Analyze the influence of holiday adjustment on tourism development.

An analysis of the influence of legal holiday adjustment on tourism in China

Longjing Red in Cheng Haitao, Liu Simin

Liu Simin, director of economic editorial department of China Tourism News, special researcher of Tourism Research Center of China Academy of Social Sciences, tutor of master students, adjunct professor of Zhengzhou University and Sichuan University, etc. The main research direction is the planning, planning and marketing of tourist cities and scenic spots; Cheng Haitao, a graduate student majoring in tourism management at Zhengzhou University, mainly focuses on tourism enterprise management; Long Jinghong, vice president, professor and tutor of master students of Zhengzhou University School of Tourism Management, is mainly engaged in the research of tourism economy, tourism planning and tourism enterprise management.

The adjustment of legal holidays in China has had an impact on tourism consumption demand, tourism products, tourism management, tourists' travel mode and tourism service quality. Tourism enterprises should take corresponding measures, and the cancelled May Day Golden Week should be resumed, which not only plays a positive role in expanding domestic demand, but also can meet the holiday demand of the general public.

Keywords: legal holiday tourism impact

Social background and content of legal holiday adjustment in China

(A) the social background of the adjustment of legal holidays in China

1999, our country adjusted the holidays according to the situation at that time, and increased the total number of national legal holidays for all citizens by 3 days, *** 10. Among them, New Year's Day holiday 1 day, Spring Festival holiday for 3 days, Labor Day holiday for 3 days and National Day holiday for 3 days. The total number of legal holidays in the whole year has increased by three days, giving people more rest time, which is conducive to facilitating people to arrange tourism activities, stimulating consumption, expanding domestic demand and promoting economic development. However, with the passage of time and the further development of China's economy and society, there are many disadvantages in the legal holiday arrangement:

1. The legal holiday arrangement is too centralized.

10 among the legal holidays, 9 days are arranged on the Spring Festival, May Day and November Day. Generally speaking, if a country arranges multiple national holidays in one year, it will easily have a great impact and fluctuation on the normal operation of its economy and society. Because the Golden Week holiday time is too concentrated, the traffic pressure is increasing, the scenic spots are overloaded, and the service quality of the tourism industry is declining, which is not conducive to the long-term sustainable development of tourism.

2. Traditional cultural characteristics are still lacking.

China has a history and culture with thousands of years of civilization, and the long-term historical accumulation has formed a number of traditional festivals with China cultural characteristics that have been handed down from generation to generation. However, there is only one traditional festival in legal holidays, and traditional festivals such as Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, New Year's Eve and Lantern Festival are not included in legal holidays. These traditional festivals have rich cultural connotations and commemorative significance. Even if there is no legal holiday, people will organize a series of activities spontaneously, which will cause contradictions between residents' life and work to some extent.

3. Legal holidays have become the mainstream.

Individual travel of residents, including vacation, travel, visiting relatives and other activities, should have been arranged through various holidays of different lengths. Because the paid vacation system in China has not been fully implemented, most people can only choose public holidays to travel, and the contradiction between supply and demand is prominent.

Therefore, in recent years, people's calls for adjusting the current legal holiday arrangements in China are getting louder and louder. It is suggested to adjust the legal holiday arrangement, increase the traditional holidays as legal holidays, and decentralize the legal holiday arrangement.

(two) the contents of the adjustment of legal holidays in China.

Since June 9, 2007, the national legal holiday adjustment research group has publicly solicited opinions on the national legal holiday adjustment plan on the Internet. According to this plan, in June 5438+February, 2007, the State Council will increase the national legal holidays from 10 to1day, and keep two of the three golden weeks and cancel one. At the same time, four national traditional festivals, New Year's Eve, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, will be included in the national statutory holidays.

