Keywords

1 Introduction

Under the background of new urbanization, along with the requirement to promote the collaborative development of the urban and rural area, as the main force of promoting new urbanization, the characteristic small town has obtained significant attention of the state, it is planning to develop one thousand characteristic small towns by 2020 under the leadership of the ministry of housing and urban-rural development. In January 2016, the government of Jiangxi published the development scheme for characteristic small town of Jiangxi Province, with requirements to build a suitable sized populated area with urban functions as well as the rural culture. There are twelve towns in Jiangxi that have been selected as the national level characteristic small towns, however according to the development features of the twelve characteristic small towns, tourism-oriented characteristic small town has taken the largest portion of 75%, therefore the analysis over the tourism-oriented characteristic small town is of great importance.

The tourism-oriented characteristic small town refers to the development of the town which mainly relies on the tourist industry, with supplement of additional industries radiated by the tourist industry, of which the tourist industry can be classified by tourism, health and fitness industries, accommodation and catering industries, leisure entertainment industry etc., and the developing pattern is the general term for the orientation and path of the object development under a certain background, which possesses instructional function to the development of things. It is necessary to consider from multiple aspects of resource advantage, transportation factor and geological position, etc. while choosing the developing pattern for the tourist town, and make the correct choice over the developing pattern through analyzing multiple factors and continuously improving the development pattern. From the perspective of developing pattern for tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi, the developing pattern of the town has not been completed yet and therefore would be necessary to be further improved. Based on the analysis of the development mode of tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province, the problems existing in the development mode of the small town are found out and the relevant suggestions are put forward, so as to promote the construction of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province.

2 Necessity and Present Situation of the Development of Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Town in Jiangxi Province

2.1 The Necessity of the Development of Tourist-Oriented Characteristic Small Town in Jiangxi Province

2.1.1 The Development Speed of Urban Economy in Jiangxi Province is Down

The GDP of Jiangxi Province was 1.29 trillion yuan in 2012 and 2.08 trillion yuan in 2017. In the past five years, the GDP in Jiangxi Province had shown the increasing trend year by year (Fig. 1), but its growth rate was gradually slowing down. However, under the appearance of slow economic growth rate in urban area, there are a lot of problems hidden below, such as large proportion of fixed assets investment, the real economy is weak, low proportion of service industry, slow cultivation of new growth point, stagnant development of manufacturing industry and so on. The concrete reasons that lead to these problems are the insufficiency of effective supply, unreasonable industrial structure, unbalanced regional development, etc., which have hindered the development of economy. As an important grasp in promoting the new style of urbanization, the characteristic small town has great influence on the coordination of regional economic development and the improvement of industrial structure. Therefore, a series of urban economic development issues like this have promoted the development of tourism-oriented characteristic small town.

Fig. 1.
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(Source of the data: Jiangxi Province Statistical Yearbook)

2012–2017 regional GDP and growth rate

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2.1.2 The Industrial Structure of Jiangxi Province is Adjusted and the Service Industry Develops Rapidly

At present, industry is still a short board for the economic development of most cities in Jiangxi Province, especially the problems of small industrial scale, difficult transformation of traditional industries, industrial chain is relatively short and so on have not been fundamentally improved. At the same time, when the industrial development has been hindered, the service industry is quietly starting up. In 2015, the growth rate of service industry had surpassed the growth rates of GDP as well as the second industry for the first time, with the tax revenue of service industry accounted for 53.25% of the total tax revenue, which became the largest source of tax revenue. In 2017, growth rate of service industry in Jiangxi Province was 10.7%, which took on the third place around the China, in addition, the contribution rate of service industry was 1% higher than that of the second industry, so it has formally become the largest industry type in Jiangxi Province. What’s more, the industrial structure of Jiangxi Province is continuously to be optimized, the output growth of service industry is increasing continuously (Fig. 2), at the same time, the GDP of tourism industry in Jiangxi Province has been increased year by year in the past five years, whose proportion in gross domestic product of the tertiary industry is also rising year by year, which provides an opportunity for the development of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town.

