Lack of innovation and severe homogenization

In today's era of booming cultural tourism, the integration of cultural creativity and IP is in the market introduction phase, a stage full of opportunities and challenges. The cultural and creative industry is regarded as a new engine for tourism development, capable of injecting unique cultural connotations into scenic spots and creating attractive tourism products and experiences through integration with IP (intellectual property). However, the reality is far from satisfactory.

Most scenic areas have failed to keep pace with innovation in this wave. Few scenic spots can invest enough human, material, and time resources to deeply explore their own cultural characteristics, thereby providing original IPs that effectively enhance visitor experience and service quality. There are multiple reasons behind this. On the one hand, innovation requires a professional talent team that understands the demands of the tourism market and has keen insights into cultural creativity, but such composite talents are relatively scarce. On the other hand, developing original IPs often involves high risks, requires substantial upfront investment, and has uncertain return periods, which deters many scenic spots.

At the same time, the activity plans offered by scenic spots are often identical. Whether it's traditional folk culture performances or modern amusement facilities, there is a surprising similarity between different scenic spots. For example, in many ancient town scenic areas, visitors see the same old traditional handicraft displays, such as sugar painting and paper cutting, with almost no difference in performance form and content. This homogenization has led to fierce competition. To compete for limited tourist resources, various scenic spots can only focus on pricing, falling into a vicious cycle of low-price competition, while neglecting to attract tourists by improving product and service quality.

Low professional quality and skills of the operating team

With the development of the tourism industry, traditional scenic areas face numerous operational management challenges. Among them, the status of the operating team has a crucial impact on the development of the scenic area. 

Some operating teams in traditional scenic areas have the problem of an older average age. The formation of this phenomenon has its historical reasons. In the past, the development of the tourism industry was relatively slow, and the professional requirements for personnel in scenic area operation and management were not as high as they are now. Many employees were recruited locally, entering scenic areas based on their familiarity with the local area and simple enthusiasm for tourism work. Over time, these employees have grown older, but due to a lack of opportunities for systematic knowledge and skill updates, they appear powerless in dealing with the complex demands of the modern tourism market.

These operating teams not only have an older average age, but also suffer from prominent issues such as low professional quality and inadequate professional skills. Professional quality includes aspects such as professional ethics and service awareness. In some scenic spots, employees lack basic respect for tourists and service enthusiasm, dealing with tourist issues perfunctorily. In terms of professional skills, with the advancement of technology, the tourism industry's demand for skills like digital operation and intelligent management is growing, but many scenic spot employees have almost no knowledge reserves in these areas.

At the same time, the management personnel of scenic spots often come from non-professional backgrounds. In the early stages of scenic area development, the selection of personnel for management positions was more based on work experience or local connections, rather than professional ability. This has led to uneven levels in their management awareness, concepts, and skills. For example, when formulating scenic area development strategies, they lack long-term vision and scientific planning, merely blindly following market trends; in terms of marketing, they don't know how to use modern marketing methods to enhance the scenic area's reputation; in human resource management, they cannot effectively motivate employees to improve work efficiency and service quality.

Low operational efficiency, weak control, poor service

1. In terms of operations, scenic areas generally suffer from low operational efficiency

The seasonal nature of the tourism industry is particularly evident in scenic area operations, especially during peak periods such as holidays and Golden Weeks. During these times, the number of visitors shows explosive growth. However, many scenic spots are not adequately prepared to handle this.

From the perspective of transportation facilities, the parking lot planning in scenic areas is often unreasonable, with limited parking spaces, leading to long queues of tourist vehicles outside the scenic area, unable to enter in time. There are also problems with internal traffic management within the scenic area, such as an insufficient number of sightseeing vehicles and unreasonable route settings, making it inconvenient for tourists to transfer within the scenic area. This often results in situations where tourists are stuck, unable to enter, get on, or leave the scenic area.

Regarding ticketing systems, traditional manual ticket counters are often overcrowded during peak periods, while electronic ticketing systems may suffer from technical malfunctions or network congestion, greatly extending the time for tourists to purchase tickets and enter the park. Furthermore, catering and accommodation facilities within scenic areas also face immense pressure during peak periods, with insufficient service staff unable to meet tourist demands, further reducing operational efficiency.