After the adjustment of the new scheme, only the Spring Festival and the "Eleventh" Golden Week are left, and the traditional national festivals such as Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Eve have one day off each, plus the two-day holiday on weekends, which has become a three-day short holiday. In this way, there will be two peaks of concentrated vacation every year-Spring Festival (7 days), National Day (7 days) and five peaks of concentrated vacation-New Year's Day (3 days), Qingming Day (3 days), May Day (3 days), Dragon Boat Festival (3 days) and Mid-Autumn Festival (3 days). There will be small holidays, golden weeks and personal paid vacations on legal holidays and weekends.

(C) the characteristics of the new statutory holidays

1. The distribution in time is more uniform.

During the holiday before the adjustment, many people not only could not get a good rest, but also increased a lot of fatigue because of concentrated travel and various conditions. In the long run, it is not conducive to the normal and stable operation of social economy and the sustainable development of tourism. The adjusted national legal holidays have turned three golden weeks into two golden weeks and five three-day holidays, which have diverted concentrated tourists, effectively diluted the boundary between peak season and off-season, and played a very good role in alleviating the contradiction between supply and demand in some scenic spots and time periods. At the same time, the adjusted national statutory holidays have increased by 1 day, which also reflects the government's concern for the people. People can arrange their holidays more leisurely and personalized, which is helpful for people's holiday style to be more colorful and humanized.

2. Pay attention to national traditional festivals and meet people's emotional needs.

Incorporating traditional festivals into national statutory holidays can give full play to their great cultural and social functions, so that the spiritual connotation of these traditional festivals can be continued and carried forward in our time life. It is conducive to the inheritance of Chinese culture, enhances the emotional identity and national identity of Chinese children, and meets people's emotional needs. At the same time, making traditional festivals legal holidays will promote the cultural prosperity of the Chinese nation and make China's culture and tourism have more exchanges with the world.

An analysis of the influence of legal holiday adjustment on tourism and residents' social life

(A) the impact on tourism consumption demand

After the adjustment of legal holidays, it has a great influence on the consumption demand of tourists. The increase of small holidays will inevitably lead to new changes in the proportion of long-distance travel and short-distance travel, and people will be more inclined to choose the nearest short-distance travel. In the new holiday plan, traditional festivals such as Mid-Autumn Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day will make people more inclined to choose routes related to these traditional festivals when traveling. Due to the cancellation of the "May Day" Golden Week, long-distance travel has been restrained to some extent.

(B) the impact on tourism products

The adjusted legal holidays will also have a greater impact on tourism products. Many areas in China still maintain the folk cultural traditions of some major festivals that have lasted for 100 years, such as Tomb-Sweeping Day. In combination with the custom of sweeping graves and hiking in Tomb-Sweeping Day, many places have carried out a series of distinctive folk activities, such as flying kites, swinging, and seeking roots to worship ancestors. With the construction and improvement of expressway network and the rapid growth of family car ownership, the convenience of people's short-distance travel has been greatly improved, and short-distance travel such as going out on weekends (small golden week) and going out in the city will be more convenient and frequent. For travel agencies, the most obvious thing is the adjustment of their long-term and short-term product structure, and the domestic tours such as suburban tours, farm tours and Zhou Bianyou within 0/000 km of big cities will increase on a large scale.

(C) the impact on tourism management

In the past, the management mainly focused on the Golden Week and studied how to deal with the concentrated consumption of large-scale people flow. Tourism enterprises are managed and maintained by regular employees in the off-season and hire temporary workers in the golden week. After the implementation of the new holiday, this requires that the scenic spots should often engage in activities all year round, constantly have selling points, and the operating costs of enterprises should be raised. For tourism government management departments, in the past, some specific management measures were introduced for the Golden Week, such as establishing a national Golden Week tourism forecasting and statistics system to monitor some cities and scenic spots. With the cancellation of the May 1 Golden Week, the publicity mode of tourist attractions, discounts of travel agencies, the price increase of tickets in the Golden Week and the price reduction in the off-season will bring great changes.

(D) the impact on tourism travel patterns

The new holiday plan adds three holidays, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, and adjusts the holiday from the beginning of the Spring Festival holiday to New Year's Eve, which not only enhances the influence of traditional culture, meets the needs of the masses, but also increases the number of holidays and makes the holiday distribution more reasonable. It will make the choice of tourists' travel time more rational and dispersed, and the temporal and spatial distribution of passenger flow more balanced. It is conducive to people's holiday consumption from centralized consumption to "decentralized" consumption, and can arrange their holidays more personalized.

