Introduction Hangzhou, as the homw of the China Academy of Art, is one of the most artistic city in China. No Doubt, pottery art in Hangzhou is also well developed. This blog will focus on my investigation on the pottery studios in Hangzhou, and recommand two distinctive ones to you guys as a tourism destination Background Though there are many pottery studios in Hanghzou, I found most of them are unprofitable. Actually, most artists starts thier own studio just for thier interest. There is no mature market to support thier business. As one of my interviewee said, since 2006 they start thier stuido, they have been making loss every year. Thus, most studios are quite small in term of size. But how to keep their business going? There is another pattern, diversified business. Most studios are making profits from other areas, like providing accommation, food service and so on. It not only creates profits for the business, but also provides a more integrated to those tourists. My Recommendation Zhe Yao International Creation Center Zhe Yao International Creation Center, located in Zheyao Park, is an integrated center for the art of manufacture of pottery. As soon as it set up in 2006, Zhe Yao has been one of the largest and most professional pottery studios in Hangzhou. Thus, it tends to attract both pottery artists, and citizens interested in pottery making. The building itself looks like most other traditional houses of Southern China. Two bright and large working spaces can contain up to 60 people making pottery at the same time. 4 instructors, who graduated from China Academy of Art, are enthusiastic and skillful to help customers with shaping, decorating, and glazing. Even after you are done with your pottery making, there are still much to explore in Zhe Yao. Wandering in Zheyao Park tends to be an enjoyable experience for citizens to realize pressure; visiting the nearby Zheyao Fine Art Museum can broaden your horizon by appreciating delicate pottery art works. The most impressive and creative work of pottery in exhibition is the Hundred Cats, a hounded cat pottery decorated and glazed by the artists all over the nation. After about two weeks of firing and other processes, you will be able to pick up your pottery, or it will be shipped to you. Address: Zheyao Park, Near The Crossroads of Tongyi Road, and Shixiang Road Tel: 0571-86452658 Diffuse Village Inn Diffuse Village Inn is a good place for young people to slow down and get away from their busy daily environment. Located in Manjuelong, a famous tourism destination in Hangzhou for tee tasting and osmanthus viewing, Diffused Village Inn attracts visitors all over the world. The boss, and designer of this place is Mingxing Zhang, who is also a graduate from China Academy of Art, is highly innovative with his masterpiece. The building, the stairs, and furniture, are almost decorated or made with wood. What is more, Graffiti of comic characters is around every corner of Diffuse Village. The pottery bar is located in the lower level of this inn. Though the size is small, necessary tools and the electrical kiln are there for customers to use. Art works of other customers are exhibited on the wall. If you want to make a more delicate pottery, the boss and his fellow are ready to provide professional instruction to you for free. The best part of this pottery bar is that you will have more time to design and create your work of art than in any other ones, because Diffuse Village won’t count time to charge you money. Nevertheless, as an inn, Diffuse Village is much more than a single pottery bar. Open-air restaurant, built on hill, is more like a maze rather than an ordinary restaurant. The bar, also on the lower level, is a terrific place to enjoy World Cup and enjoy beer with your peers. After a crazy night, cheap but tidy rooms will make you a sweet dream. No doubt, Diffuse Village Inn is your No.1 place to spend a weekend with your family and friends. Address: 248, Xiamanjuelong Tel: 0571-88191248 Pottential for Tourism Development There are some pottential markets for pottery studio to develop.
