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Abstract
A sound policy and regulatory framework is essential in planning for sustainable tourism development. The paper examines opportunities and challenges for China's planning for sustainable tourism development from both policy and regulatory perspectives. Despite the enthusiasm for sustainable tourism, China's existing relevant policy and regulatory frameworks are generally fraught with contradictory objectives, and they are also often incoherent, have ambiguous legal provisions, and many organizations have duplicate responsibilities, unclear definitions of responsibilities, interlocking activities, and weak coordination due to the complicated institutional structure. Based on Shanxi Province, the paper explores the policy and regulatory issues affecting tourism and its sustainability, and it also assesses the possible options to foster an improved policy and regulatory framework for China's sustainable tourism development. A much stronger political will from all levels of government will be required to overcome a prevalent mindset for short-term economic growth and deep-rooted practices in pursuit of departmental benefits. It is also necessary for China and Shanxi under the new national tourism law to articulate and coordinate its laws and regulations with much improved supportive bylaws. Finally, more rational and effective institutional arrangements are needed, with clearly defined functions and responsibilities for government at varied levels.
一个规范的构架和政策对于规划旅游业的可持续发展是很必要的。本文从政策和规范两方面阐述了中国旅游业可持续发展的机遇和挑战。尽管对旅游业充满热情，但由于复杂的机构组织，中国目前的相关政策和规定普遍有相互矛盾的目标，并且它们连贯性差，法律上模棱两可，许多政府组织职责重叠，职责限定不清晰，连锁反应和协调能力弱。基于山西省，本文探索政策和规范问题对旅游业和其可持续性的影响。并且评估了能够促进中国旅游业可持续发展政策和体制的可能措施。中国政府的政策从各方面强烈表明要改变只追求短期经济增长和部分利益的普遍心态。这要求中国和山西都需要出台更好的规章制度来进一步协调和运用新的国家旅游法。最后，在政府各方面更加明确的职责限定下，也需要在更加理智和有效的机构重组。
Acknowledgements
This paper is partially based on the author's research project – “Legal Issues on the Protection of Cultural and Historical Tourist Resources in China”. The author is also grateful for all the reviewers and especially Prof. Bill Bramwell for their constructive suggestions for finalizing this paper.
Notes
1. Shanxi is well-known for the “home of coal”. According to the recent official statistics, Shanxi has a reserve of 641.317 billion tons of coal, covering over 40% of the total provincial territory (Wang, Dong, Ding, & Kong, Citation2012, p. 207).
2. Grand courtyard culture refers to folk dwellings in North China and the architectural style they represented during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties in Chinese history. They are typically huge quadrangle courtyards with high walls, forming symmetrically connected yards along the central axis, and looking like a “double happiness” in Chinese, meaning auspicious and festive. Shanxi epitomizes these courtyards, being a powerful witness of 500 years of the rise and fall of Jin (Shanxi) merchants.
3. People in China have traditionally worshipped their ancestors, so much so that they all wish to finally return to the ancestral home when they get old.
4. According to estimates, during the eight-day holidays (including the mid-autumn festival and the National Day) in 2012, Shanxi received some 22.48 million domestic and foreign visitors, recouping almost 14.4 billion RMB, and equaling the revenues during a regular month (news.xinhuanet.com, Citation2013).
5. These laws and regulations are excerpted from those drafted after the early 1980s and are intended to be illustrative, and they should not be considered complete and definitive.
6. For years, it has been a prevalent financial practice in China that the traveling expenses of civil servants cannot be reimbursed against invoices issued by travel agencies in order to crack down on tours at the public expense. In fact, the dark side does exist in reality through disguised practices. The provision of Shanxi's regulations introduces the possibility of travel agencies legally contracting for public travel activities, which is likely to make travel expenditure at the public expense more transparent and rational.
7. As with other Chinese NGOs, most tourism-related NGOs have been highly “bloated” with administrative interference, that greatly affects their normal operations in terms of personnel arrangements, allocation of budgets, and even routine work, and to a large extent this makes things more complicated. Therefore, the de-administration of NGOs has a high profile at the moment since the central government has recently called for a vigorous reform of governmental functions.
8. Li devised 16 mega-attractions covering all of Shanxi's tourist resources, except mining sites, including natural, cultural, historical, and religious attributes. They are attraction groups with each having its own core asset as a leading place of visitation, such as world heritage sites and nationally accredited tourist attractions, coupled with other assets in the vicinity.
9. To conduct corporatization and privatization does not mean that the government ceases to interfere with tourist activities. Rather than applying imposed regulations, the government may allow the market to act through a governance process involving other forms of intervention, such as financial incentives, education, and even the potential for future intervention, in order to encourage the tourism industry to move in particular directions, often via self-regulation (Hall, Citation2011a).
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Xia Cao
Prof. Dr. Xia Cao holds an LLM from the Center for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Policy and Law (CEPMLP), University of Dundee (CEPMLP), Scotland, UK; and a PhD from the Law School, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China. She is now professor of law at the Faculty of Law, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China. Her research interests include environmental and natural resources policy and law, and comparative environmental and natural resources policy and law.