(e) Impact on the quality of tourism services

The adjustment of legal holidays will put forward higher requirements for the quality of tourism services. If paid vacation can be fully implemented, tourists will carefully choose one week in a year to travel, and their happiness index and enjoyment index will be higher, which will naturally be more critical than during the Golden Week, which requires the service of scenic spots to be maintained at a high level all year round. In addition, the dispersion and balance of travel will slow down the pace of tourists, and slow-paced tourism has become a fashion. Putting forward this initiative corresponds to a slow pace and is to improve the quality of tourism services.

(six) the impact on the development of tourist attractions

For the tourist attractions themselves, holiday adjustment requires them to pay attention to connotation development, improve the quality of tourists' visits, and the development orientation of tourist attractions should further adapt to the consumption patterns of tourists. On the other hand, from the spatial distribution of tourist attractions, areas with strong tourism capacity, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu and other areas, will attract more tourists in the region, or the scenic spots located in the suburbs of big cities will benefit more. However, the development of areas and scenic spots far away from tourist sources, such as tourist destinations far away from central cities in the central and western regions, will be restricted to some extent, whether for sightseeing, leisure or other forms of tourism.

(seven) the impact on the economic benefits of tourism.

In 2007, China's tourism revenue accounted for 4.45% of GDP, up 0.4 percentage points year-on-year. In 2007, the proportion of domestic tourism revenue to total tourism revenue reached 765,438 0.29%, up 65,438 0.57 percentage points year-on-year. The number of tourists and tourism income during holidays account for a large proportion.

In 2007, during the Spring Festival, May Day and Eleventh Golden Week, the total number of tourists and total income accounted for 24. 1% and 17.5% of the total number of tourists and total income respectively. The May Day Golden Week is even more prominent, with two indicators accounting for 10.3% and 7. 1% of the annual total respectively. Since 2006, 2007 and 2008, the growth rate of tourists and income in the three golden weeks is much higher than the annual level, and the growth rate in the May 1 Golden Week is much higher than that in the three golden weeks. Based on the above data analysis, adjusting the Golden Week, especially canceling the May Day Golden Week, is bound to bring great fluctuations to the whole tourism industry.

Measures and strategies for tourism enterprises to cope with holiday adjustment

(A) to strengthen the development of short-term tourism products

After the holiday adjustment, the Golden Week will be reduced to two and the small holiday will be increased to five. One increase and one decrease will encourage people to arrange more short trips for themselves. Therefore, the proportion of long-distance travel and short-distance travel has changed significantly. Tourists will prefer short-distance leisure travel, and tourism products with health and relaxation as the main purpose will become more and more popular. Therefore, tourism enterprises should combine the different characteristics of each small holiday to develop more short-term and medium-term tourist routes, fully tap the leisure connotation of products, innovate the original scenic spots, and seize the new main battlefield of short-term and medium-term holidays, especially some leisure suburban eco-tours, provincial leisure tours, farmhouse tours and so on.

(2) Actively develop traditional and folk cultural tourism.

Among the newly added festivals, traditional festivals such as Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, New Year's Eve and Spring Festival are important components of China's national cultural heritage, with profound folk cultural connotations and spiritual values. Therefore, tourism enterprises should conform to the trend of the times, meet the demand of tourism consumption market, do a good job in developing humanistic tourism resources, tap folk cultural tourism resources, enrich the cultural connotation of tourism products, launch folk brand, cultural brand and reunion brand, and enhance the market competitiveness of tourism products with high-grade cultural brand, cultural connotation and cultural taste.

