Ancient town tourism is making many people experience "pain".
When it comes to the holiday, the ancient town is like a beautiful dream, haunting the hearts of people across the country. Especially during the Spring Festival, the family's travel to the ancient town does not seem to be "complete".
In the ancient city of Zhengding, Hebei, the crowd mode has been completely opened in the past few days, and the difficulty of climbing the city wall is comparable to climbing to the sky.
The explosion of the ancient town, from south to north, regardless of region, the gentle Jiangnan water town has also been squeezed into a large rural gathering.
Ancient town tourism is known as the "domestic Disney" that is more suitable for China's physique.
But if you've been to several ancient towns in a row, you may gradually start to get delusions:
"Where am I?", "Have I been here?", "Why does this street look familiar?"
On the one hand, the annual flavor concentration of the ancient town has reached 100%, and on the other hand, the similarity of the ancient town has gradually reached its peak.
This "local specialty" with Chinese characteristics is about to drive the locals crazy.
China's 2800 ancient towns,
Who is real and who is fake?
How many ancient towns are there in China?
Lin Peng, president of the China Institute of Ancient Cities and Culture, once answered this question, "There are more than 2,800 ancient towns that have been developed or are being developed in the mainland, and the number is definitely the largest in the world." ”
In short, the ancient Chinese town is "crazy".
Take last year's Spring Festival as an example, Lijiang, Yunnan, an ancient town, once set a record of 150,000 people pouring in one day and activating the crowd warning for three consecutive days.
But the real significance of the first "Internet celebrity ancient town" originator is still a few weeks away.
As early as when there was no concept of ancient town tourism in China, Zhouzhuang was the first to put forward the 16-character policy of "protecting ancient towns, developing new areas, developing tourism, and prospering the economy".
At that time, Zhouzhuang was almost led by the government, promoted by residents, and participated by the whole people.
After a series of ancient building restoration and tourism development, Zhouzhuang has been completely transformed.
In 1989, Zhouzhuang sold its first attraction tickets, and since then, its annual tourism revenue has doubled, and it can even receive 30,000 visitors a day.
By 2019, 30 years later, the tourism revenue of Zhouzhuang Ancient Town has exceeded 2 billion.
On the narrow ancient road of the water town in the south of the Yangtze River, it is almost overcrowded.
Another top commercial template for China's ancient towns is Wuzhen.
Everything you see in Wuzhen Ancient Town today is also the result of artificially and meticulously built at that time.
Before 2001, Wuzhen was just a run-down town with no reputation. As a result, it took a year to spend 120 million yuan to create a "fake" ancient town, and the number of tourists exceeded 1 million in the first year.
The annual income is up to more than 2.1 billion, and the star Liu Ruoying is also invited to be the image ambassador of Wuzhen.
Subsequently, "ancient town" became the most irresistible word for Chinese tourism - Phoenix Ancient Town in Hunan, Ciqikou Ancient Town in Chongqing, Tongli Ancient Town in Suzhou.... All became early Internet celebrities.
The ancient town also began to be mass-produced in the name of being protected.
You will find that every once in a while, there is always a new ancient town popping up with Wuzhen as a model.
Such as Zunyi "Xiaowu Town" Shangji Ancient Town, Eastern Anhui "Xiaowu Town" Dingyuan Ancient City, Fujian "Xiaowu Town" Huotong Ancient Town, Shangrao "Xiaowu Town" Likeng Ancient Village....
The construction of the ancient town also gradually began to "use too much force".
Wuzhen Tourism Co., Ltd. personally went down and built the Gubei Water Town of Beijing's "Little Wuzhen".
This tourist attraction, which cost 4.5 billion yuan, once became the most "far-fetched" ancient town in the country.
Although it is at the foot of the Great Wall, it is almost everywhere imitated in the Jiangnan water town, and the gray tile brick wall of the Ming and Qing dynasties is pasted, as if it was "moved" from Zhejiang by air.
But that still doesn't stop it from becoming a star project in the early days of operation.
In the first year of its opening, the scenic spot ushered in a million passenger flows, earning 116 million yuan annually, and the business situation far exceeded expectations.
It's just that Gubei Water Town fell into a bottleneck soon after it opened for business.
In terms of passenger flow, in 2017, the growth rate of passenger flow in Gubei Water Town fell from 65.68% to 12.89%, and in 2020, Gubei Water Town's annual net profit loss reached 171 million.
The vigorous ancient town "faked" and was poured a basin of cold water on the head.
"Internet celebrities" have become "empty cities":
The ancient town fell out of favor overnight
With more and more ancient towns slowly being targeted by the market, the transformation of ancient towns is becoming more and more bold. A number of "fake" ancient towns have sprung up in various cities:
Donghuang Ancient Town in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, spent 500 million
The investment in Longquanpu Ancient Town in Hubei Province is more than 100000000000000000000000
The total investment in Jiuzi Ancient Town in Wuhu, Anhui Province has reached 8 billion
Shandong Weishan Lake Ancient Town, with an investment of more than 10 billion...
At that time, in a big real estate upcycle, the development of the ancient town became the most attractive gold mine.
And many tourists and locals have been suffering from the ancient town for a long time.
