Research On Core Competiveness Of Geopark Based On The View Of Value Chain

Originated from the International Declaration of the Rights of the Memory of the Earth by the UNESCO in 1991, the Global Geopark Programme was officially initiated and promoted by the UNESCO from the beginning of the 21st century. By December 2015, a total of 120 global geoparks have been established across the world. China that officially started to build geoparks in 2000 now owns 241 national geoparks,33 of which have been incorporated into the global geopark network, having establishes itself as the country with the most global geoparks and greatly contributed to the construction of the global geopark network programme and the preservation of geological relics. The ever expansion of geoparks in our country has enabled them to be gradually recognized by the public as a new type of tourism destination. Driven by excessive pursuit after the growth of tourism revenues, many localities that have been attracting tourists by greatly developing geological relic resources and tourism products in the name of geopark have entrapped themselves in a cycle of "more importance to development rather than preservation and income rather than popularization". As a result, problems including ambiguous geopark positioning, indistinct features, insufficient geological relic protection, perfunctory geoscience popularization and confusing management system arise, greatly affecting overall image of geoparks and reducing their core competitiveness.Rapid economic growth of our country inspires tourism needs, brings forward unprecedented prosperity of the tourism market and leads to increasingly fierce completion in the tourism industry. Competitiveness of the tourism industry has long been widely concerned, on which both international and domestic discussions have been on the rise and the theory has been constantly enriched and structured. Compared to researches on the tourism competitiveness of a country, a region or a city, those on the competitiveness of scenic spots like forest parks and places of interests are comparatively insufficient, let alone geoparks. What are the features, core competitiveness and attractiveness of a geopark, how to discover and exploit them, how to cultivate and build them on the basis of its actual conditions and how to realize sustainable development in the fierce competition are among the major topics to be addressed by the article.Foreign researches on geoparks mainly involve discussions on the relationships between geopark and residents, geopark and geological tourism, geopark and scientific&environmental education, and geopark and local economic growth, which highlight significance of geoparks in ecological, social and economic values where most domestic researches concentrate on geological relic resources, construction and management of geoparks, tourism development of geoparks, and influence and benefits of geoparks. Summaries of literature related to tourism competitiveness and geoparks reveal more researches on tourism competitiveness than geoporks, relevant theoretic system on geopark competitiveness is not yet established both at home and abroad, and scarcely any research on core competitiveness of geoparks from the perspective of values chain is exposed. Proposed by Michael Porter, Father of Competitiveness, the Value Chain Theory, as an effective tool for analyzing corporate competitiveness, identifies and analyzes the core advantages and weak links of an enterprise by decomposing its value activities in the production and operation. Research on core competitiveness of geoparks from the perspective of value chain enriches theoretical research system of geoparks to a certain degree and offers significant guidance on the practice of geopark construction. In this light, the article, by setting geoparks as the object of study, applies the Value Chain Theory to the research of geopark core competitiveness, during which means covering comparative study, site visit, survey, mathematical statistics and mathematical model are used to build the value chain model of the geopark on the basis of integrating theories related to value chain and core competitiveness and analyzing value chain activities of geoparks, influencing factors of geopark core competitiveness are discussed, the assessment indicator system and model for geopark core competitiveness from the perspective of value chain is built, and cultivation mode for geopark core competiveness from the perspective of value chain is explored. With the Dabie Mountain (Huanggang) National Geopark as an example, empirical research on its assessment and cultivation pathways has been conducted, providing new approaches for researching geopark core competitiveness.Main research contents and results are as follows:This article reviews and clarifies theories on value chain, competitiveness, core competitiveness and tourism competiveness, reveals relevant research progress on core competitiveness of geoparks, divides the geopark development track of China as the exploration stage, the star-up stage and the expansion stage where China falls on the start of the third stage. Major competitive advantages of China’s geoparks include:vast territory, diversified geological relic resources, high value in research and development, great attention by the state and policy support, sound tourism market base and improving infrastructure and ecological environment; Major problems and barriers include:later start, weak foundation, fierce and complex competition, unbalanced regional development, low media attention, vague public awareness and absence of laws and regulations.By comparing value chain differences of different industries and basing itself on the characteristics of geoparks, this article creates a geopark value chain structure model in which basic value activities are defined as park