(C) to strengthen the development of personalized tourist routes

The new holiday makes people more diversified and personalized in travel time, behavior, way and pursuit, which requires tourism enterprises to carry out personalized development, not only to meet the needs of consumers, but also to develop new needs. At the same time, tourism enterprises have to find their own service targets and living space through market segmentation and product development. Shaping the personality of tourism products is the general trend, and it is also an important aspect to adapt to the changes in tourism demand after holiday adjustment.

Continuously improve the quality of tourism services.

The adjustment of legal holidays gives tourists more choices and makes tourism consumption more rational. Therefore, higher requirements are put forward for the quality of tourism services. Travel agencies, tourist hotels, tourist restaurants, tourist attractions, tourism transportation and other tourism-related departments should further improve the quality of tourism services, and comprehensively arrange all aspects of tourism for tourists, such as good food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment, so as to create a good and comfortable atmosphere for tourists and make them feel high-quality. Only in this way can we provide better services for tourists and attract more tourists.

(E) Actively respond to the arrival of the "healthy era"

In recent years, more and more people are not satisfied with the suppression of personality by group tours, and then choose self-help tours, self-help tours, semi-self-help tours and other free travel modes, and the tourism market presents a trend of "individual travel". With the implementation of the new holiday, the "three-day small holiday" has greatly increased the number of individuals traveling, coupled with the sound construction of the expressway network and the rapid growth of the number of family cars, which has greatly improved the convenience of people's short-distance and short-term travel. It will be more convenient and frequent for short-distance individual travelers to go out on weekends (small golden week) and travel in the city, and self-driving and self-help travel will accelerate the arrival of the "individual traveler era". In this regard, tourism enterprises should respond well.

Analysis and thinking on the gain and loss of legal holiday adjustment

(A) analysis of the positive significance of tourism and residents' social life

The adjusted national legal holidays have turned three golden weeks into two golden weeks and five small three-day holidays, which have diverted concentrated tourists to some extent, relatively diluted the boundary between peak season and off season, and temporarily eased the contradiction between supply and demand in some scenic spots and time periods. At the same time, the adjusted national statutory holidays have increased by 1 day, which is conducive to expanding demand release. In addition, festivals such as Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival give people special emotional connotations and needs. Incorporating traditional festivals into national statutory holidays can give full play to its great cultural and social functions, give people more time to enjoy this festival, and contribute to the inheritance of Chinese culture and the enhancement of national cohesion.

(B) Analysis of the increase in the cost of tourism and residents' social life

The biggest rationality of "May 1" Golden Week lies in: under the background that paid vacation 12 years cannot be implemented, the residents' right to get a holiday is guaranteed and the people's demand for a long holiday is met. However, after changing to traditional holidays, the function has changed fundamentally, and things that can only be performed on long holidays cannot be carried out; During the social transition period when China's urbanization has been vigorously promoted, the population movement across the country is extremely frequent. The cancellation of the May Day holiday and the implementation of the three-day holiday mean that most of them have no chance to go home or visit relatives.

(3) Reflection on holiday adjustment-should the May Day holiday be resumed?

1. Most people are against canceling the May Day holiday.

According to the survey of China Social Investigation Institute (SSIC), the most controversial issue in the adjustment of national statutory holidays is the cancellation of May Day holiday. When asked, "Do you support the cancellation of the May Day Golden Week?" At that time, 2 1.5% of the respondents expressed "support", 9.2% said "it doesn't matter", and as many as 69.3% of the respondents explicitly "opposed" the cancellation of the May Day holiday. Some people think that the cancellation of the "May Day" Golden Week is mainly because they are worried that the "Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees" will not be effectively implemented. Reducing the existing long holidays will affect long-distance travel, visiting relatives and other activities, and will also lead to more crowded "Eleventh" and Spring Festival holidays, which will make the "Eleventh" and Spring Festival face greater travel pressure.

May Day is suitable for people to go out for sightseeing.

During the "May Day" period, it is a good time for spring to return to the earth and let a hundred flowers blossom. The vegetation has turned green, and the flowers in spring are blooming everywhere. The vitality of spring can be seen everywhere in cities and villages, and both the temperature and natural scenery are very suitable for people to go out for sightseeing. At this time, taking advantage of the big holiday to travel has become the plan of many citizens. Cancelling the May Day holiday and shortening the May Day Golden Week to three days will greatly affect people's travel plans and even make many people give up their travel plans.