2. At the same time, scenic areas have weak control capabilities and a lack of service and collaborative awareness. 

The control capability of scenic areas involves multiple aspects, including controlling tourist flow, managing commercial activities within the scenic area, and preventing safety risks. However, many scenic spots are deficient in these areas.

In terms of tourist flow control, there is a lack of effective early warning mechanisms and diversion measures. When the number of tourists approaches the scenic area's capacity, visitors cannot be promptly notified and guided to other scenic spots or advised to adjust their visiting times.

In terms of managing commercial activities within scenic areas, there is weak oversight of merchant business practices, leading to instances of price gouging. For example, some catering businesses within scenic areas have inflated prices and inconsistent product quality.

A prominent issue is also the lack of strong service and collaborative awareness. There is a lack of effective communication and coordination among various departments within scenic areas. For example, information is not shared between the ticketing department and the tour guide department, preventing tour guides from obtaining timely ticket information for tourists; there is a lack of synergy between the catering department and the accommodation department, unable to provide tourists with one-stop service packages. This siloed approach leads to low overall operational efficiency, numerous safety hazards, and lagging service quality.

Product aging, long iteration cycles, single profit model

1. Many mid-to-low quality tourist scenic spots face issues such as product aging, facility aging, and rigid thinking. 

In today's increasingly competitive tourism market, tourism attractions of medium-to-low quality face enormous survival pressure. These attractions were often established in the early stages of tourism development, with relatively simple designs for tourism products and facilities. Take some mountain tourism attractions as an example; for many years, they have relied on natural scenery tours as their main product, only setting up simple hiking trails and viewing platforms, lacking in-depth development. The aging of facilities is also very serious. Hiking trails may have uneven surfaces and damaged railings due to years of wind, rain, and wear and tear from tourists, but repairs and upgrades have not been carried out in a timely manner.

At the same time, rigid thinking is also an important factor restricting the development of these attractions. The management of the attractions often lacks innovative awareness, is content with the status quo, and is unwilling to try new tourism products and business models. This conservative thinking leads to long product iteration cycles, and the transformation and upgrading of supporting service facilities cannot keep up with the changes in the tourism market and the growing needs of tourists.

2. Meanwhile, the attractions' profit model is single, with low customer unit price and customer unit value.

Traditional tourism attractions mainly rely on ticket revenue for profit, which is a very single profit model. For most attractions, ticket prices are relatively fixed and are subject to market competition and tourist psychology, making it difficult to significantly increase them.

The gradual rise of surrounding emerging attractions has further diverted a large part of the traffic from old attractions, causing the operation of some old attractions to deteriorate. Emerging attractions can often attract tourists with novel tourism products, advanced facilities and equipment, and flexible marketing strategies. In contrast, old attractions are gradually at a disadvantage in market competition due to aging products and a single profit model. Low customer unit price means that the amount of money each tourist spends in the attraction is limited, while low customer unit value means that the overall profit the attraction obtains from each tourist is meager. For example, some old attractions, in addition to ticket revenue, only have a small amount of income from catering and souvenir sales, lacking high-end tourism experience projects like emerging attractions, such as characteristic homestays and theme performances, which cannot improve the level and amount of tourist consumption.

Poor hematopoietic and blood transfusion functions

In the development of tourism attractions, funds are a crucial factor. However, many attractions face serious difficulties in terms of funding, lacking the ability to generate their own profits and the ability to obtain external financing.

From the perspective of self-hematopoietic ability, the profitability of an attraction depends on multiple factors, such as the attractiveness of the product, the number of tourists, and their spending power. Many attractions, due to aging products and lack of innovation, cannot attract enough tourists, or tourists spend less in the attraction, resulting in limited income for the attraction. For example, some attractions with a historical and cultural theme only rely on simple exhibitions and explanations of cultural relics to attract tourists, lacking interactive experience projects with tourists, resulting in short tourist stays and few consumption opportunities.

The lack of sufficient funds to renovate, upgrade, and innovate products is a real problem faced by many attractions. Developing new tourism products and upgrading existing facilities requires substantial investment, including market research, product design, and engineering construction. However, due to the limited profitability of the attractions themselves, they cannot accumulate enough funds to develop these projects.