The reputation of the ancient town plummeted in an instant, and it became a real estate capital game. And the routine is becoming more and more obvious:
Tourists, the bitter thing is "homogenization".
The shops are filled with ethnic costumes, handmade silver silk scarves, snacks such as stinky tofu, grilled squid and sugar gourds, and souvenirs such as refrigerator magnets, flower and fruit tea, and keychains.
I originally wanted to experience the customs, but I came to the small commodity wholesale city dressed in the shell of the ancient town.
After eating and drinking, it ushered in the nightlife moment of the ancient town.
The nightlife of the ancient town is about the same as the word bar. Bars in various ancient towns also have unified decoration standards, such as after Zhao Lei became an instant hit, "Chengdu" became the image song of all ancient Chinese towns.
Xitang Ancient Town Bar
As for the locals, the bitter thing is that the "real ancient town" has been demolished.
Non-standard business is also fatal to the environment and ancient buildings.
In order to create a space for tourists, some ancient towns let all the original residents of the ancient town move out. Lijiang locals once said in an interview, "We have been prepared for a long time, if you don't leave, you can endure it, you will suffer!"
The perfect routine for most Guzhen players is to create an Internet celebrity tourist destination, set up the biggest stage possible, and then sing the finale by real estate.
In 2018, although the passenger flow of Gubei Water Town declined, it still had a net profit increase of 156%, mainly from the settlement of real estate projects.
The ticket-style ancient town of Chinese and Western mix and match once became a laughing stock.
However, not all ancient towns can be successful, and many projects fail in early positioning and later operation.
Chengdu invested 2 billion Longtan Water Town Ancient Town cost 2 billion yuan and took 4 years to build, positioning it as "Chengdu Qingming Riverside Map", which is equivalent to rebuilding a Zhouzhuang.
But gradually tourists find that it is full of loopholes:
Chengdu belongs to Sichuan, but Longtan Water Town has copied the design of Soviet-style gardens. The 12 streets and alleys are directly named after the 12 hairpins in "Dream of Red Mansions", all kinds of "mixes and matches".
The most outrageous thing is that the combination of east and west, north and south has made this place a "four dislike".
The ancient town of Peach Blossom Garden in Changde, Hunan Province, is said to have invested more than 5 billion yuan to build a "paradise" according to the appearance described in "The Story of Peach Blossom Spring".
As a result, after a few years of operation, some courtyards were overgrown with weeds, and some stairs were rusty.
The ancient town, which cost billions or tens of billions, eventually became an empty city.
The "culprit" of the ancient town:
Not commercialization, but homogenization
But if we have to attribute the failure of the ancient town to commercialization, it is too absolute.
Anthropologist Greenwood pointed out that the essence of tourism is the commercialization of culture.
In fact, most of the tourists do not reject commercialization, the ancient town is complained, does not mean that the ancient town has no market, just look at the formation of this year's Spring Festival.
Migrant workers with high work pressure are often loyal fans of Guzhen.
Feeling comfortable and romantic in the small bridge and flowing water in the ancient town in the south of the Yangtze River, or feeling the history in the ancient town in the north, are the reasons why the ancient town has been controversial for so many years, but the flow is stable.
In recent years, in order to save the reputation of the ancient town, many scenic spots have also moved their real character.
In order to develop, many ancient towns have also been thinking: how to attract young people?
For example, the ancient city of Luoyi in Henan Province is popular in the country, which is to seize the popularity of Hanfu and comprehensively build various details of the ancient city through Hanfu fever.
In the ancient city of Luoyi, the cost is 12.7 billion, but the ticket does not charge a penny.
Tang style restaurants, Song Dynasty shops, just one step away, more than 300 Hanfu shops have been built.
According to Douyin statistics, Luoyi Ancient City topped the list of the most popular Hanfu check-in places in the country, and Luoyang Hanfu became one of the hottest topics in the country, successfully tying Hanfu and Luoyang City brands together.
The ancient city of Zhengding, Hebei Province, is another set of ideas - setting up five different exhibition areas and moving the lantern festival to the city wall.
The 8-meter-high "Zhao Zilong" lantern and the more than 20-meter-long dragon and phoenix giant lantern are innovative and tightly bound to the characteristics of Yanzhao Dadi.
Play the NPCs of Zhengding historical celebrities Zhao Tuo, Fan Zhongyan, and Zhao Zilong, and dance to welcome tourists to the ancient city.
At one time, the Zhengding city wall could not be squeezed. Locals feel helpless: "This year, our local residents also want to go, so let's give up the reservation quota to tourists from other places first." ”
The enlightenment of these successful cases to us is that under the condition that the underlying logic of eating, drinking and having fun remains unchanged, the ancient town first finds its own characteristics, and then tries to amplify its advantages.
If you want to take advantage of the splashing traffic brought by tourism, it is not "creating Internet celebrities" or "copying", but the characteristics need to be protected, and the culture needs to be respected.
In fact, for tourists, do they really care about the authenticity of the ancient town?
What the locals are afraid of is not being transformed, but being changed by magic. What tourists are afraid of is not commercialization, but homogenization.
The ancient town may be fake, but the experience and feelings must be real.
Whoever makes tourists suffer is throwing their own jobs.
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