| The
province
of
Sichuan
has,
until recently been closed to international visitors.
Now, without infrastructure and services designed for
international tourism, it needs to make both infrastructure and
service industry investments to prepare for a new flow of
visitors. At the
same time,
Sichuan
is
the home to the majority of the world’s wild giant pandas,
which are endangered. Recent
steps to prevent extinction have displaced a large number of
resource extraction jobs. Egret
is co-leading on a joint US/China tourism design project that
will design high return cultural and resource oriented travel
experiences. The
team will also engineer tourism development to economically
support the protection and restoration efforts regarding pandas
and their habitat. The
project, when complete, will set the stage for controlled
tourism development in this exciting new tourism frontier.
Updates:
Egret led a pilot trip
to Sichuan in October 2007 to test progress on the development
of tourism infrastructure and guiding skills, and to monitor
visitor reactions to the natural and cultural experiences
Sichuan has to offer Western Travelers. We found an
amazing growth in tourism infrastructure, found that there are
still some significant hurdles to a successful Western travel
economy, and found incredible growth in Sichuan's domestic
tourism (which created some conflicts with the delivery of an
intimate tourism experience), We also noted that, barriers
aside, Sichuan's nature and culture experiences resonate
strongly with Western travelers. |
