Study on Redevelopment of Kunming West Mountain Forest Park in the View of Experience Economy

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Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China

StudyonRedevelopmentofKunmingWestMountainForestParkintheViewofExperienceEconomy

RuminZHENG,ShuoZHEN,ZexiongYANG,XipingCHENG*,PinggeHE

Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China

At the background of the experience economy becoming major economic form in place of the service economy, forest experience develops vigorously and becomes a new approach for people alleviating pressure, acquiring knowledge, and relaxation. On the basis of analyzing concept and characteristics of the forest experience, this paper analyzed current situation of forest experience by taking Kunming West Mountain Forest Park as an example. It found there are existing problems in subject image, development methods and degree, professional personnel and concept. In view of these problems, it came up with recommendations including determining subject image, designing special products, accelerating cultivation of professional personnel, and strengthening training of forest experience concept. It is expected to provide reference for multi-functional use theory of China and provide ideas for developing forest experience projects.

Forest experience, Multi-functional use of forest, Tourist resources, Forest Park

1 Introduction

The "Experience Economy" was put forward by American scholar Alvin Toffler in Future Shock in 1970. In his opinion, after experiencing agricultural economy, industrial economy, and service economy, the experience economy will become a social development tide in place of the service economy[1]. Essentially, the experience economy appears with constant development of productivity and rising of hierarchy of needs, and it is result of social and economic development and will promote transformation and development of various sectors[2-3]. Penetration of the experience economy into tourism gives new connotation for tourism. In addition to concept of tourist consumption becoming increasingly mature, the experience tourism becomes inevitable demand of tourists in the times of experience economy[4-6]. With the demand of people for multi-function of forest increasingly rising and necessity for ecological protection, multi-function of forest is the inevitable choice for forest development[7]. At present, China’s forestry is in the period of transition from timber production to ecological protection oriented multi-function forestry[8-9]. Forest attracts numerous people with its beautiful landscape, superior environment, rich bio-diversity and unique health-care functions[10], and becomes natural experience place. Foreign countries have developed forest experience for a long time. For example, South Korea has carried out research and practice of forest experience, forest health care and recreation for more than 20 years. In China, the experience economy is mainly applied in experience marketing and commerce, only few scholars apply this theory in scenic spot development[11], and even less scholars apply this theory in development of Forest Park. Therefore, we analyze development of West Mountain Forest Park from the perspective of the forest experience, to provide reference for sustainable development of Forest Park and effectively bring into play multi-functional use of forest.

2 General information of the forest experience

The experience is the activity of consumers creating memorable experience through integrating into a series of scenes, stimulating inner positive action to obtain fine mental feelings[12]. In 1998, Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore pointed out the experience economy is an economic form of enterprise taking service as stage, commodities as tools, customers as center, and feelings as links, to create various activities for consumer participation, finally to satisfy their experience demands. They divided experience into entertainment experience, education experience, escapism experience and aesthetic experience. The experience offering the richest feeling must cover these four aspects,i.e. the sweet belt of overlapping of four aspects[1, 13]. Summarizing theories and practice of experience economy and forest development situation, domestic scholars define forest experience as a practical method of relying on forest resources and landscape, guiding people to arouse sensual feeling to feel forest, recognize forest, and understand connection between forest and human activities, to promote physical and mental health, and stimulating people to actively participate in forest protection, and finally realize sustainable development of forestry[14]. We can say that forest experience, as an essential form of returning to nature and perceiving life, has become a new approach for people alleviating pressure, acquiring knowledge and relaxation with its fresh, natural and unique environment. On this basis, we summarized characteristics of the forest experience: the production process of forest experience has direct participation of target groups and people directly participate in production or service process[15]; forest experience provides products for target groups to satisfy their mental demands and care more about their feeling at receiving products[16]; standardized products gradually lose advantages and "individualization" is the soul of forest experience[17]; forest experience values cultural connotation of products and services, and provides cognition education for target groups[18]; forest experience activities are manifested in various forms, such as perception type, participation type, and cognition type. Forest experience satisfies multiple aspects and deep level experience demands of people and is an inevitable choice for forest park realizing sustainable development and bringing into full play multi-functions of forests.