From the perspective of external financing capabilities, attractions find it difficult to obtain loans because the special nature of their products and projects does not form effective assets, and therefore they do not meet the loan conditions. The assets of attractions mainly include land, buildings, and natural landscapes, which may not be considered effective collateral or assets with stable returns in the assessment system of banks and other financial institutions. For example, although natural landscapes have extremely high tourism value, they cannot be clearly valued and mortgaged like industrial plants or commercial real estate, making it difficult for attractions to obtain bank loans. This has resulted in some attraction projects becoming a burden, neither having enough funds for development nor being able to maintain their current operating level, thus being in an awkward situation.

Problems with multi-departmental coordination

1. The system of tourism attractions may have complexity and opacity, leading to chaos in the development, management, and operation of the attractions.

Tourism attractions often involve multiple levels of government departments, enterprises, and local communities, among other stakeholders. Different stakeholders have their own needs and goals, making the management of attractions complex and diverse.

For example, in the development of attractions within some national nature reserves, it is necessary to follow relevant national nature conservation laws and regulations, consider the economic development needs of local governments, and also take into account the interests of local community residents. National laws and regulations may have strict restrictions on the development and construction of attractions, such as regulations on land use and environmental protection; local governments hope to drive local economic development and increase fiscal revenue through the development of attractions, and may tend to relax some restrictions; while local community residents are concerned about whether the development of attractions can bring them job opportunities and improved living conditions. This game of multiple interests leads to the complexity of the system.

At the same time, due to the lack of public information or poor information flow, the opacity of the system is also very prominent. The planning, construction, and operation of attractions may involve behind-the-scenes operations, which not only harms the public interest but also makes the development, management, and operation of attractions lack effective supervision and regulation, easily leading to chaos.

2. Conflicts of interest between different departments and institutions, lack of coordination and communication, may hinder the development of attractions.

The management and operation of attractions involve multiple departments and institutions, such as the tourism bureau, environmental protection bureau, and forestry bureau. Each department has its own functions and powers, playing a role in different aspects of the attractions.

For example, the tourism bureau may hope that the attractions can add more tourism facilities and projects to attract more tourists; the environmental protection bureau is concerned about the environmental protection of the attractions and may impose stricter environmental protection requirements on construction projects within the attractions; the forestry bureau will, from the perspective of forest resource protection, restrict some development activities within the attractions. If these different functional goals lack coordination and communication, conflicts of interest are easily generated.

When an attraction wants to develop a new tourism project, it may be unable to proceed because it cannot obtain environmental assessment permits from the environmental protection bureau or resource use permits from the forestry bureau. This contradiction and lack of coordination between departments will hinder the development of attractions, making it impossible for attractions to make timely decisions and actions when facing development opportunities.

Issues of ownership and operating rights

1. The ownership and operating rights of some tourism attractions may belong to different departments or institutions, which may lead to incoordination and chaos in the development of the attractions.

In China's tourism attraction management system, the separation of ownership and operating rights is relatively common. For example, in some large natural attractions, the land ownership belongs to the state or collective, while the operating rights may be transferred to enterprises or other organizations through bidding or leasing.

This separation model may lead to a series of problems in actual operation. Due to the different entities of ownership and operation, there may be differences between the two parties in terms of scenic area development goals and business strategies. The department or institution that owns the property may be more concerned with the protection of scenic area resources and long-term sustainable development, while the enterprise that obtains the operating rights is more concerned with economic benefits and short-term returns.

For example, in order to pursue short-term increases in tourist numbers and revenue, enterprises may over-develop scenic area resources, adding a large number of commercial facilities while neglecting the protection of the scenic area's ecological environment and cultural heritage. The ownership department, due to a lack of direct intervention in operating rights, may be unable to stop this destructive behavior in a timely manner, leading to incoordination and chaos in the development of the scenic area.

2. In addition, the interests of scenic area operators may not be consistent with the long-term development goals of the scenic area, thus affecting the sustainable development of the scenic area

The business decisions of scenic area operators are often driven by economic interests. In order to maximize profits, they may adopt measures that are not conducive to the long-term development of the scenic area.

For example, some scenic area operators, in order to save costs, reduce investment in the maintenance and updating of scenic area facilities, leading to aging facilities and declining service quality. In terms of tourism product development, they may only focus on the short-term benefits of popular projects, while neglecting the excavation of the overall cultural connotation of the scenic area and the in-depth development of products. Although this short-sighted behavior may bring certain economic benefits in the short term, in the long run, it will damage the image and attractiveness of the scenic area and affect its sustainable development.