Fig. 2.
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(Source of the data: Jiangxi Province Statistical Yearbook)

Regional gross domestic product and the gross domestic product of primary, secondary and tertiary industries during 2012–2017

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2.2 The Development Status of Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Town in Jiangxi

2.2.1 The Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Towns Occupy a Large Proportion and Their Distribution is Relatively Concentrated

Currently, Jiangxi has twelve national level characteristic small towns, respectively as Wengang Town, Shangqing Town, Wentang Town, Jiangwan Town, Nanjing Town, Yonghe Town, Yiqian Town, Yaoli Town, Xiaobu Town, Haihui Town, Taiping Town and Geshan Town [1]. The construction types of characteristic small towns are mainly classified as industry oriented, technology oriented, agriculture oriented as well as tourist oriented. From the perspective of development features, the industry characteristic small towns are reflected with innovative industry, with the industry revenue taking the main portion the town’s revenue [2]; the technology characteristic small town has mainly focused on the emerging industries like technical intelligence, and this kind of towns are often located in the areas with high degree of economic development; the agriculture characteristic small town based on rural area and provides service to the rural area, which equals to the transaction platform of the agricultural products; the tourist characteristic small towns mainly manifest as towns with unique tourist resources, which concentrate on the tourist industry with supplement of additional industries radiated by the tourist industry.

The construction type has been categorized by following the development features of the twelve characteristic small towns, the agriculture characteristic small towns include Nanjing Town in Quannan County, specialty industry towns contain Wengang Town in Jinxian County and the Geshan town in Zhangshu City, which are separately developing two characteristic industries of pen production and medical production industry. The remaining nine characteristic small towns are all tourist characteristic small towns which has reached a portion of 75%. In this paper, the locations 12 characteristic small towns are found out through Google earth, then, drawing the geographical location distribution map (Fig. 3) and the type distribution map (Fig. 4) of the characteristic small towns in Jiangxi Province by using Arcgis software [3]. According to the figure, it can be analyzed and known that the distribution of characteristic small towns in Jiangxi Province is relatively scattered. However, the distribution of tourism-oriented characteristic small towns is relatively concentrated, which are mainly located in the northern and central regions of Jiangxi Province.

Fig. 3.
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(Source of the figures: painted by the author)

Distribution of characteristic small town

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Fig. 4.
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(Source of the figures: painted by the author)

Type distribution of characteristic small town

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2.2.2 Imbalance Development of the Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Town

Among the construction types of characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province, the tourism-oriented characteristic small town has accounted for a great portion, from the perspective of developing features, the tourism-oriented characteristic small town has taken the tourist industry as the main body, and promoted the construction of the town through bringing forth the development of other relative industries. However according to the current developing status of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town of Jiangxi Province, imbalance problems exist in its developing process. The Shangqing Town, Wentang Town and Jiangwan Town which have a tourist industry basis are developing fairly well, they rely on the unique tourist resources and the original tourist basis, promote the construction of the characteristic small town with the basis of forming a certain degree of aggregation for the tourists and the completeness of supporting industries for the tourist industry. Nevertheless tourism-oriented characteristic small town without or with relatively weak tourist basis, it is unable to generate sufficient attraction to the visitors due to the insufficient of uniqueness for the tourist resources and less obvious of the tourist advantages, therefore hard for it to form aggregation for the tourist and push forward the development of the town. Taking Yiqian Town as an example, which develops the tourist industry mainly relies on the local historic culture, however, on account of lacking uniqueness and weak tourist basis for the tourist resources, the development and progress of the town has not been obvious.

3 The Development Pattern Selection of the Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Town in Jiangxi Province

The tourism-oriented characteristic small town refers to the characteristic small town which is dominated by the tourist industry. However, it will present various development patterns according to the different resources and distinct conditions of the small town. The development patterns of tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province can be divided into three categories, please see Table 1 for the specific details.

