A few days ago, the National Tourism Administration released the "2016 China Tourism Investment Report." The actual investment in tourism last year was 1,299.7 billion yuan, up 29 % year-on-year, 18 percentage points higher than the growth rate of tertiary industry and 21 percentage points of fixed asset investment, and 22 percentage points higher than the growth rate of real estate investment. Direct and catalytic investment in tourism contributed more than 11 per cent to the overall fiscal situation.

As the Chinese economy enters a new normal, tourism has become a hot spot for social investment and the most promising area for investment. Tourism investment is becoming an important breakthrough in the supply side reform of tourism. Direct investment in tourism is expected to exceed 1.5 trillion yuan this year, a year-on-year increase of more than 20 %.

Tourism investment has accelerated significantly

The acceleration of global tourism has attracted all kinds of social capital to accelerate investment in tourism. Tourism has also played an increasingly important role in restructuring, stabilizing growth, promoting consumption, and benefiting people s livelihood. Tourism has become an "accelerator" for China s economic development. At present, there are a lot of social capital and private enterprises that have quickly turned to the tourism industry. This has not only found new business opportunities for the capital itself, but also further enriched the tourism products and increased the diversification of tourism consumption choices.

The Internet continues to accelerate development and has further boosted the rapid development of popular tourism consumption. In the past six years, many tourism companies such as China Tourism Group, China Youth Brigade, Ctrip, and Overseas Chinese City have invested a total of 150 billion yuan in tourism. According to statistics, all kinds of large enterprises have entered the tourism investment market. Nine of the top 10 Internet companies have invested in tourism, with a cumulative investment of 35 billion yuan over five years. The penetration and integration of online and offline tourism enterprises has intensified, and the traditional tourism pattern has been continuously rewritten. The top five real estate enterprises have all invested in tourism, with an investment of 1.7 trillion yuan. Traditional enterprises such as Gome, Suning, and Zhongliang have also tried water tourism.

At the same time, international brands have accelerated China s investment layout. Of the 458 international brand luxury hotels in the world, 253 are built in the Asia-Pacific region, of which 58 % are in China. At present, there are 8 world theme parks such as Disney, Universal Studios, Lotte World, Lego Paradise, and Oriental Hollywood that are built or planned in China.

Tourism has come to the forefront of investment. It is undeniable that the phenomenon that good projects can not find strong investors and powerful investors can not find good projects is widespread. This will change the phenomenon that investment projects do not meet the needs of investors and achieve effective matching of capital and projects. Some experts have analyzed that tourism investment is an important breakthrough in the structural transformation of the supply side of tourism, and the construction of high-quality tourism projects is an important means to meet the era of mass tourism and meet the growing demand for tourism consumption.

The diversification of the investment body

The report shows that the National tourism investment still continues the diversified main investment pattern of private capital, supplemented by government investment and state-owned enterprise investment. Private enterprises invested 762.8 billion yuan in tourism, accounting for 58.7 % of all tourism investment. Investment hotspots have shifted from real estate to tourism complexes and cultural tourism. The government investment and the investment of state-owned enterprises were 248.4 billion yuan and 1945 billion yuan, respectively, accounting for 19.1 % and 15 % of all tourism investment, respectively.

There are also differences in the investment preferences of different investors. 53 % of private capital is invested in the economically developed eastern region, mainly investing in large-scale integrated cultural tourism projects; The proportion of government and state-owned enterprises in tourism investment in the western region is relatively high, and the investment is relatively concentrated in tourism infrastructure, public service facilities, and tourism villages and towns. Foreign investors prefer the eastern region, with 76 % of the money going to the eastern provinces.

Investment in scenic spots has also remained stable, and the growth rate of new forms of investment has accelerated. Last year, investment in tourist attractions continued to increase, with the actual investment of 737.1 billion yuan, accounting for 56.7 % of total tourism investment, the largest proportion. The investment in tourist shopping projects was 87.28 billion yuan, an increase of 24,4 % year-on-year, the largest increase. From the point of view of the distribution of industry, the flow of funds mainly focuses on cultural tourism, ecotourism, rural tourism, as well as hot spring skiing, low-altitude flying and industrial tourism and other new types of industries.

In addition, the tourism industry investment fund has grown rapidly. By the end of last year, China had 126 investment funds for the tourism industry, the size of which exceeded 600 billion yuan. The five regions of Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Shanxi have the largest number of investment funds for tourism industry. Cultural tourism, ecotourism, leisure and vacation, old-age tourism and tourist towns are the focus of investment in tourism industry funds.

Top 10 areas become hot spots

In the future, the environment for tourism investment will be favorable. With the deepening of the country s "Belt and Road" construction, urbanization, beautiful rural construction, mass innovation in entrepreneurship, and the implementation of the tax reduction policy for the benefit of the people, the scope and scope of tourism investment have continued to expand.

The report analyzes that the following 10 aspects will become important areas for future tourism investment: First, the development of rural tourism products that are integrated with leisure agriculture, and the rapid development of leisure farms, characteristic villages, and rural fine homes and accommodation will be developed. The second is low-altitude tourism products, including low-altitude tourism line development, aviation tourism towns, low-altitude tourism aircraft and so on. The third is online tourism products, including tourism Internet finance, destination tourism resources integration, content creative products and sharing tourism products. Fourth, tourism data and smart tourism products, including major tourism data centers, tourism data applications, smart tourism transportation, smart tourism government, future scenic spots, future hotels and so on. The fifth is the construction of leisure and holiday products, including tourist resorts, tourism complexes, characteristic tourist towns, characteristic commercial neighborhoods, comprehensive resort hotels, and exquisite hotels. The sixth is cultural tourism products, including large-scale performing arts, theme parks, Wenchuangyuan, music parks, and art centers. Seventh, sports tourism products, including competitive sports events, participatory sports events, mass sports activities, sports festivals, ski resorts and so on. Eighth, health care tourism products, including traditional Chinese medicine health care bases, medical examination institutions, treatment centers, health vacation bases and elderly tourism products. The ninth is research tourism products, including research bases, theme museums, and leisure book houses. Ten is the new tourism equipment manufacturing industry, such as cruise ships, aircraft, amusement facilities, RV, wooden houses, skiing and golf equipment.

The scale of tourism investment in the future will continue to expand. Various special towns and tourism complexes will become an important carrier of capital accumulation. Tourism investment structure is more reasonable and the benefits are more significant. In addition, capital, technology, and innovation will also contribute to the rapid growth of tourism investment, and online tourism companies and technology tourism products will continue to grow.

In the face of an increasing investment boom in tourism, it is necessary to maintain a calm and sober understanding. Will the rapid investment of large amounts of money into tourism create a "flood of irrigation" type of strong stimulus and create new overcapacity? Blindly relying solely on investment to promote the tourism economy, one-sided use of real estate investment to develop tourism, the negative impact on tourism may be very large. Experts said it is important to give full play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources, pay attention to optimizing the structure of tourism investment, strengthen the guidance of social capital, and promote the sustained and healthy growth of investment in key areas. Prevent the phenomenon of blindly seeking big and fast, using the name of tourism to make real estate. Source: "People s Daily Overseas Edition"(12th edition, May 26, 2017)

This reporter Zhao Shan