Over-commercialization Issues

With the development of the tourism industry, some scenic area investors have seen the huge commercial potential it contains and have flocked to the scenic area investment and development field. However, in the pursuit of commercial interests, some investors may over-pursue commercialization, ignoring the cultural, environmental, and ecological value of the scenic area.

In some scenic areas of historical and cultural cities, investors have over-developed commercial projects in order to obtain more commercial benefits. The originally quiet and simple ancient streets are occupied by a large number of modern commercial shops, traditional handicraft shops are replaced by chain souvenir shops, and the historical and cultural atmosphere of the ancient streets is overshadowed by a strong commercial atmosphere. These commercial shops often lack deep integration with local culture and simply sell the same tourist souvenirs.

This over-commercialization not only destroys the cultural value of the scenic area but also has a negative impact on the environment and ecology of the scenic area. The influx of a large number of tourists and the increase in commercial activities have led to a deterioration in the environmental sanitation conditions in the scenic area, and an increase in noise and air pollution. At the same time, excessive commercial development may disrupt the ecological balance of the scenic area. For example, the construction of too many artificial buildings in some natural scenic areas has destroyed the habitats of plants and animals. The emergence of these problems ultimately leads to a decline in tourist satisfaction and even threatens the social reputation of the scenic area. Tourists come to the scenic area hoping to experience a unique cultural atmosphere and beautiful natural environment. If these are destroyed by commercial activities, they will naturally have a negative evaluation of the scenic area, which will in turn affect the reputation and future development of the scenic area.

Facilities and Service Issues

1. Some tourist attractions may have inadequate or insufficient facilities, such as poor sanitary conditions, insufficient safety facilities, and unclear tourist routes, which may affect the tourists' experience and satisfaction.

Tourism facilities are the basic guarantee for scenic areas to provide services to tourists. However, some scenic areas have many problems in terms of facility construction and maintenance.

Poor sanitary conditions are a common problem in many scenic areas. Public toilets in scenic areas may lack timely cleaning and maintenance, with lingering odors and insufficient supply of basic necessities such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Garbage is not cleaned up in a timely manner, and garbage can often be seen piled up on both sides of roads and in rest areas in scenic areas. This not only affects the appearance of the scenic area but may also breed bacteria and endanger the health of tourists.

Insufficient safety facilities are also a problem that cannot be ignored. In some mountainous scenic areas, the guardrails on hiking trails may be damaged or not high enough, easily leading to falls. In water scenic areas, there is a lack of sufficient life-saving equipment and professional lifeguards. Once a tourist drowning incident occurs, it is difficult to rescue them in time. Unclear tourist routes are also a common problem. There may be a lack of clear signposts in the scenic area, and tourists can easily get lost. Especially for some large scenic areas, due to the relatively scattered distribution of attractions, if there is no clear guidance on tourist routes, tourists may miss some important attractions or waste a lot of time looking for routes in the scenic area, which will undoubtedly affect the tourists' experience and satisfaction.

2. At the same time, there may also be quality problems in scenic area services, such as poor service attitude and non-standard service standards, which may reduce tourist satisfaction and loyalty.

Scenic area service personnel are the group that directly contacts tourists, and their service attitude and service quality directly affect the tourists' feelings. However, in some scenic areas, the situation of poor service attitude of service personnel occurs from time to time. Service personnel may lack basic service awareness and enthusiasm, treating tourists coldly and impatiently. For example, when tourists inquire about scenic area information, service personnel may only simply answer a few words and are unwilling to answer tourists' questions in detail. When handling tourist complaints, they may also adopt a shirking attitude and are unwilling to take responsibility.

Non-standard service standards are also a problem. Different service personnel may have significant differences in providing services, and there are no uniform service standards. For example, in catering services in scenic areas, some waiters can provide enthusiastic and thoughtful service, while others may be indifferent to tourists; in accommodation services, the cleanliness standards and equipment of rooms may vary depending on different staff members. This lack of standardization of service standards will confuse and dissatisfy tourists, reducing tourist satisfaction and loyalty.

Marketing and Promotion Issues

In today's competitive tourism market, marketing and promotion are crucial to the development of scenic areas. However, some tourist attractions may lack effective marketing strategies and promotional methods, resulting in insufficient brand awareness and influence, making it difficult to attract more tourists to visit.

