Experience and lessons from tourism exploitation in Wulingyuan World Natural Heritage

1. Introduction By the end of 2005, 31 world heritages in China had ranked in The World Heritage List by UNESCO, which included 4 natural and cultural heritages, 4 natural heritages and 23 cultural heritages. All of them are located in natural surroundings with high value and special characteristics. In addition to these world heritages, China also has 12 world geological parks, 26 international MAB biosphere reserves, 243 national natural reserves, 138 national geological parks and 187 …

Experience and lessons from tourism exploitation in Wulingyuan World Natural Heritage

From 1980s to 1990s, Wulingyuan World Natural Heritage in Hunan Province witnessed improper and overexploitation which has obviously imposed a negative impact upon its tourism resources. The weak ecological awareness of the related government decision-makers, the poor management, backward regulation constructions, the immature tourist market mechanism as well as the great pressure brought about by the tourist demands all account for this serious outcome. Therefore, in the future, it is essential to further deal with the relations properly between the opening and protection of the heritages, the relations between tourism industry and economic and social development so as to gradually realize in tourist activities a harmony between human beings and tourism resources and environment, a coordinated development among tourism industry, the other industries and social undertakings. Meanwhile, the future tourism development in this area should take a major form of sustainable civilized tourism to give full play to its scientific research, aesthetic and educational functions while developing commercial mass tourism moderately with restricted capacity control under the principle of maintaining the original features and intactness of this invaluable world natural heritage.