Research on Tourism Development Pattern of Intangible Cultural Heritage on A Perspective of Industrial Agglomeration——A Case Study of Chengdu

Abstact: During the long history of development, human being created precious treasures, both cultural and material. The treasures composed unique cultural gem of human being. When human set up into the 21st century, economic index is no longer the only index to value a country's comprehensive strength. Cultural competitive strength becomes an important index to evaluate the comprehensive strength of a country or a district. The cultural connotation and competitive strength are becoming an important sign of a country or a district's level of civilization and development.

The soft power of culture is playing an more significant role in social life of common people and the competition of nations. Cultural construction has become an indispensable section of constructing a harmonious society. Hence, improving the soft power of culture plays an important role in both our national culture construction and national rejuvenation.

With the development of social economy, people's consumption level has been greatly improved as well as their cultural quality. Thus, tourism is now becoming an indispensable part of human life. These prerequisites have provided a fertile ground for the development of cultural tourism.

Tourism, as the "Sun-rise Industry" in the 21st century, has already been seen as one of the strategic pillar industries for national economy. And consensus has been made about the economic effect of tourism .Meanwhile, tourism has step into a brand-new stage. From pure sightseeing to vacation tour, then to experience tourism,the connotation of tourism is expanding continuously, involving different kinds of activities and forms. Tourism, as a comprehensive industry, is merging with other industries, breathing new life into the development of tourism and making it a long-lasting "Sun-rise Industry" that deserve its name.

Cultural tourism is a new tourism form with high knowledge intensiveness, strong potential and competitive strength and can effectively improve tourists' cultural accomplishment. Cultural tourism covers a wide range of subjects and involves abundant information in history and culture. Thus tourists could know the precious cultural heritage of human being and learn other peoples' current life and thoughts from it. It is also true that tourism has promoted cultural communication between different peoples and districts as a way of borrowing and adopting other culture.

Cultural heritage, as an important component, is now being attached importance to by nations and districts. In Nov. 16th, 1972 the United Nation passed Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which indicated the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage had stepped into a new era.

Thousands of years' civilization of China has produced abundant cultural heritage, including plenty of intangible cultural heritage. Until 2011, our country has published three bahes of national intangible cultural heritage list, 518 in the first bah, 510 in the second and 191 in the third. The total number of national intangible cultural heritage counts to 1219. They are divided into ten categories namely the folklore, traditional music, traditional dance, traditional oprea, Quyi art, traditional sport, carnival and acrobatics, traditional art, traditional workmanship, traditional medicine and folk custom.

The essential attribute of both tourism activities and intangible cultural heritage is cultural. Tourism of intangible cultural heritage is a new and comprehensive tourism form which emerges with cultural industry and tourism industry into one and emphasizes social benefit as well as economic benefit and environment benefit. It is product of combining pure cultural heritage protection with tourism exploit on the base of protecting and handing down intangible cultural heritage. With the increasing awareness of intangible cultural heritage, tourism of intangible cultural heritage is now showing in front of people as a brand new tourism form.

In recent years, the theme parks of intangible cultural heritage and scenic spots with lot of intangible cultural heritages and related supporting industry chains arose around the nation. This leads to the spatial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage tourism. Taking Chengdu as a representative, an industry agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage tourism has been shaped on the base of supporting enterprises of intangible cultural heritage and led by core enterprises running intangible cultural heritage. Three sessions of International Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival were hold here. And scenic spots of intangible cultural heritage like the Expo of International Intangible Cultural Heritage, Jinli Ancient Street, Kuanzhai Alley are gathered here. However, research on the industry agglomeration phenomenon are rarely discussed by scholars.

In order to solve this current situation, the research emphasis is the tourism development pattern of intangible cultural heritage on a perspective of industrial agglomeration. The main content is to explain the phenomenon of spatial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage, analyze the causes led to this phenomenon and its competitive advantages and summarize its development pattern on a perspective of industrial agglomeration.

The whole book is divided into 6 chapters:

Chapter 1 is the introduction. This chapter narrates the research background and research aim of this book, and puts forward the object of the study——development pattern of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage. It also explains the theoretic and practical significance of the study, the content and research method, the innovation points as well. The first innovation point is about the visual angle of the research and the second is the idea of development pattern of intangible cultural heritage.At the end of this chapter, reviews the history of theories of industrial agglomeration, especially about several main scholars, sorts out previous ideas about connotation and denotation of industrial agglomeration.

Chapter 2 is about the related concepts and theoretic base of the research. It introduces the main content and connotation of agglomeration economy theory, the main idea of the Diamond Theory that Michael Porter raised up in his famous book Competitive Advantage of Nations and theory of tourist experience.

Chapter 3 is about the development of intangible cultural heritage tourism. The whole chapter is based on the current situation of industrial agglomeration of Chengdu's intangible cultural heritage. In a simple word, it introduces the development of intangible cultural heritage as well as the development of China's tourism with a focus on the development of intangible cultural heritage in the new China.

Chapter 4 is about the attribute and cause of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage tourism, which deepens the understanding of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage tourism.

Chapter 5 focuses on the development pattern of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage, which is the core of this book and abundant in content. By analyzing and studying the appearance, it depicts and summarizes six characteristics of the development pattern of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritages tourism in Chengdu. Then on the base of Michael Porter's"Diamond Theory", it analyzes the competitive advantages of Chengdu's industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage in detail. Finally, combined with the chapters above it summarizes the development pattern of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage in Chengdu.

Chapter 6 is the empirical study. This chapter is an analytical study towards the questionnaire about the Expo of International Intangible Cultural Heritage and discusses problems like tourist's satisfaction and interest in this scenic spot.

It will be a great honor that this paper can be used as a source of reference for the proprietors and managers of intangible cultural heritage tourism and make even a little contribution to the research of industrial agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage tourism.