Inner Mongolia lays out plan to develop 'holistic tourism'

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2016-09-25

Officials from Inner Mongolia autonomous region laid out a promising plan to develop holistic tourism in the region during the Inner Mongolia Holistic Tourism Conference.

The plan focused on four main topics: rigorous planning, improving services, emphasizing local culture and strengthening cooperation.

Officials stressed the importance of having a clear strategy during the conference.

Inner Mongolia will continue to construct brand scenic spots to increase its core competency and influence of tourism industry in this region. Taking advantage of its brand scenic spots, a series of thematic quality itineraries will be explored, which can compose a connected and convenient network.

Special attention will be given to outbound travel itineraries to combine the development of frontier tourism and cross-border tourism. Besides, it is of great importance to optimize the tourism resource utilization across different regions, integrate the scattered tourist spots together and build a comprehensive tourism network.

The Wudangzhao Temple

Improving services is another crucial step to develop holistic tourism. To achieve this purpose, the following measures need to be taken:

- Inner Mongolia will enhance its infrastructure construction as well as tourism transportation construction to raise the entire service level;

- It will build appropriate tourism service facilities, such as toilets, parking lots and tourist distribution centers, and improve urban service facilities so that urban transportation, hotels and restaurants, trades and entertainment will grow fast and more public leisure facilities will be constructed such as parks, museums and theatres;

- It will also establish a supporting financial system which will function in collaboration with the holistic tourism plan and construction process; it will improve the service quality of tourism enterprises, tourist attractions, tourist towns and tourism workers to provide more sophisticated service to tourists;

- By developing holistic tourism, Inner Mongolia will integrate its inner tourism resources and construct a smart tourism system.

Genghis Khan's Mausoleum

As for how to underline local features, Inner Mongolia must adjust measures according to local conditions rather than apply the same tactics everywhere. Efforts will focus on the improvement of travel services and infrastructure construction.

Meanwhile, investment promotion needs to be propelled and new tour products and commercial forms will be proposed.

The region should also leverage its proximity to Russia and Mongolia and its unique culture to highlight the vital role tourism can play in promoting economic cooperation among China, Russia and Mongolia.

It will make efforts to build both a border tourism demonstration area and a cross-border tourism collaboration area.

Hohhot Laoniu Bay

Co-construction and sharing also plays an indispensible role in developing holistic tourism. Apart from that, organization and leadership must be strengthened.

Government at all levels should place a high priority on building holistic tourism, increase funding and policy support, and remove barriers to development. All departments should enhance coordination and collaboration to work more efficiently and guarantee that measures are implemented effectively.

Inner Mongolia should also learn lessons from the experiences of more advanced provinces, strive to construct effective law enforcement mechanisms, implement a vacation system beneficial for tourism and perfect evaluation mechanisms.

In addition, Inner Mongolia will organize targeted and creative activities to continuously elevate the popularity, reputation, attraction and influence of region-based tourism.