3 Overview of Kunming West Mountain Forest Park

At a distance of 15 kilometers west suburbs of Kunming, on the shore of the Dian Lake, stands a cluster of hills called "West Mountain". West Mountain Forest Park (N24°57’- 24°59’20"，E102°37’-102°38’30", as shown in Fig. 1) is renowned for its rolling mountains, tranquil forest with towering trees, singing birds and clear streams, and numerous historic sites. However, as a tourist destination, it also boasts its excellent viewpoint for overlooking the Dian Lake and watching sunrise. The touching beauty of West Mountain never fails to attract any traveler who visits Kunming. The overall structure of landscape in West Mountain Forest Park is relatively complete and can maintain normal ecological process of landscape. Its landscape is mainly forest ecological landscape, consisting of primeval secondary forests and shrubs, mainlyCyclobalanopsisglaucoidesSchottky,PinusyunnanensisFranch,PinusarmandiiFranch, andAlnusnepalensisD.DON. Besides, West Mountain Forest Park is rich in mountain resources and geological resources, such as Biji Mountain, Taihua Mountain and Luohan Mountain, early Cambrian system shale, and basalt. This region is not only outstanding in natural landscape, but also

rich in cultural resources. There are many scenic spots, such as Holy Land of the Taoism, Sanqing Temple, Longmen Grottoes, and the largest temple in Kunming, Huating Temple, and Holy Land of the Buddhism, Taihua Temple, major historical and cultural site under state protection, Tomb of Nie Er, and folk custom "On March 3rd of the lunar calendar, play games in West Mountain". These indicate that Kunming West Mountain has excellent resource conditions for launching the forest experience. In October 18-19, 2014, we carried out a questionnaire survey on tourists of West Mountain Forest Park. We found that tourists of West Mountain Forest Park mainly come from Kunming, tourists are mainly local students, core families and middle and old-aged ones, and their educational level is relatively high, young tourists occupy a larger portion and are easily receiving new ideas and like new and challenging things. These tourists provide excellent market conditions for West Mountain Forest Park carrying out forest experience, but people’s satisfaction at Kunming West Mountain Forest Park is not high, as shown in Table 1. Our survey results will provide reference for studying current situations and problems of development of forest experience in this region.

Fig.1 Location of Kunming West Mountain Forest Park

Table1BasicinformationoftouristsofWestMountainForestPark

ItemBasicdataNumberofsamplesPercentage%ItemBasicdataNumberofsamplesPercentage%EducationalPrimaryschool31.6AgeYoungerthan13157.8levelJuniormiddleschool84.214-20yearsold4020.8Seniormiddleschool/vocationalschool2211.521-35yearsold5729.7Juniorcollege6734.836-45yearsold4121.4Undergraduate8343.246-55yearsold2312.0Masterandabove94.7Olderthan55168.3SexMale10956.8Wayoftrave-lingSelf-servicetravelSchools4221.9Female8343.2Families5528.6TouristsourceKunmingCity13771.4Friends4925.6OthercitiesofYunnanProvince3719.3Others168.3Otherprovinces157.7Touristgroup3015.6Foreigncountries31.6Overallsatisfaction:55.6%satisfiedand44.44%dissatisfied

4 Current situations and existing problems of development of West Mountain Forest Park

4.1NooutstandingthemeandweakproductattractionForest experience focuses on people’s experience and the purpose is to bring people with impressed and unforgettable experience and accordingly encourage people to make repetitive tour. West Mountain Forest Park is rich in forest experience resources, but it still remains the state of natural propaganda. There is still no definite theme and no product design of forest experience. At present, people’s conception and recognition of West Mountain Forest Park generally remains in forest resources and cultural temples, there is still no unforgettable forest experience product, and the attraction to people is relatively weak.

4.2SingledevelopmentmodeandlowparticipationlevelForest experience is not a simple sightseeing, but fully arouses sensual organs to provide mental and physical enjoyment and individualized products and services. More important, people are not satisfied with passively accepting products and services any more, but pay close attention to emotional satisfaction and demands of self-realization, concern about participation in product design and development, and expect obtaining delight and stimulus through forest experience. However, in West Mountain Forest Park, the forest experience is mainly realized through sightseeing of scenic spots and explanation of tour guide. Various forest experience items still remain at the traditional sightseeing stage and not in pace with individualized and participating type experience demands of tourists. Thus, developing participation type activities is a way of keeping vitality of the Forest Park.

4.3LackofprofessionaltalentsofforestexperienceKunming West Mountain Forest Park has 15 full-time guides. All of these guides have received training and rich experience, but their guide is mainly explanation. In other words, tourists are passively accepting information. It is unable to satisfy individualized and differentiated forest experience demands, and unable to satisfy participation demands of tourists. In addition, Longmen scenic spot is equipped with self-service explainer, which is an innovation of explanation system, but this only remains the stage of sightseeing, and standardized explanation fails to give people deep and unforgettable experience. Instead, it may lead to aesthetic fatigue and reduce rate of repetitive tour.