3.1 The Development Pattern Based on the Featured Resources

The featured resources can be divided into natural tourism resources and historical and cultural resources [4]. The natural tourism resources refer to the natural landscape composed of geographical conditions or natural creatures. It is shown in a small town with unique scenic spots and superior natural environment. The scenic spot is the main attraction for the development pattern of the characteristic small town depending on the natural resources so as to make the formation of leisure matching facility and promote the development of the additional industry of tourism. It covers a wide range for the historical and cultural resources which mainly include historical sites, heritage buildings and religious culture etc. It is shown in a small town with a clear historical context for the historical sites or towns. The development pattern of characteristic small town relying on the historical and cultural resources regards the historic culture or cultural relics and traditional architecture as the tourism attractive point and takes the tourist industry as the leading position in order to promote the development of related industries.

Shangqing Town, Wentang Town, Jiangwan Town and Yiqian Town are the characteristic small towns in Jiangxi Province relying on the development pattern of featured resources. Shangqing Town, located in the core scenic area of Long Hushan Mountain tourist attraction, is the birthplace of Chinese Taoism with unique and abundant natural tourism resources and historical and cultural resources. The development of the small town is mainly driven by the core of tourist industry. Wentang Town, located fifteen kilometers south of Yichun City, has the National 5A Tourist Attraction, Ming Yueshan Mountain and the rare selenium spa resource in the world, “The First Selenium Spring in China”, which improve the development of tourist industry and related industries on account of the peculiarity of tourism resources. Jiangwan Town, which is the few millennium ancient town in Wuyuan County, is the forerunner of the inheritance and protection of the Huizhou Culture with abundant historical and cultural resources. It mainly focuses on the development of the tourism industry by historical culture. Yiqian Town is one of the most complete and large residential buildings in Jiangxi province. It takes the residential architecture as the attraction point to develop the tourism industry.

3.2 The Service-Led Development Pattern

The service-led tourism-oriented characteristic small town which closes to the tourist attraction is the tourist reception place. As the distributing center of tourism, the development of small town mainly provides leisure and entertainment services for tourists through analyzing the consumption features and consumption preferences of tourists so that tourists can have different experiences compared with scenic spots. It is the development pattern which relies on tourism to develop related tourist industry, pays attention to the extension and service in the development of tourist industry, strengthens the complementation between the function of small town and scenic spot, and continuously consummates the service function of catering and accommodation in small town. Haihui Town, which is dominated by service in the tourism-oriented characteristic small town of Jiangxi Province, is located in the eastern suburb of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province. It is located on the east of Poyang Lake with vastness and the west of Five Old Men Peaks in Lushan Mountain. Based on the superior location which is close to the tourist attractions, Haihui Town creates a different area for leisure and entertainment services through the development of agricultural tourism and leisure vacation in order to make tourists experience different ways of amusement.

3.3 Comprehensive Development Pattern

The comprehensive development pattern refers to the integration of two or more development patterns for characteristic small town. Under this development pattern, the characteristic small town generally has unique tourist resources and good locational conditions [5]. From the current situation for development of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town in our country, most of the characteristic small towns in the comprehensive development pattern combine the development pattern based on the characteristic resources with that dominated by ecological leisure. The characteristic small town, which take the requirements for leisure and tourism in the big city as the motive force and featured resources as the development support, is generally located on the suburb of big city and takes the road of comprehensive development of leisure and vacation. Yonghe Town, Yaoli Town, Xiaobu Town and Taiping Town are the characteristic small towns under the comprehensive development pattern in Jiangxi Province. Among them, it is dominant for the comprehensive development mode based on featured resources and ecological recreation, such as Yaoli Town, Xiaobu Town and Taiping Town. Taiping Town is 30 km far from Nanchang City, and there are 4A scenic spots: Shenlong Lake and Lion Peak, with beautiful environment and high negative oxygen ion content. Taiping Town develops ecological leisure industry as well as tourist industry.

