Hunan people use food to attract tourists
On September 16th, the second Hunan Tourism Development Conference was held in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province. As one of the supporting activities, the 2023 China Food Tourism Development Forum will be held simultaneously. The forum focuses on the development and innovation direction of the tourism industry on the path of modernization, and revolves around the topic of "New Energy of Food and New Life of Tourism". It provides a high-end dialogue and industry university research docking platform for the national cultural and tourism industry, using food as a medium to tell good tourism stories.
During the forum, the benchmark of "Popular Tourism · Food Series" was released. Among the top ten food tourism cities in China, Beijing, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shunde District of Foshan, Wuhan, Yangzhou, Quanzhou, and Kaifeng were selected. Among the ten food and tourism streets in China, they are Pozi Street in Tianxin District, Changsha City, Hongyadong Food Street in Chongqing City, PLUS Qushuiwan Food Street in Shunde District, Foshan City, Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street in Liwan District, Guangzhou City, Pichaiyuan in Qingdao City, Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street in Hefei City, Fuzimiao Pedestrian Street in Nanjing City, Sanfang Qixiang in Fuzhou City, Dabazha Pedestrian Street in Tianshan District, Urumqi City, and Heping Night Market in Chenzhou City.
It is worth mentioning that in the special case of "Popular Tourism · Food Series", Zhejiang Province's "Tasty Zhejiang • Hundred Counties and Thousand Bowls" and Hunan Province's "Tasty Hunan • Going to Hunan as a Tasty Place" were both shortlisted, once again interacting across the air. In March of this year, a delegation from Zhejiang province went to Hunan to conduct research on how to promote local cuisine. At that time, Tong Daxing, a fourth level researcher at the Business Operations Department of the Department of Commerce of Zhejiang Province, talked about the research trip. The most memorable moment was at midnight in Changsha, the brightly lit Xiangjiang Middle Road, and the long queue at the entrance of Chayan Yuese. In recent years, Zhejiang has continued to make efforts in the field of "cuisine", aiming to create a new path for food brands and build a strong province of food culture.
Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Research Institute, believes that China has entered a new stage of comprehensive development of mass tourism, and the development of food tourism is timely. Next, efforts should be made to explore new paths of leveraging food to drive tourism development, cultivate a large market for food tourism consumption, and accelerate the formation of industrial clusters. Li Hui from the China Tourism Research Institute gave a report on the development of food tourism in Hunan as an example. She found that outside the scenic area, cuisine has become the most core element for tourists to perceive Hunan. Li Hui suggests that from the government's perspective, efforts should be made to accelerate the integration of catering and tourism development. On the one hand, it is necessary to establish a big tourism mindset, view food tourism from the perspective of urban evolution, incorporate tourist needs into urban planning and operation systems, and strengthen interaction and cooperation among government departments, departments, and industries; On the other hand, we need to form a big food mindset, view food tourism from the perspective of optimizing industrial structure and integrating innovative formats, continuously expand the food tourism product system, and drive the upgrading of the food tourism industry.
As the saying goes, "food is the paramount necessity of the people", local cuisine is always talked about, and as a result, classic buzzwords such as "food desert" have emerged. If we delve deeper into the reasons, it is related to boosting consumption. For example, in Zhejiang, the contribution rate of the catering industry to the total retail sales of consumer goods in society is over 10%, which does not include other industries such as tourism and entertainment driven by catering. Hunan cuisine has long been well-known, and Hunan's intention is to explore the development model of "food+tourism", polish the unique business card of "food tourism in Hunan", open up new paths for the development of food tourism, and continuously promote the combination of food inheritance and tourism brand innovation.
In recent years, Hunan has supported and cultivated the cultural tourism industry as a strategic pillar industry, with the added value of tourism accounting for over 6% of GDP. Shanghai is one of the important customer markets in Hunan. At the end of 2014, the high-speed railway from Shanghai to Changsha was fully operational, and since then, economic and trade cooperation between Shanghai and Hunan has become increasingly close. At that time, experts predicted that the Shanghai Kunming high-speed railway may increase the number of tourists visiting Hunan each year by at least 20%. Last year, the total revenue of the tourism industry in Hunan Province was 648.8 billion yuan, receiving 435 million tourists. In the first half of this year, the total number of tourists received in Hunan Province was 292 million, achieving a total tourism revenue of 437.246 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.27% and 67.33%, respectively.
