snow tourism, and a mediation analysis was conducted to explore the moderating role of travel companions. The results show that: (1) The functional value, emotional value and social value have significant positive effects on tourist loyalty; (2) Tourist satisfaction is a partial mediator between functional value, emotional value, social value and tourist loyalty, and a full mediator between cognitive value and tourist loyalty; and (3) Travel companions play a significant moderating role in the influence of emotional value on tourist loyalty. Based on these findings, several suggestions are put forward for the high-quality development of ice-snow tourism in China, including developing ice-snow family tourism products, building an ice-snow brand with winter Olympics characteristics, constructing the ice-snow industrial system, and cultivating ice-snow culture.
As an emerging mountain vacation tourism product, ski tourism is becoming increasingly important in the domestic tourism market. As an important theory for studying the quality of consumer experience, perceived value has been widely employed in tourism research in recent years, and improving the ski tourism experience value has become the focus of competition among ski tourism destinations. Taking the ski tourists in Chongli District of Zhangjiakou as an example, 305 valid questionnaires were collected by using online and offline methods. Based on the theory of perceived value, this paper adopted principal component analysis and cluster analysis to conduct a preliminary study of ski tourism experience and market segmentation. In addition, this paper examined the differences in demographic and behavioral characteristics of different types of ski tourists. This study finds that: (1) The perceived value of ski tourism experience includes four dimensions: facility value, perceived price, safety value and service value. (2) Using the perceived value to segment ski tourists, three different customer segments are identified: comfort-pursuant, price-sensitive and safety-oriented. (3) There are significant differences in key metrics, such as number of visits and stay time, among different types of ski tourists according to their demographic characteristics such as gender, age, monthly income, and behavioral characteristics. These results reveal the different dimensions of the perceived value of ski tourism experience and determine the market segments and characteristics of ski tourists. Developing a corresponding marketing strategy based on the different market segments can better promote the perceived value of ski tourists, and ultimately strengthen the competitiveness of the enterprises.
Starting from the skill characteristics of ski tourism, this paper discusses the impact of consumer skill on travel decisions, and the moderating effect of the ski resort’s comprehensive leisure environment (including the ski resort sports environment and the regional cultural tourism environment), in order to both understand their impacts on the travel distance characteristics of skiers and attempt to provide necessary research support for the development of China’s ski industry and the construction of destinations. Based on the data from multi-period visitor surveys, this paper constructs the consumption skill-travel radius decision-making influence model under the moderating effect of the ski resort comprehensive leisure environment. The results show three main characteristics. (1) The travel radius obviously differs among skiers with different skill levels. The skill level of skiers has a significant positive effect on the larger travel radius, and a significant negative effect on the smaller travel radius. That is, skiers with a higher skill level are more inclined to undertake long-distance skiing travel, while skiers with a lower skill level are more inclined to undertake short-distance skiing travel. (2) The comprehensive leisure environment has a significant moderating effect on the skiers’ travel radius, with a significant positive impact on enlarging the travel radius, while the influences on high-skill and low-skill skiers are significantly higher than on middle-skill skiers. (3) In the comprehensive leisure environment, there are differences in the moderating effect of the ski resort sports environment and the regional cultural tourism environment on the skiers travel radius, and the positive moderating effect of the ski resort sports environment on the high-skill skiers’ travel radius is more obvious. While the regional cultural tourism environment has a more obvious positive moderating effect on the travel radius of non-skiers and junior skiers, it is more conducive to promoting domestic travel. In general, the skier skill level in China was generally lower, and the ski resort comprehensive leisure environment optimization is conducive to overcoming the limitation of the travel radius caused by the disadvantageous skill level of consumers. However, to promote the development of China’s ski industry in the long run, it is necessary to focus on improving the consumer’s ski skill level, but prevent the risk of losing high-skill consumers overseas. In the course of improving the level of domestic ski sports facilities, we should also focus on the domestic leisure cultural tourism environment to better enhance the attractiveness of domestic ski destinations.
Resilience has become an important concept for the ski resorts of China, which have suffered heavy losses due to COVID-19. In order to help China’s ski resort service industry successfully adapt to the crisis and achieve sustainable development, the goal of this paper is to develop the definition of resilience of the ski resort service industry through interviews based on the concept and general analysis framework of resilience. The ski resort resilience theory analysis framework is then constructed from the three basic elements (market, skiing, and stakeholders) and four system features (flexibility, adaptability, and collaborative learning ability). The results indicate several measures that can be taken to spread risk: enrich the product supply; eliminate risks and build a multi-agent networked industrial governance system; and establish a risk prevention and management mechanism based on a multi-organization alternative learning mechanism to overcome the difficulties encountered in the development of ski resorts.