planning and management, geological relic reserve, geological tourism development, geological science popularization, park marketing management, auxiliary value activities as infrastructure construction, HR management, technology & innovation and fund management and major value goals as creating ecological benefits, social benefits and economic benefits.This article, by studying the Porter Competitiveness Diamond Model, the tourist destination competitiveness C-R Model and the D-K Model and combining them with the value chain structure model of geoparks, summarizes major influencing factors of core competitiveness of geoparks as the core resource factor, the park management capability factor, the resource management capability factor and the basic support capability factor, whose features, conations and degrees of influence are further detailed.An indicator system and an assessing model for the core competitiveness of geoparks are constituted on the basis of influential factor analysis and with reference to criteria for declaration and acceptance for geoparks in China and relevant indicators for self-assessment and mid-term assessment of global geoparks, in which geopark core competitiveness assessment is set as the objective level, such 3 core competences as resource endowment competitiveness, resource management capability and park management capability as the criterion hierarchy, such 8 sub-index competences as locational conditions and geological relic resources etc. as the indicating hierarchy, based on which an assessment scheme hierarchy consisting of 33 indicators like park area, per capita GDP and appropriate open period is further determined.Based on assessment target, assessment indicator system and data features, this article constructs a Fuzzy C-means Algorithm (FCM) assessment model and a Set Pair Analysis Model (SPAM) for comprehensive assessment on core competitiveness of geoparks and determines weights of all levels of indicators respectively by means of the Analytic Herrarchy Process (AHP) and the Entropy Threshold Method (ETM). With 12 geoparks including the Dabie Moutain (Huanggang), Fangshan National Geopark of Beijing, Hexigten National Geopark of Inner Mongolia, Jingbo Lake National Geopark of Heilongjiang and Ningde National Geopark of Fujian as the samples for comparative and empirical assessment and through comprehensive comparison with two assessment models, it comes to the conclusion that the Dabie Moutain (Huanggang) National Geopark is weak in core competitiveness, strong in resource endowment and poor in resource and park management, of which ability in geoscience popularization and park marketing is the weakest and other indicators also require comprehensive improvement.This article, on the basis of development characteristics of geoparks and in combination of the Life Cycle Theory of Tourism Destination and the assessment indicator system for core competitiveness of geoparks, puts forwards that different dynamic cultivating strategies shall be deployed on different stages of geoparks like the expedition stage, the start-up stage, the expansion stage, the consolidation stage, the stagnation stage and the degeneration stage and holds that, enlightened by Cannikin Law, systematic cultivation shall be applied from such four aspects as geological resource guardianship, geological tourism development, park marketing& promotion and park R&D innovation to make the system renewable in itself.This article sets the Hubei Dabie Mountain (Huanggang) Geopark as an example and further analyzes its core competitiveness status from the perspectives of tourist expectations and experience through surveys, which show tourists think highly of the natural landscape resources like geological relic landscapes, ecological environment and waterscapes of the Dabie Mountain National Geopark, followed by security, supportive services and tour guiding while not think much of its traffic convenience, sanitary condition, travel costs, geoscience introduction, interactive experience, museum construction and information construction, which require further improvement.After integrating results from comparative analysis on core competitiveness of geological relic geopark and surveys on tourist expectations and experience and combining them with the geological relic characteristics and actual development of the Geopark, this article comes to the conclusion that problems remaining with the Geopark cover insufficient conservation on geological relics, too simplex tourism product, low geological popularization level, inadequate marketing and promotion, unsmooth management flow, poor infrastructure and weak information construction and proposes the strategy for cultivating core competitiveness of the Geopark from the perspectives of geological relic monitoring, geological tourism development, geopark marketing and management innovation.Innovation of this article lies in the unprecedented introduction of the Value Chain Theory to the research of the Core Competitiveness Theory of geoparks that has enabled a value chain model suitable for geoparks, based on which a core competitiveness assessment indicator system for geoparks is built to propose its cultivation pattern from both the dynamic and the static perspectives. In the research, the core competitiveness assessment system for geoparks and its cultivation pattern have been used for specific case study for the first time and tested through empirical comparisons. Furthermore, the empirical objects are further assessed from the view of tourists to obtained more comprehensive and scientific results and present more targeted suggestions and countermeasures.Technical route, theoretical framework and research methods in this article enrich relevant theoretic researches on geoparks to a certain extent and may shed light on the practice of park construction and management.