Firstly, family with kids is a first target market. After many years for recreation development, people are seeking for new methods to relax and have some fun. Unsurprisingly, pottery studios are good places to spend time with family. What is more, business tourism is another vital market. Companies want to hold their insentive activities and VIP acvtivities in a more innovative way. And pottery making, as an artistic activity, tends to attract their attention. However, we should notice there are also something to improve in order to attract a larger volume of tourists. For instance, how to standardize service is a question we need to think. As I learned from my interview, group customers are always not satisfied with their service. The reason may be that instroctors are who graduated from art schools and they can not deal with problems arised from a large population. Thus, adequate training is very necessary. Anyway, I still believe there is a good potential for Hangzhou to develop pottery business. Brief Introduction Eco-tourism is attracting more and more world-wide attention nowadays. I did a research on the eco-tourism project in Laojunshan, Yunnan Porvince, China, in order to get to know the pattern of launching an eco-tourism project in a certain tourism destination, where the tourism was undeveloped. Laojunshan ecotourism project is also special in that it is started by non-governmental organization. After the study, I think I am more aware of the importance of eco-tourism, and how I can contribute to it. Now, it is the best time for me to share my slides with you, and hope it will also make sense for you guys. As an international PRT student, I am really interested in world issue related to tourism industry. Thus, I enrolled in the International Tourism class, and created this tourism blog. As we talked before, there are some objectives to achieve for this class at the end of this semester. Now, it is the time for me to sum up and talk about my fulfillment of those goals. No.1 Tourism Related Issue Tourism industry is developing quickly nowadays. There are many elements pulling and pushing this industry from development. International tourism is especially under the influence of various barriers, such as language, culture, and policy. For instance, traveling to a region, where people speaks totally different language will be challenging for those who are not willing to take any risks. And there are many stakeholders in this industry, too. Thus, developing international tourism should take all the elements into consideration, so that it can go on smoothly. The vitality of environmental protection has been highlighted on recent years. In my consideration, eco-tourism is the industry, which meets with the criteria of sustainable development and occupies highest potential for development. Developing countries, including China, should be more open to international organizations, and welcome them to do research in their territory. It is because that most international organizations have adequate capital and rich experience for related issue. In addition, a standard accreditation should be approved in more areas. Only in this way can we standardize our development, and do make our tourism industry contribute the environmental protection. Addressing eco-tourism is not only for a certain country or simply making revenue, but also for the entire world. With the background of globalization, any domestic problems will influence the global environmental balance for sure. That is why we need to develop eco-tourism for our global community, rather than any individuals. As I said before, many stakeholders want to benefit from expanding tourism industry. But they tend to have totally different perspectives and requirements. Stakeholders in Tourism Industry
No.2 Project Reflection This blog is a part of my social awareness project, which is used to research and promote the tourism in a certain area. The resaon why I chose China for this project, is not simply because that I am a Chinese. I want to know more about tourism in China so that I can know what I can do to make a difference in my future career. Now, when I look back what I have done in this semester, I do find it is a very valuable experience.
What We Can Do From my past blogs, you will be able to know there are my problems existing within pricing in Chinese tourism, but there are something we can do, which will lead to a better and more enjoyable environment for tourists. Here, I would like to share my ideas.
No.3 Writing Requirement Fulfillment As an exchange student, though it is tough for me to do as good as a domestic students, I was supposed to improve my English writing skills through the whole-semester practice. Actually, I think I do achieve this goal. With the help from Professor Linda Ralston, and staffs in school writing center, I am now able to write what I wan to say without spending too much time on thinking about grammar. What is more, now I find it is not that difficult to achieve the word number requirement. As we need to write blogs for this class, I need to search Internet resource. It used to be the most troubling thing for me, because I feel the language barrier is so hard to overcome. But now, on the contrary, it is a great experience for me from learning on-line. There is more adequate resource on the Internet in English, which is helpful for me to write blogs and enrich my knowledge. Nevertheless, it is also a good opportunity for me to write and cooperate with different media. In order to make my blogs more convincing and attractive, I tried to find graphics and videos related to my topic. In this process, I was able to learn more about my proposed topic, and utilize them into my writing. And I also put my articles into different social medias, such as Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter, to attractive more traffic in my blog site. However, it is quite different when you post on different platforms. For example, if I want to post on social media, I would prefer easy and casual words. But if when I was writing my blog, I tent to use more professional vocabulary. Though it is still challenging for me to adjust my writing style to different situation, I believe I am improving gradually. Last but not the least, this class offered me with a lot of opportunities to practice my language skills. Sometimes, we need to fill out the some forms, while sometimes we need to write discussion notes. Even there was a time when we grouped up and worked together in the class to prepare a presentation for endangered places. With time limitation, I was required to express myself clearly and come up with as many ideas as possible. Though they challenged my both writing and oral English skills, I feel they do help me with my improvement. At last, I would like to thank my instructor, Linda Ralston, she is always willing to give me instruction and help!
Introduction I designed, and drew this infographic for my class, PRT 5610. This infographic is made to introduce tourism in China, and my ideas for how you can be a smart traveler in China. In order to do so, I decided to make it into 3 parts.
Brief Introduction and Background Information The tourism Law, which is approved in April, and came into effect on 1. October, 2013, is the first law that used to regulates the tourism industry in China. The 112 articles cover almost every concept of tourism industry in China, such as tourist safety, unfair competition and forced shopping trips. How it affects domestic and international tourism As listed above, China's tourism law focuses on promotion the quality of tourism products. However, on the contrary, it tends to raise the price at the same time. The forced shopping trip was frequently added to Chinese travel packages, since it is a chief method to lower the price. But now, according to this tourism law, this phenomenon was no longer legal to exist. As CNN reported in China's first tourism law comes into effect, tourists issued manners guide, that a total of 250 Chinese tourist groups registered to come to Hong Kong on October 1, 2013, Hong Kong's National Day, 30% fewer than last year. As you can see, those shopping sites and travel agencies surely suffered from this law. But for those inbound tourists, who comes from developed countries, it is obviously a good sign. They care little about the price but do concern their safety and the travel quality. So I am sure that this tourism law will benefit those agencies who focus on inbound tourists. My Reflection Though the tourism law banned the forced shopping trip, it does not means Chinese tourists are not allowed to go shopping while traveling. How the local business attracts them to shop consciously is a question we should consider. From my perspective, promoting the quality and particularity of products and service is what we can do and shall do at once.