Glacier retreat is becoming more widespread and severe due to global warming, and improper exploitation of glacier resources by tourism activities accelerates the destruction of glacier landscapes. Therefore, establishing a set of quantitative assessment tools is critical for guiding the rational utilization of glacier tourism resources. This study selected regional tourism resources, the natural environment of glaciers, service support, and market demand factors to build a suitability assessment method for glacier tourism (SAMGT), and it used the Delphi and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the index weights, and combined them with GIS analysis technology. The Tibet autonomous region was proposed in this study as a case to build the SAMGT and provide scientific support for the rational development, scientific management, and sustainable development of glacier tourism resources. With regard to influencing the suitability of glacier tourism resource development, the results indicate that the weights of glacier resource endowment, ecological vulnerability, and tourism resource combination were high whereas that of market demand-related factors was low. The glacier tourism resource development area in Tibet can be divided into suitable, relatively suitable, barely suitable, and unsuitable exploitation zones, accounting for 5.39%, 9.76%, 15.28%, and 69.57% of the total area, respectively. Five representative glaciers were selected to verify the validity or test the rationality of SAMGT and prove that the model is reasonable, innovative, and effective from the perspectives of multiple dimensions and the comprehensiveness of the selected indicators.
The anthropogenic heat release from tourism activities has a cumulative effect on glacial retreat when coupled with climate change. Mitigating the impacts of glacial tourism activities on glaciers and promoting the sustainable development of glacial tourism have become urgent issues. Taking Yulong and Hailuogou glacier tourism destinations as examples, we collected survey questionnaires related to glacial tourists (n=1113) and tourism companies (n=329) by systematic field surveys during 2016-2017, and we obtained data on energy consumption from catering, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment, and waste disposal. This study builds a responsible tourism system and discusses the strategies and measures used to engage stakeholders (mainly tourism companies, tourists, local governments, tourism associations, and the central government) in responsible tourism in order to reduce the impacts of tourism activities on glaciers. These strategies mainly include: improving the energy efficiency of the supply of tourism products and services, promoting the consumption of low-energy tourism products and services, strengthening the supervision and management of low-energy consumption tourism development, creating an environment for energy savings and consumption reduction, and establishing a long-term operational mechanism for responsible tourism management. A rewsponsible tourism system allows stakeholders to properly address this dilemma, internalize sustainable development goals to find their intrinsic self-discipline, and work together to fulfill the public responsibility of realizing the sustainable development of glacial tourism.
The scientific evaluation of tourism resources is not only an important prerequisite for the development of agri-cultural heritage tourism (AHT), but it can also promote the conservation and management of Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (IAHS). With the goal of providing scientific support for the sustainable management of tourism resources, this review systematically analyzes the overall situation, research regions, developmental timeline trends, key fields and hot topics of resource evaluation research related to AHT over 2005-2020. With a comprehensive perspective that incorporates both traditional literature review and quantitative literature review, the study revealed four important aspects of AHT research. (1) Relevant articles could be divided into two phases, a development-oriented period (2005-2012) and a conservation-oriented period (2013-2020). (2) GIAHS accounts for the absolute majority (about 66.7%) of relevant studies. In particular, Longji Terraces System, Hani terraces system and Dong’s Rice-Fish-Duck System were the research hotspots IAHS, and Yunnan, Zhejiang and Guangxi were the research hotspot provinces. (3) Terraced landscapes and tea culture were the most popular themes in tourism resource evaluation, while sports tourism, tea culture tourism and study tours are becoming the new trends in IAHS sites. (4) Research methods have undergone a shift from qualitative to quantitative approaches, and a combination of these two in an interdisciplinary manner is becoming a new research trend. By reviewing and prospecting the relevant literature, this study not only makes a unique contribution to the tourism resource evaluation of IAHS, but also helps to enrich the relevant evaluation theories and further promote the sustainable development of heritage tourism from theoretical and methodological perspectives.
