Study on Low-Carbon Economy Model and Method of Chinese Tourism Industry

Outline

Since United nation framework convention on Climate change in 1992 and Tokyo Protocol in 1997 started systematic discussion of low-carbon economy, British President Mr. Tony Blair initially proposed the conception of “Low-carbon economy” in resource white book “Our energy future: establishment of low-carbon economy” in 2003. Developing low-carbon economy has caught increasing attention all over the world (Jia D. C., 2009). It follows a series of new words and names such as low-carbon, carbon footprint, low-carbon economy, low-carbon technology, low-carbon development, low-carbon economic demonstration district, carbon productivity, carbon trade market, low-carbon life style, low-carbon society, low-carbon city, low-carbon world to create a new low-carbon era globally. As a modern service sector with the characteristics of low consumption, little pollution and big volume of employment demand, tourism has the potential to be low-carbon sector initially (Bao J. Q. et al., 2008). In May of 2009, in International commercial summit of climate change hold in Copenhagen, World Economy forum submitted the report of Forward to low-carbon tourism which proposed the improvement of low-carbon sustainability of tourism by all governments, industry’s stakeholders and consumers to achieve continuous growth of tourism and national economic sustainable development. It is also a part of long-term scheme for handling with climate change by tourism branches.

There are a lot of questions such as what is low-carbon tourism? How to realize effective combination of tourism with low-carbon economy? Therefore, this chapter tries to make preliminary exploitation and study on the relevant issues of “low-carbon economy and tourism”. It will not only offer theory guidance on sustainable development of tourism, and it is also full of pioneering demonstration and example significance on practical application development of notion of green low-carbonization in tourism.

The article has accomplished following tasks according to present tendency of low-carbon development and characteristics of tourism.

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  It introduces overview of low-carbon economy including the generation of low-carbon economy, conception explanation, significance of the Times on development of low-carbon economy and effective channel to realize it. Macroscopic understanding on relevant theory of low-carbon economy can play a theoretical guidance role on effective explanation and realization of low-carbon economic notion.

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  It proposes the necessity, possibility and strengths of low-carbon tourism economy development in tourism according to its development situation and industrial advantage. It also emphasizes pioneering role and example effect of low-carbon economy development in tourism. Hence it establishes a solid industrial foundation for execution of low-carbon economy, and indicate future strategic path for low-carbon tourism development.

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  It tries to propose an operation framework system based on the understanding of industrial advantage of tourism to develop low-carbon economy with combining industrial relevance, industrial structure, and development model of tourism. This framework includes four systems such as power system, supportive safeguard system, participating main objects system and realized target system. They will play important roles on efficient guidance and standardization of low-carbon tourism development. What’s more, It suggests executive scheme on low-carbon tourism development based on six elements in tourism. Finally, Focusing on the Guangdong’s strategic target of “Top province of low-carbon economy”, this article selects two representative ecotourism areas to be objects, Shenzhen east OCT and Mt. Danxia of Guangdong province to study their series of ecology environmental-friendly designs and specific strategies related with low-carbon conception to prove workability of low-carbon tourism development in order to set a demonstrative example of carrying out low-carbon tourism in the country.