The History, Current Status And Forecast Of Chinese Travel Magazines

Travel magazine industry in China is an indispensable part of the Chinese travel media and the Chinese media system in general. It is evident that there has been a considerable development of Chinese travel magazines since the"Reform and opening up policy"came into effect three decades ago. However gaps still substantially exist between Chinese travel magazines and their international peers, in areas such as the magazine content, publishing, profit gain and the overall social influences. Raising the standards of Chinese travel magazine is thought to have great influential effects on promoting the Chinese travel media and in deed the entire Chinese media system. It is considered a prerequisite that the history, current status and the future development trend of the Chinese travel magazines is properly analyzed and researched before future development can be made. The following thesis is dedicated for these purposes.Firstly, the academic definitions relevant to Chinese travel magazines are discussed, including the definitions of travel and magazine and the relationships between them. In addition, the scope of the Chinese travel magazine research in this thesis will also be defined to facilitate subsequent discussions of the Chinese travel magazines.Then it will move onto the history of Chinese travel magazines. In this thesis such history consists of three stages: the nascent period, the development period and the maturity period. The characteristics of the three periods will be demonstrated in detail in this part of the thesis.The third chapter of the thesis focuses on the current status of the Chinese travel magazines. It is intended to provide an objective analysis of the concepts associated with modern travel industry, magazine layout, publishing methods, profit expectations and competitions within the industry, in order to better understand the advantages and insufficiencies currently lie within the Chinese travel magazine industry.Finally the thesis will establish a forecast of the future development trend of the Chinese travel magazines, i.e. the subdivision of various reader markets, brand strategy of magazine operational management, the maximization of gains from commercial advertisements and the digitization of magazine formats. The thesis is intended to serve as a reference point of future researches and development work of the Chinese travel magazines.