4.4LittleattentiontotheconceptofforestexperienceThrough interview, we knew that mangers and workers of West Mountain Forest Park care more about quantity of tourists and how to attract people to travel in the park, and the thought of ticket economy is serious. The construction of scenic spots still stays at collecting tickets and complete buildings of scenic spots and smooth roads, but care little about demands of people for forest experience and development of forest experience products, emotional experience, pertinent services, individualized and differentiated management. Park managers are weak in concept of forest experience and the related trainings are very few. All of these will restrict long-term development of scenic spots and multi-functional development of forest.

5 Recommendations for forest experience development of West Mountain Forest Park

5.1DeterminingthethemeimageofWestMountainForestParktoimprovecorecompetitivepowerDistinctive theme image is the center of forest experience and the foundation of building the entire forest experience design scheme, can objectively, accurately and comprehensively summarize major characteristics of West Mountain Forest Park, and is of guiding significance for development construction, management, and service implementation. The theme image, conforming to demands of tourists and having cultural connotation, can attract active participation of tourists, receive sympathetic response of tourists, and bring about long-lasting memory. Through overview of geographical and cultural situation of West Mountain Forest Park, its most outstanding value is the forest resources and historical culture in the development of the park. Therefore, the theme of the West Mountain Forest Park should start from the park itself, integrate related historical culture into the park, and design impressive forest experience products, to make the West Mountain Forest Park become an important place for local residents and also lift its position in tourists from other places.

5.2DesigningspecialproductsforforestexperienceandcarryingoutvariousexperienceactivitiesTaking natural, cultural and ecological resources of West Mountain Forest Park as foundation, on the basis of sensory experience of tourists, combining with characteristics of forest experience, we summarized up following forest experience activities, as listed in Table 2.

5.2.1Perception type aesthetic experience activities. In such activities, tourists experience unique forest resources and environment and perceive nature beauty through sensory experience. Relying on rich natural, cultural and ecological resources of West Mountain Forest Park, it is feasible to develop aesthetic experience activities that can develop and support the theme of scenic spot and effectively stimulate one or several sensory organs. Besides, static forest demonstration can be combined with dynamic forest experience, to bring impressive image to tourists, so as to strengthen perception type aesthetic experience of tourists and improve understanding of the nature. The perception type aesthetic experience is the foundation of forest experience and also the major direction of current forest experience. West Mountain Forest Park can bring into play its advantage of forest resource and connect different species of trees to establish characteristic walking route; it is recommended to develop plank road in forest, make tourists pass through forest and feel different forest landscape; set up lookouts, to make tourists overlook the forest, feel magnificent forest and beautiful Dianchi Lake, and beautiful urban landscape; arrange self-service camping site, field cooking area, and put up "forest house" with woods, to satisfy demands of tourists for getting close to the nature.

5.2.2Participating practical experience activities. Through participating in various practical activities of Forest Park, such as exercise, climbing tress, and making handcraft with forest elements, and forest-related operation, people can realize physical exercise, tamper their willpower, cultivate their taste, and promote physical and mental health. In forest experience activities, people’s participation degree is directly correlated with experience effect; the higher the participation level, the better experience results, otherwise, the worse experience results. West Mountain Forest Park should take advantage of its unique experience resources to set up suitable experience scenes, providing tourists with practical and real environment, attracting people to participate in and integrate into the experience activities, and building up high quality forest experience process.

In participating type practical experience, people’s participation is high, the experience will be more exciting, and people’s forest experience demands will get satisfied to a greater extent. West Mountain Forest Park can use its terrain advantages to launch Outward Bound, and Adventure, to excise outdoor survival ability; conduct Strop Ropeway, and Jungle Leap, to attract tourists to play games among woods and get close to the nature.

5.2.3Cognition and learning type experience activities. In cognition and learning type experience activities, people can learn and understand various living things, environment and culture of forest and understand the close connection between the nature and human beings, to improve self-quality. Cognition education mainly includes natural cognition and cultural cognition education, especially the cognition education of children and young people. Cognition and learning type experience activities are mainly carried out through play games, giving lecture, practice, looking after plants and animals, simulating scenes, and role play, to make people know about how to get along with the nature harmoniously, set up awareness of protecting environment and closing to the nature, and cultivate cultural feelings to the nature.

The nature cognition education of West Mountain Forest Park includes bio-diversity education, water loss and soil erosion education, and urban and forest air comparative measurement, to make people realize the importance of ecological protection and correctly recognize the relationship between ecological protection and economic development. Cultural cognition education includes experience of religious culture, mainly taking Sanqing Temple, Huating Temple, and Taihua Temple as bases; experience of patriotic culture and artistic culture, mainly taking Tomb of Nie Er, Longmen Grottoes, setting up "Forest Artistic Experience Hall", for instance; besides, it is feasible to hold spring outing activity, such as "On March 3rd of the lunar calendar, play games in West Mountain", to pass on the custom.