Many scenic areas still rely on traditional marketing methods, such as placing advertisements in local newspapers and magazines, or setting up billboards around the scenic area. The audience of this marketing method is limited and lacks targeting. In the Internet age, the main channels for tourists to obtain tourism information have changed to online platforms, but these scenic areas have failed to keep up with this trend.

For example, some scenic spots have not established their own official websites or social media accounts, and even if they have, they lack effective operation. Website content may only be simple scenic spot introductions and ticket price information, lacking interactive elements to attract tourists, such as tourist travelogue sharing and previews of special scenic spot activities. On social media, they also do not actively participate in topic interactions, or publish attractive pictures and videos, thus failing to attract the attention and dissemination of netizens.  At the same time, scenic spots may lack unique features and highlights in their promotional content. They simply promote the natural scenery or historical and cultural relics of the scenic spot, without deeply exploring its unique aspects. For example, a scenic spot with unique folk culture may only briefly mention the existence of folk culture in its promotion, without detailed display of folk cultural performances, traditional handicraft making, and other special activities. This makes the scenic spot less competitive among similar scenic spots and difficult to attract more tourists' attention.

Environmental Issues

1. Ecological Damage. Under the booming development of modern tourism, many scenic spots undertake large-scale tourism development to meet the increasing demand of tourists. This large-scale development often comes at the cost of sacrificing the natural environment. Taking some mountainous scenic spots as an example, these places were originally densely vegetated, habitats for numerous wild animals and plants, with a delicately balanced ecosystem. However, with the advancement of tourism development, a large number of tourists flock in. When the tourist flow exceeds the carrying capacity of the scenic spot, a series of problems will arise.

For example, tourists may trample lawns and break flowers and trees during their visit, which directly leads to vegetation destruction. The soil in some mountainous areas is originally relatively loose, and the roots of vegetation play a role in fixing the soil. Once the vegetation is damaged, soil erosion becomes unavoidable. When it rains, unprotected soil will be washed away with the rainwater, which not only affects the beauty of the scenic spot but may also cause geological hazards such as landslides.

In addition, excessive tourists can also cause pollution to water resources. Many tourists litter indiscriminately within the scenic area, and some non-degradable waste may enter water bodies. Coupled with some chemicals used by tourists, such as sunscreen and detergents, these flow into rivers and lakes with surface runoff, leading to water eutrophication, affecting the living environment of aquatic organisms, and thus damaging the entire ecological environment of the scenic spot.

2. Environmental Pollution. Tourist attractions generate a large amount of waste daily, such as food packaging and beverage bottles. If the waste disposal system is inadequate, this trash will pile up, emitting unpleasant odors, breeding bacteria and pests, and causing air pollution. Meanwhile, wastewater treatment within scenic spots is also a major issue.

For example, some scenic spots have accommodation facilities, and if domestic sewage generated by tourists is directly discharged without professional treatment, it will make the water bodies within the scenic spot turbid, dark, and foul-smelling, severely polluting the aquatic environment. Moreover, with a large number of tourists, noisy crowds, and vehicles constantly moving around, noise pollution will also be generated. Especially in some ancient building complexes or natural ecological protection areas, noise can disrupt the original peaceful atmosphere, affecting tourist experience and the image of the scenic spot.

3. Lack of Environmental Protection Measures. In some scenic spots, due to insufficient emphasis on environmental protection or lack of environmental awareness among managers, effective environmental protection measures have not been adopted. Some scenic spots do not have enough trash cans and no dedicated personnel to promptly clear garbage, leading to litter being visible everywhere. In terms of water resource protection, no complete sewage treatment facilities have been established, allowing sewage to flow directly into natural water bodies.

In the long run, the lack of environmental protection measures will inevitably further exacerbate environmental degradation. Once the ecological environment of a scenic spot deteriorates, it will lose its attractiveness to tourists, thereby affecting the sustainable development of the scenic spot. For example, if a scenic spot whose selling point is a clear lake has its lake water polluted and murky, then the number of tourists will inevitably decrease, and the economic income of the scenic spot will also decline, eventually falling into a vicious cycle.

Safety Issues

Tourist attractions are densely populated places, and safety issues are crucial, as they relate to the vital interests of tourists and the long-term development of the scenic spot.