Research on the evolution of cultural policy is the key in the field of public policy study, and it is also an important means to solve the problems that have emerged in cultural heritage management. The National Cultural Park is an innovative cultural heritage protection system proposed by Chinese leaders within the context of national rejuvenation and building a culturally-strong country campaign. From the perspective of system evolution theory, this paper systematically sorts out the ideas behind international heritage management and the evolutionary process of the Cultural Relics Protection Unit system, in an effort to explore the origin, innovation and vision of the National Cultural Park System. A review of the international heritage documents revealed that the principle of heritage protection has developed from “authenticity” to “integrity”, and the focus of the protection object has also changed from “monism” to “diversity”, which provided a theoretical background for the burgeoning National Cultural Park. The Cultural Relics Protection Unit system has been promoted as the most crucial cultural heritage management system in China. Therefore, this study sheds light on the evolution and limitations of the system that lays a practical foundation for the National Cultural Park System. There have been three stages in the history of China’s National Cultural Relics Protection Unit, namely, the creation of the system (1956-1965), the survival crisis of the system (1966-1977), and the rebirth and development of the system (1978 to the present), in which the main driving concepts of China's cultural heritage management have been sequentially elucidated as simple protectionism, tolerant conservatism and comprehensive developmentalism, respectively. Since the establishment of China’s Cultural Relics Protection Unit system, tremendous progress has been made not only in the enlightenment of the public’s mindset and but also in the development of system and culture. However, the changes in the institutional environment gradually exposed its limitations regarding cultural relic management and value expression. The National Cultural Park System is the fruit created by the internal contradictions of the cultural heritage system itself and the evolution of heritage theory. Its biggest innovation lies in the two core connotations of “integrated protection” and “integrated development”. In the future, as the National Cultural Park management system matures, a Chinese cultural heritage management system will take shape in which the National Cultural Parks become dominant and various cultural resources are utilized. Finally, the National Cultural Park will become a symbol of Chinese culture and will be internalized into the common belief system of the Chinese nation.
In the era of sustainable development, the ecological impact of the development of the tourism industry has attracted extensive attention from all walks of life. Generally considered, tourism ecological security (TES) is an important link to realize the high-quality development of tourism destinations and promote the construction of ecological civilization. Based on keyword discrimination of TES, tourism ecological risk and tourism ecological health, and from the perspective of ecological civilization construction, this paper uses the databases of Web of Science and CNKI as data sources to systematically comb and analyze TES research from the aspects of development process, research methods and research content, and puts forward the prospects for future research on this basis. This analysis found that research in the TES field presents four main characteristics. (1) The phased characteristic of “germination - exploration - development” is significant, and a relatively standard research framework of “evaluation - influencing factors - early warning - regulation” has been formed. (2) The empirical orientation of the research methods is distinct. (3) The development trend is characterized by small-scale dominance and a large-scale surge. (4) The disciplinary integration and practical combination have been continuously strengthened. Combined with the development trends and hot spots of TES, this paper proposes that the direction and goal of deepening TES research in the future should be carried out from the aspects of strengthening research on thresholds, early warning and regulation, improving the application of big data, constructing the synergistic effect mechanisms between tourism and ecology, and realizing the longitudinal deepening and interconnection of scale research.
Despite the rapid development of flower-viewing tourism in China in recent years, there is almost no systematic research on it. Therefore, this study analyzes the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of flower-viewing tourism and its influencing factors in China using the spatial statistical analysis methods and the geographic detector method. The study uses the Point-of-Interest data of flower-viewing tourist attractions from networks such as Qunar and Ctrip, the flower observation data from China Phenological Observation Network, Chinese network news, and Weibo, and the statistical data from yearbooks. The results are as follows: 1) The spatial attribution type of flower-viewing tourism in China is aggregated into areas, including two high-density aggregated areas, three medium-density aggregated areas, and one general-density aggregated area. Furthermore, five major types of flower-viewing tourist attractions have formed several aggregated areas. 2) The time of flower viewing in China starts from about February and lasts about eight months till October each year. Florescence and flowering time of different ornamental flowers in different regions are different. 3) The spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of flower-viewing tourism in China are mainly affected by ornamental flower phenology, spatial distribution characteristics of flower-viewing resources, regional permanent population size, youth population size, female population size, regional GDP, and added value of the tertiary sector. These conclusions clarify the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of flower-viewing tourism and its influencing factors in China. They could provide a scientific basis and useful reference for the coordination and sustainable development of regional flower-viewing tourism in China.