This tourism law encourages higher quality, longer staying visitors and more FIT visitors. The tourism related industries in destination should capture this opportunity, and try to upgrade their products and service. What is Hainan? Hainan, which is the second largest island of China, has an area of 33,920 square kilometers (13,100 sq mi) and is China's southernmost province. It is famous for tropical scenery, pleasant climate, unique culture, and fresh seafood. I had lived in Haikou, which is the capital of Hainan, for more than two years, so I know this is really a terrific place for a visit. Program Details On April 20, 2011, a duty-free program commenced in order to increase luxury goods purchases. It permits domestic Chinese visitors to claim tax refunds on imported luxury items purchased within the province. The maximum value is set at 5,000 yuan (US$762), with lowered tax rates on purchases over 5,000 yuan. Each person can enjoy this off-shore duty-free policy twice a year, when shopping in the authorized stores. Check out this website for more information. In October 2012, duty limits were raised to 8,000 yuan ($1,273), and became available to both domestic and international tourists. According to the report from Xinhua News Agency, Offshore duty-free shopping in Hainan Province surged in 2013, with total sales reaching 3.3 billion yuan (540 million U.S. dollars), up 40 percent year on year. Why Hainan? As you can see, this policy do promote tourism and local economy in Hainan. But why Hainan is the first one to eat tomato? I have summarized several reasons below, according to my understanding.
What to Do in The Future? I have come up with several ideas for this program and its further development.
Overview of Hangzhou Hangzhou is located in Southeast coast of China. It is the capital of Zhejiang Province. Hangzhou is a top tourism city, historical city and vice provincial level city of China. With beautiful landscapes and rich cultural background, Hangzhou is renowned as “Paradise on Earth”, “Cultural State”, “Home of Silk”, “Tea Capital”, “Town of Fish and Rice”. For more information, please check the official English website of Hangzhou. Hangzhou Tourism Mode The video briefly introduces the reason to success of Hangzhou, being free. But what things are actually free in Hangzhou? I listed several below.
My Reflection You can easily get to the conclusion that being free sometimes means making more money in tourism industry. It is true that not all the tourism city can do the same as Hangzhou. Hangzhou do have somethings in special. Many scenic spots in Hangzhou is located in downtown, which means it is hard to separate them from the city. What is more, they also required less capital on conservation. But I still think we can learn something from Hangzhou.
Brief Introduction HZTC, short for Hangzhou Travel Center,was founded in 2003. The main services of HZTC is to proivide free or cheap transportation, hotel booking , travel information, and ticketing to both domestic and foreign tourists . To explore more, you are welcome to visit the offical site of HZTC. How It Fulfills the Cornerstones for Fair Trade and Responsible Tourism Fair Working Conditions: HZTC is founded by Hangzhou Government, which means it tends to give best welfare to employees. The employees of HZTC are also likely to enjoy the convenience of the travel center. The public transportation is more than easy for them to make use of. Fair Prices: It is really an enjoyable experience to choose HZTC! Once you arrive at the HZTC, you can transfer to public transportation in HZTC, you can be exempt of parking fee. What is more, the pubic transportation is also fair in price. The bus system (starting from 2 RMB), and metro system (starting from 3 RMB) is very cheap. You are also welcome to used free bicycle service. Integration Into the Local Economy and Regional Development: HZTC is not only for the tourists from other regions. On the contrary, it contributes much to local development. HZTC uses its advantages of pricing to attract tourists, and encourage them to buy the local tourism related services, such as hotel, dining, and travel attraction tickets. All of these stimulate the development of local economy. Fair Trade Partnerships Between All Actors in Tourism: As you can see from last paragraph, HZTC stimulates the development of all sectors of tourism in Hangzhou. Furthermore, when tourists save a lot of time and money on transportation, they are more likely to spend dollars on local business. Sustainable Resource Use and Environmental Justice: Tourists transfer to public transportation in HZTC sites. It can not only reduce the condition of trafic jam in tourist attractions, but also reduce the negative impact of emission from private cars. It really contributes to the environmental protection in Hangzhou.
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AuthorGejiang Huang, an exchange student in University of Utah, is now majoring in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. Archives
August 2014
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