1. Tourist Safety. Tourists visiting scenic spots come from different regions, age groups, and social backgrounds, and their safety assurance is a basic requirement for scenic spot operation. However, there are numerous factors within scenic spots that threaten tourist safety.  First is the issue of aging facilities. Some scenic spots, due to their long operational history, lack timely updates and maintenance of facilities. For example, some old wooden walkways, after years of wind and rain and frequent trampling by tourists, their planks may have rotted and their support structures may have become fragile. Tourists can easily experience the walkway breaking or collapsing while walking, leading to serious consequences such as falling and injury or even falling off a cliff.

Poor management is also an important factor in causing safety accidents. The management of a scenic spot involves multiple aspects, including personnel management and order maintenance. If scenic spot staff are not professionally trained and fail to promptly identify safety hazards within the scenic spot, dangerous situations may occur. For example, in some water entertainment projects, if staff do not carefully check tourists' life-saving equipment, the equipment may not function properly when tourists encounter danger, thereby endangering their lives.

Furthermore, natural disasters also pose a threat to tourist safety. Many scenic spots are located in mountainous or coastal areas and are susceptible to natural disasters. For example, in mountainous areas, heavy rains may trigger flash floods and mudslides; in coastal areas, typhoons may cause damage to buildings and facilities within the scenic spot, putting tourists in danger.

2. Scenic Spot Reputation.  Once a safety issue occurs in a scenic spot, its impact is not limited to the personal safety and property safety of tourists but also severely damages the reputation and image of the scenic spot.

When tourists encounter safety accidents within the scenic spot, they will spread their experiences through various channels, such as social media and travel forums. This negative information will spread rapidly, allowing more people to learn about the safety hazards existing in the scenic spot. Other potential tourists, upon learning this news, will be deterred from visiting the scenic spot.

For example, there was once a popular mountainous scenic spot where, due to poor management during the peak tourist season, a tourist fell off a cliff and died during a climb. This news quickly spread online, and many tourists who had originally planned to visit the scenic spot changed their itineraries. Since then, the number of visitors to the scenic spot has sharply declined, not only significantly reducing revenue but also causing its reputation in the tourism market to plummet. To restore its reputation, the scenic spot had to invest a large amount of money in rectification and promotion, but regaining tourists' trust was not an easy task.

Balancing Tourist Resource Protection and Development

The relationship between the development and protection of tourist attractions has always been a difficult problem in the development of the tourism industry. Finding a balance between the two is key to the sustainable development of scenic spots.

1. Overdevelopment. As tourism becomes an important pillar industry for economic development, many local governments and enterprises have seen the huge economic benefits brought by the development of tourist attractions. Driven by these interests, some scenic spots have experienced overdevelopment.

Excessive tourism can severely damage the ecological environment and cultural heritage of scenic areas. For example, some ancient architectural sites, in order to accommodate more tourists, arbitrarily build modern buildings around the ancient buildings, destroying the original appearance and overall layout of the ancient architectural complex. These modern buildings may clash with the style of the ancient buildings, affecting tourists' experience of the cultural connotations of the ancient buildings.

In terms of natural scenic areas, over-development can lead to ecological deterioration. For example, in some forest scenic areas, in order to develop new tourist routes, excessive deforestation and road construction not only destroy the integrity of the forest, but also affect the survival environment of plants and animals in the forest. With the destruction of the ecological environment, the sustainability and attractiveness of the scenic area will gradually decrease. Tourists come to travel largely to appreciate the natural scenery and experience the original ecological environment. If the ecological environment of the scenic area is damaged, it will lose its attractiveness to tourists, eventually leading to a decrease in the number of tourists and affecting the long-term development of the scenic area.

2. Unreasonable development. Unreasonable tourism activities are also an important factor affecting the development of scenic areas. In the development process, if the resource characteristics and market demand of the scenic area are not fully considered, it may lead to resource waste and environmental damage.

For example, some scenic areas blindly invest in the construction of large-scale amusement facilities without conducting sufficient market research. However, these amusement facilities do not match the theme and positioning of the scenic area and cannot attract tourists' interest, ultimately leading to idleness and great waste of resources. At the same time, the construction of these amusement facilities may also damage the original natural landscape or cultural atmosphere of the scenic area.

In addition, unreasonable development may also be reflected in the planning of tourist routes. If the tourist route design is unreasonable, tourists may retrace their steps or miss some important scenic spots, which will not only affect the tourists' travel experience, but also lead to excessive concentration of tourists in certain areas, causing damage to the environment and resources of that area.

