The Dilemma Of Commercialization Of Ancient Town Tourism:an Exploratory Study

In the early 1980s,Chen Yifei's painting "memories of hometown" opened the prelude of ancient town tourism,and the ancient town of Jiangnan,represented by Zhouzhuang,entered the view of people.The ancient town,with its long history,rich cultural heritage and a slow pace of leisure,quickly grabbed the tourist market and triggered the "hot of ancient town tourism".Behind the hot,however,is the heavy crisis,many ancient towns imitated each other and competed for development with a view to develop tourism while promoting local economic progress,over-exploitation,serious commercialization,ecological environment destruction,aboriginal relocation and other problems are gradually appearing in ancient towns.In these,the problem of commercialization has often been criticized,and become the focus of ancient town tourism debate.When the economic attributes of commercialization collide with the cultural attributes of the ancient town,most scholars point out that commercialization undermines the cultural charm of the town,and against the commercialization of the ancient town;people frequently express their disgust for the over-commercialization of ancient town which destroys its original flavor.However,in practice is not difficult to find that the ancient town is still being developed commercially under the name of tourists'demand-orientation and is still overcrowded,the ancient town with good tourism development is moving towards "over-commercialization";when tourists complain about the commercialization of the ancient town,the original ancient towns and lanes are deserted,while the commercial towns and lanes are overcrowded.Is the ancient town tourism over-commercialized?From the perspective of tourists,is it to promote commercialization or against commercialization?If commercialization is promoted,the current dispute about the commercialization of ancient town tourism is why;if it is against commercialization,why the ancient towns are still being commercialized and overcrowded.The related debate about ancient town tourism commercialization has continued for many years,academic research on this issue is not a few.However,the commercialization of ancient town has not been explored more deeply from the perspective of tourists.Therefore,based on the reality existence paradox,this paper analyzes and studies the commercialization of ancient town tourism from the perspective of tourist demand,explores the ancient town of the original,commercialization,moderate commercialization and over-commercialization and other issues.From ancient town tourists meet the ancient town tourism,to the tourist point of view to explore the commercialization of ancient town tourism,and finally return to the significance of commercialization of tourism and tourist in ancient town,in order to clarify the train of thought of ancient town tourism commercialization,to break the controversial long dilemma and guide the sustainable development of ancient town tourism.This paper adopts the research paradigm of the Grounded Theory of qualitative research,takes the depth interview and the participant observation as the main method,takes the code analysis as the main means,with the relative original ancient town and the relative commercial ancient town,the poor and good ancient town in terms of tourism development as the object of study,and the 5 sites of Pingjiang Road in Suzhou ancient town,Kunshan Zhouzhuang,Jiaxing Xitang,Shaoxing Anchang town and Xiangxi Phoenix town were selected as the site of the participant observation,and the depth interview data of 32 interviewees were collected by face-to-face interview in the 5 sites and telephone interview.Through the sorting and analysis of qualitative data,this paper explores the dilemma of commercialization of ancient town tourism,and finds that the commercialization of ancient town tourism is inevitable,just right commercialization will stimulate the charm of ancient town tourism,and thus enhance the tourism attraction of ancient town.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)From the perspective of tourists,commercialization is an inevitable trend of ancient town tourism.Firstly,the ancient town mass tourists give priority to the enjoyment demand,the ancient town loyal tourists give priority to the story demand,and the ancient town middle tourists give priority to the leisure demand,different tourists have different travel demand,the ancient town tourism commercialization is inevitable.Secondly,the original or relative original ancient town often bring tourists a single repetition,boring "string field" and anti-gaze under other's field,such the tourism experience can't make tourists pleasure,the ancient town tourism commercialization is inevitable.(2)Different tourists have different views and opinions on the commercialization of ancient town tourism,which will be influenced by their personal experience,travel style,tourism experience,mood of tourism and other factors.Different ancient towns have different carrying capacity and fit degree of commercialization of ancient town tourism,which will be influenced by its size,type and characteristics and other factors.(3)Commercialization should be considered and evaluated from two dimensions of degree and direction.Firstly,in terms of degree of commercialization,through two dimensions of density and atmosphere,combined with the number of shops,commercial layout,business atmosphere,atmosphere of business operators and other factors,the ancient town tourism commercialization can be divided into mild commercialization,moderate commercialization and over-commercialization.Secondly,in terms of direction of commercialization,through two dimensions of type and grade,combined with characteristics,homogenization,interesting fun,shop grade,product quality and other factors,the ancient town tourism commercialization can be divided into general commercialization and featured commercialization.Integrated the two dimensions of commercialization,the"commercialization matrix" is established and put forward the optimal commercialization of ancient town tourism that named "just right commercialization".(4)Just right commercialization plays an important role in ancient town tourism.Ancient town tourism is a wonderful fit between the world of tourism and the world of life,it is the feeling point and poetic dwelling of tourists.Its charm is derived from life,into life,attributed to life,travel that is the taste of life and taste life is travel.And in this,commercialization is the involvement channel of ancient town tourism,the rendering vector of the atmosphere of ancient town,the concrete export of ancient town culture and the emotional trigger button in ancient town.