Ancient towns form a union

The old town of Pingyao county, Shanxi province has joined forces with Langzhong county, Sichuan province, Huizhou county, Anhui province, and Anju county near the mega-city of Chongqing, also in Sichuan to form an "ancient town league", on Nov 29, to promote culture and tourism, Chongqing Economic Times has reported.

Representatives from the four areas got together with experts on old cities and tourism from the cities of Beijing, Chengdu, and Chongqing to discuss their plan of integrated development and their common feature of each having a more than 1,000-year history. Some scholars pointed to the well-preserved architecture of old council buildings, temples, and ancient dwellings, while Gao Guomin, the Anju county head, pointed to the advantages of common goals and interests in long-term development and relics protection.

Another advantage in joint development is the avoidance of homogenization, because the domestic tourist market has about 2,000 ancient towns, but their names are seldom remembered by tourists because they lack uniqueness. Lin Peng, head of the Chinese Ancient Town Research Institute, explained a lack of communications is a bad thing for the entire tourism business and that establishing unions of tourist spots with geographical differences encourages information exchanges and differentiation in the tourism business, and causes each of them to identify their unique points. Lin went on to say that joint publicity campaigns can cut costs. So, the four are working on an information site and the administrations will meet on a regular basis to deal with problems for tourists and tourism agencies. The union will also organize study groups for tourism managers and employees, strategic planning, image-making and branding, market promotions and project construction to bring progress together. The alliance also brings benefits to tourists, explained Ye Qing, vice-head of Renmin University's Brand Management Research Institute, a new domestic tourism attempt, by increasing capital and investment in the ancient towns.