Domestics Affairs

Scenic spot charges 'incomprehensible'

By Zhou Yun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-01 08:09

As the National Day holiday approaches and so too does a predicted peak in tourism, management authorities at many scenic spots are preparing to raise entrance prices.

The expense of visiting a place of interest in the Chinese mainland has now reached a shocking degree, even for people in Taiwan who earn much higher average incomes than those on the mainland.

It was not long ago that Taiwan Kuomintang vice president Chiang Hsiao-Yan singled out the tourist attractions of Huangshan Mountain, Zhangjiajie and Jiuzhaigou, saying that all Chinese people should be able to share in such areas of natural scenery. As a result, he said the idea of paying 300 yuan to enter one of these places was "incomprehensible".

In comparison, tourism hot spots in Taiwan are relatively cheap and some, like Sun-Moon Lake, are free to enter. Local governments take charge of the maintenance and operation of these places rather than passing control to private firms, a process normally pursued on the mainland.

The high entrance fees on the mainland are said to occur for particular reasons: to limit the number of visitors, and to raise money for maintenance and preservation of the area concerned.

The so-called attempt to control the number of tourists sounds reasonable on the surface, but one cannot help but question whether the saying is logical. It is also worth noting that tourism spot operators fail to enforce a limit on visitors and instead allow them to flock in, thus collecting more money.

As for the second reason, it is a little complex. To be frank, except for a few modern man-made spots, most tourist destinations are either natural occurrences or constructed by our ancestors. There might actually be too much investment from operators, which means they could become free for entry. However, preservation and maintenance are always necessary at some level.

The best way to handle preservation and maintenance is through government fiscal support. In this way, the public can visit scenic spots for free and indirectly assist in their development.

This is what is happening in Taiwan. By not collecting entrance fees, the number of visitors has risen. Related industries such as retail, catering, accommodation and transportation, have all flourished. This phenomenon allows the government to collect more from taxes, money that makes its way back to the tourism industry and covers maintenance and preservation costs.

If this path is not immediately possible in the mainland, we can still pursue a close alternative by setting two conditions for charging fees. First, the government, operator, independent accountant and public supervisor should jointly agree on maintenance and preservation fees. Additionally, the income and expenditures associated with running a tourism spot should be made public.

These two conditions should be based on law, since it is the law that notes how tourism spots in China are owned by the public. Therefore, management authorities have an obligation to publicly prove how much they charge and why they do so. However, the problem remains that local authorities have shrugged off the notion that the public owns these tourism spots.

The author is a professor at the School of Politics and Public Management, South China University of Technology