The key to tourism-based poverty alleviation lies in playing the distinctive card well
According to relevant information, a considerable number of China's existing poverty-stricken counties are located within national ecological function zones, with pristine clear waters and green mountains and fine scenery, possessing a natural advantage for developing tourism. As China's tourism market continues to heat up, the tourism industry's potential to drive the local economy is becoming increasingly evident, and more and more poverty-stricken areas are treating tourism-based poverty alleviation as the breakthrough point and focus of their poverty alleviation efforts, turning clear waters and green mountains into "mountains of gold and silver" for the people to escape poverty and become prosperous.
However, in the process of tourism development, some areas have fallen into the predicament of "endless fine scenery, but all exactly the same," with development methods and operating models being identical, the breadth and depth of development being insufficient, and tourism products lacking distinctive features and cultural substance. Many tourism projects merely remain at the "farmhouse fun" model of "eating farm meals, doing farm work, staying in farmhouses," giving people a sense of "a thousand villages with one face," and unable to keep up with the development trend of diversified and personalized demand in the modern tourism market. After the initial sense of novelty is basically satisfied, homogenized tourism projects will drag tourists into a period of aesthetic fatigue, causing them to lose interest in tourism products, which is not conducive to the sustained and stable increase of income for the people relying on tourism to escape poverty.
The core competitiveness of tourism-based poverty alleviation is the distinctive scene of "a thousand villages, a thousand faces." Only by deeply exploring local distinctive differences, making up for the "shortcomings" in distinctive features, and turning tourists into "repeat visitors," can the goal of poverty alleviation through tourism be achieved.
Give play to the government's leading role and guide the orderly development of tourism resources. Government departments should adhere to planning first, systematically investigate what kind of resources and what kind of distinctive features poverty-stricken areas have, clarify the distribution of tourism resources, formulate tourism-based poverty alleviation development plans suited to local conditions, clarify development themes and development directions, design project development paths well, and regulate and guide the orderly development of the tourism industry, so as to avoid disorderly competition affecting and damaging the development of the tourism industry. At the same time, based on the market, cultivate highlights, develop different tourism products according to different source markets, and promote the healthy development of the tourism market.
Integrate local tourism resources and build distinctive tourism brands. Poverty-stricken areas should, according to their own actual conditions, after selecting the tourism development industry, continuously develop and improve tourism products, attract social capital, optimize the tourism environment, improve service quality, make the tourism industry bigger and stronger, advance toward "distinctiveness" and "branding," open up the tourism market with distinctive brands, and comprehensively enhance influence and competitiveness. At the same time, it is necessary to plan well for product promotion, market connection and deep processing of distinctive products, extend the tourism industry chain, and continuously increase the visibility of tourism brands and the added value of tourism products.
In addition, it is also necessary to persist in both development and protection and promote the sustainable development of the tourism industry. Relying on ecological resources to develop tourism-based poverty alleviation requires persisting in both development and protection, developing scientifically under the premise of environmental protection, establishing mechanisms for the protection of tourism resources and the ecological environment, cherishing every mountain and stone, every plant and tree, persisting in developing through protection and protecting through development, and forming a good situation of mutual promotion and win-win between tourism-based poverty alleviation and environmental protection.
Tourism-based poverty alleviation has great potential, but poverty-stricken areas must not blindly follow the trend. Instead, they should be down-to-earth, adapt measures to local conditions, play their own "distinctive card," and truly make tourism-based poverty alleviation show real results and bring real benefits to the poor.