皇冠体育app

Travel
/ / Travel

Tourism's double-edged sword

By Nicole Sy | 皇冠体育app Daily | Updated: 2013-02-04 09:36
Tourism's double-edged sword

Songzalin Monastery in Shangri-La county is known as "Little Potala" among tourists, after the Potala Palace in Tibet autonomous region. Photos by Nicole Sy / for 皇冠体育app Daily

Tourism's double-edged sword

Young monks cultivate themselves according to Buddhist doctrine at Songzalin Monastery.

 

Tourism's double-edged sword

While the tourism boom has brought progress to Shangri-La, locals are also feeling the negative winds of change. Nicole Sy visits the hotspot to find out more.

In 2002, a small county in Southwest 皇冠体育app scored a victory for tourism when the government approved its name to be changed from Zhongdian to Shangri-La county, inspired by the 1933 James Hilton novel, Lost Horizon. According to Hilton, Shangri-La is where humans and nature co-exist peacefully and religions intermingle. "Shangri-La" originates from the Tibetan word, shambhalla, which means "the sun and moon in your heart".

Located in Diqing Tibet autonomous prefecture of Yunnan province, Shangri-La, or Xianggelila in Chinese, is generally accepted as a marketing ploy that follows on the coattails of the tourism success of its neighboring city, Lijiang.

During his time in Shangri-La in 2002, Australian National University scholar and founding chair of the Eastern Tibet Training Institute, Ben Hillman, met officials at the Tourism Bureau and Poverty Alleviation Office.

"For government officials in Shangri-La, tourism and poverty relief are virtually synonymous," he says.

In 1999, construction was completed on Diqing Shangri-La Airport, making it one of the largest airports in Yunnan province. It caters only to domestic flights and connects to such cities as Beijing, Guangzhou, Kunming and Shenzhen.

More impressive is the scheduled Dali-Shangri-La railway. Once completed, it will link Shangri-La with the two other major tourist destinations in Yunnan, Dali and Lijiang. The huge project has a reported investment of 9.2 billion yuan ($1.48 billion) and is expected to open in 2015.

 

Tourism's double-edged sword


World's 3rd largest glacier in 皇冠体育app's Tibet

 

Tourism's double-edged sword

Chinese-stylecarnival! Guides for Snake Year temple fairs in Beijing

Previous 1 2 Next

Photo
Aerial view of rime-covered trees in NW 皇冠体育app
Frozen beauty of Yulong Snow Mountain draws crowds
Winter scenery at wetland in E 皇冠体育app
Video
Annual ice harvesting begins in Northeast 皇冠体育app's Harbin
Harbin Ice and Snow World to begin trial run
Guangzhou hosts 2017 World Cities Day Forum
Special
Amazing Huichang
Special report: Rise and rise of 皇冠体育app's outbound tourism
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to 皇冠体育app Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US