3. Canceling the "May Day" Golden Week is not conducive to the development of the whole tourism industry and economy.

Since 2006, 2007 and 2008, the growth rate of tourist reception and income in the three golden weeks is much higher than that in the whole year, and the growth rate of May Day Golden Week is much higher than that in the three golden weeks (see Table 2 for details of tourist reception and income in national holidays over the years). This shows that the tourism demand of China residents has been greatly released through the Golden Week. Adjusting the Golden Week, especially canceling the May Day Golden Week, will inevitably bring adverse effects to the whole tourism industry and China's economy. According to statistics, in 2008, the four three-day holidays of New Year's Day, Tomb-Sweeping Day, May Day and Dragon Boat Festival added up, the turnover was not as good as a May Day Golden Week, and the profit was even worse. According to the data of the Comprehensive Coordination Department of the National Tourism Administration, from May 1 to May 3, 2008, the scenic spots (spots) directly reported by 1 19 nationwide received 8,940,700 tourists, a year-on-year decrease of 24.45%.

4. The debate and expectation about resuming the May Day Golden Week ran through the whole year of 2008.

First of all, at the beginning of the holiday reform plan, some experts wrote an article questioning-"Although the government has made a positive and goodwill response to public opinion, it has not conducted a more in-depth investigation of real public opinion. It is extremely unscientific to investigate only through the internet. The so-called scientific decision-making is a more scientific research and demonstration of the social, economic and cultural effects of the Golden Week, and it is by no means a rash decision based on the research of a holiday reform research group. The so-called democratic decision-making means that in the face of inconclusive opinion polls (mainly online surveys), international authoritative professional investigation agencies (or teams using economic surveys) should be invited to organize a scientific and convincing large-scale opinion poll to truly and comprehensively reflect the people's views on the Golden Week. "

Secondly, during the Spring Festival holiday in 2008, there was a snowstorm, and quite a few people could not go home or go out, so the holiday was actually "frozen". After the Spring Festival, some netizens and experts called for the temporary resumption of the "May Day" Golden Week, which triggered a heated discussion.

Third, after the cancellation of the "May Day" holiday, people's nostalgia for the "May Day" Golden Week has greatly increased, and the media is full of reports. According to the survey of People's Daily Online, only 38.7% people support "slimming" during the May Day holiday.

Fourth, before the National Day Golden Week, the comments of relevant experts on "canceling the Eleventh Golden Week in the next step" caused public outcry. Another expert pointed out that the "Eleventh" Golden Week in 2008 really broke out as predicted and became the hottest Golden Week in history! More importantly, this blowout occurred when a series of natural and man-made disasters hit the public's confidence in safety this year, the shrinking wealth in a large area hit the public's consumer confidence, and the expectation of the blowout in the Golden Week after the holiday reform led the public to try to avoid traveling. In 2007, the holiday reform centered on the cancellation of the May Day Golden Week was divorced from reality, which has been proved to be a fact. It is really necessary to discuss the holiday reform again. Policymakers should correct their mistakes and resume the May Day Golden Week-return the damaged social welfare to the public! ""Therefore, in the absence of practical and effective alternative measures, even if the Golden Week is cancelled, it will not only not divert the objectively huge travel demand, but on the contrary, it will be equivalent to artificially creating a "barrier lake" for the mass travel demand ... What's more, in a country with a vast territory and a large population, under the background of urbanization and social transformation, the cancellation of the Golden Week can only temporarily eliminate contradictions at the expense of people's happiness and real welfare.

To sum up, the "May Day" Golden Week should reappear, and the tourism consumption through the Golden Week will play a positive role in expanding domestic demand, which is of great significance to the healthy development of China's economy and tourism. More importantly, the resumption of the "May Day" Golden Week can effectively protect people's holiday rights and meet their demand for long holidays without increasing the total social cost.

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