Tourism Market Fluctuation Issues

The tourism market is a complex system that is affected by a variety of factors, covering economic, social, and cultural aspects, making the tourism market volatile and uncertain, which also poses great challenges to scenic area operations.

From an economic perspective, changes in the global economic situation have a direct impact on the tourism market. During periods of economic prosperity, people's income levels are relatively high, their consumption capacity is strong, and tourism demand will also increase accordingly. At this time, the number of tourists in scenic areas will often show an upward trend, and the income of scenic areas will also increase. However, when the global economy falls into recession, people may cut back on tourism spending and prioritize basic living needs. For example, during the 2008 global financial crisis, many people's jobs were affected, their incomes decreased, and the tourism market was severely hit. The number of tourists in many scenic areas plummeted, and some small scenic areas even went bankrupt because they could not maintain operations. Social factors also have a significant impact on the tourism market. Social stability is an important prerequisite for the development of the tourism market. If a region experiences social unrest, security problems, or sudden public health events, it will have a negative impact on the tourism market.

Cultural factors are equally important. Different cultural backgrounds affect people's tourism preferences. Some areas with unique cultural charm may attract a large number of tourists, but if the cultural connotations are not effectively protected and inherited, it will also affect tourists' interest. For example, some ethnic minority areas attract tourists with their unique folk culture, but if the development process is overly commercialized, making the folk culture vulgar and distorted, it will cause tourists to feel disgusted, thus affecting the tourism market in that area.

Scenic areas need to keenly perceive market changes and adjust their business strategies in a timely manner to enhance market competitiveness and cope with market risks. This requires scenic area managers to closely monitor the dynamic information in economic, social, and cultural aspects and formulate reasonable pricing strategies, marketing plans, and product innovation plans based on this information. For example, during economic downturns, cost-effective tourism packages can be launched to attract more tourists; when the social environment is stable but the demand for cultural tourism is growing, the excavation and promotion of the cultural connotations of scenic areas can be strengthened to create tourism products with cultural characteristics.

Tourism Resource Integration and Utilization Issues

The resources and facilities of tourist scenic areas are like the various pieces in a game of chess. Only by effectively integrating and utilizing them can the maximum benefits be achieved and the sustainable development of the scenic area be realized.

1. Resource integration. The resources of a scenic area are diverse, including natural landscape resources, cultural heritage resources, human resources, and material resources. Formulating a scientific development plan to organically combine these resources is not easy.

Taking a comprehensive tourist scenic area as an example, it may have both magnificent mountain and water landscapes, as well as ancient historical buildings and rich folk culture. When integrating resources, it is necessary to consider how to integrate these different types of resources to create distinctive tourism products. For example, a tour route can be designed that allows tourists to appreciate the beautiful scenery while visiting ancient buildings and experiencing the local folk culture, thus increasing tourists' travel experience and stay time.

However, in practice, many scenic areas have problems with inadequate resource integration. Some scenic areas may overemphasize the development of natural landscapes while neglecting the excavation and utilization of cultural heritage resources. Or there may be defects in human resource management, with a lack of effective cooperation among employees, leading to low service efficiency. For example, tour guides in the scenic area may only be familiar with the explanation of natural landscapes and have little knowledge of cultural heritage, unable to provide tourists with comprehensive tourism services.

2. Resource utilization. Making full use of existing resources is the key to improving the efficiency of scenic areas. In terms of resource utilization, the multi-functionality and sustainability of resources need to be considered.

3. For natural landscape resources, in addition to allowing tourists to directly appreciate them, some related experiential activities can also be carried out. For example, in forest scenic areas, forest exploration and outdoor development activities can be carried out, which can not only increase tourists' participation but also improve resource utilization efficiency.

4. In terms of cultural heritage resources, cultural festivals and folk performances can be held to allow tourists to gain a deeper understanding of the local cultural connotations. However, many scenic areas have the phenomenon of resource waste. Some scenic areas, although possessing rich cultural heritage resources, simply use them as exhibits without fully exploring their commercial and cultural value. For example, some ancient traditional handicrafts are not effectively inherited and developed in the scenic area, but are only sold as souvenirs in shops, without allowing tourists to participate in the production process, which greatly reduces the efficiency of resource utilization.