5.3AcceleratingcultivationofprofessionaltalentsforforestexperienceandsettingupprofessionalserviceteamProfessional service personnel of forest experience can bring into full play their advantage of profession and assist tourists in completing forest experience activities. Besides, they can improve traditional standardized explanation and create high quality and unforgettable forest experience jointly with participants. With in-depth advance of multi-functional use of forest and increasingly individualization of personal demands, the difficulty and complexity of carrying out forest experience activities will gradually increase, and it is urgent to cultivate professional service team for forest experience. The state forestry departments and Forest Park should establish cultivation mechanism and practice base for forest experience talents, to cultivate a professional forest experience service team with adequate quantity, reasonable structure, and high quality.

Table2TouristresourcesanddevelopablecategoriesofforestexperienceactivitiesforKunmingWestMountainForestPark

CategorySub-categoryTypicalresourcesofKunmingWestMountainForestParkMajorcategoriesofforestexperienceactivitiesPhysiographiclandscapeComprehensivenaturaltouristsiteBijiMountain,HuatingMountain,ArhatPeak,andTaihuaMoun-tain,etcⅠ,Ⅱ,ⅢSedimentationandstructureLongmenCliffⅡ,ⅢTraceofgeologicalandphysiog-nomicprocessSmallstoneforest,earlyCambriansystemshale,andbasalt,etcⅠ,ⅢBiologicallandscapeTreesPrimevalsecondaryforest:subtropicalevergreenbroad-leafforest,andconiferousforest;Ancientandfamoustrees:gingkoinTaihuaTemple,andbirchofHuatingTemple;Colortrees:lacquertreesandredmapletreesⅠ,Ⅱ,ⅢFlowersGardenofYulanMagnoliaⅠ,ⅢAstronomicalphenomenaLightphenomenaSunriseandSunsetGlowofDianchiLakeⅠ,ⅡandclimaticlandscapeWeatherandclimaticphenomenaSummerresortsandwinterresortssuchasGuanyinPlatformandTopmouthCulterⅠ,Ⅱ,ⅢRelicsandhistoricalre-mainsRelicsandhistoricalremainsofso-cial,economic,andculturaleventsSummerResortRelicsofEmperorLiang,StepRoadofaThousandStepCliff,andTaihuaAncientRoadⅡ,ⅢBuildingsandfacilitiesComprehensiveculturaltouristsiteShenganPavilion(Temple),HuatingTemple,TaihuaTemple,SanqingTempleⅠ,ⅢSingleplaceforculturalorsportsactivitiesXuXiakeMemorialHallⅢLandscapebuildingsandannexbuildingsLongmenGrottoesⅠ,ⅢTombsTombofNieErⅢTouristgoodsLocaltouristgoodsTaihuamountainvilla,MaomaoqingVillageⅠ,ⅡCulturalactivitiesFolkcustomsSpringtourlikeclimbingontoWestMountainonMarch3rdofthelunarcalendarⅠ,Ⅱ,Ⅲ

Notes: Ⅰ is perception type aesthetic experience activities, Ⅱ is participating practical experience activities, and Ⅲ is cognition and learning type experience activities.

5.4StrengtheningtrainingofforestexperienceconceptandpromotingcommunityparticipationThe precondition for developing forest experience activities of West Mountain Forest Park is specialized training of all workers in the scenic spot, especially management personnel, to make the forest experience become a common understanding of all workers. Apart from scenic spot management personnel, community residents are also important participants of forest experience activities. It is necessary to strengthen education of community residents about environmental protection and forest experience, and guide community residents to develop forest experience activities with local characteristics, to promote common development of Forest Park and communities.

6 Conclusions

We put forward development strategies for forest experience from concept, theme, products, ecology, and community, and came up with basic requirements and methods from three levels. The first level takes forest experience concept as guidance and sticks to forest experience management; the second level takes theme and products as the core and provides methods at technical level of forest experience products; the third level is to establish harmonious relationship between forest experience development, ecology and communities, to realize sustainable ecological, social and economic development. These development strategies not only enrich theoretical foundation of forest experience of West Mountain Forest Park, but also satisfy forest experience demands and development experience development methods of Forest Park, and realize the integration of development of Forest Park, social demands, and ecological benefits. It is expected to provide certain guiding significance for multi-functional use and sustainable development of West Mountain Forest Park, and provide some references for forest experience development of other forest parks.

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December 10, 2015 Accepted: January 25, 2016

Supported by Scientific Research Foundation of Southwest Forestry University (C15025).

*Corresponding author. E-mail:xipingcheng2012@163.com