Table 1. The development pattern of characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province
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4 Problems Existing in the Development of Tourism-Oriented Characteristic Small Town in Jiangxi Province

4.1 Ignoring the Development of Supporting Industries

With the continuous expansion of the construction scale, the tourism-oriented characteristic small town requires more perfect supporting industries to meet the needs of local residents as well as the tourists [6]. However, the tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province (especially the development model based on the characteristic resources) has overemphasized the development of tourism resources and the building of tourist attractions, thus neglecting the development of supporting industries. In addition to develop the tourism through relying on the characteristic resources, the tourism-oriented characteristic small town also needs to perfect the relevant supporting industries, such as catering industry, accommodation industry and so on. While the supporting industries of tourism in most small towns of Jiangxi Province are not perfect enough, the supporting industries are lack of a certain scale as well as the systematization, so that these small towns can not meet the needs of tourists. What’s more, there is also unreasonable phenomenon in the layout of supporting industries, most of the small towns arrange the supporting industries around the scenic spots, which leads to the phenomenon of uneven distribution of supporting industries.

4.2 The Tourism Industry is not in Harmony with the Life of Residents

At present, the construction of tourism-oriented characteristic small towns in Jiangxi Province focuse on the needs of tourism development and less attention is paid to the real ideas of the people. Therefore, conflicts between the aboriginal people and other stakeholders are easy to be generated during the construction process. For example, the employment of residents can not be solved practically, thus leading to a contrast between the hollowing of towns and villages and the strong seasonality of tourism; next, the incomes of local residents are unbalanced and uncoordinated, residents whose original address and location are better have gained more income through projects such as land rental or sales or developing happy farmhouse and so on, while the incomes of other residents are difficult to meet their expectations; facilities for leisure, entertainment and business services are mainly built for tourists, which are out of touch with the life of residents, etc.

4.3 The Homogenization of Tourism Product is Serious and the Concentration of Tourism Region is Strong

Tourism products is divided into core products, actual products and extended products [7]. In Jiangxi Province, the development mode of tourism-oriented characteristic small town is relatively concentrated, and there are some homogenization problems in the building of tourism products. For example, the characteristic small town which is developed by relying on the characteristic tourism resources only develops the sightseeing, traveling of scenic spots and so on, they do not develop the tourism resources in depth, which leads to the homogenization of tourism products. The strong concentration of tourism region also exists in most of the tourism-oriented small towns. Tourists often stay in the core tourism areas and can not form the traveling in the whole region. For example, the area where the tourists of Taiping Town mainly stay is the periphery with Xinjie Street as the core. The rest of the small town is less visited because of the tourism products lack of attraction and the tourism lacks of systematic planning.

5 Optimization of the Development Mode of Tourism-Oriented Small Town in Jiangxi Province

5.1 Perfecting the Industrial System

The development of tourism-oriented characteristic small town needs to establish a systematic industrial system, the industry is the core of characteristic small town. The development of industry in tourism-oriented characteristic small town not only needs to build the tourism industry, but also to build the characteristic industry, so as to make the two major industries form the linkage effect. In the selection of characteristic industries, we should combine the development conditions of small towns, selecting the newly developed industries or traditional industries; in the positioning of tourism industry, in addition to the building by relying on the scenic spots, it is also necessary to build the extensive tourism industry cluster structure, in order to constantly improve tourism related supporting industries, so that tourism and catering, accommodation, entertainment, passenger transportation as well as the trade and commerce can be connected together organically [8]. When building an industry, it should be considered about the interests of local residents, through the development of industry to provide employment opportunities for local residents, such as the creation of happy farmhouse and hostel, thus increasing the income of local residents and relieving the contradiction between the development of tourism industry and local residents' life. The perfection of industrial system can provide a solid economic base and industrial foundation for the development of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town, and at the same time, it can promote the construction of tourism-oriented characteristic small town brand.

5.2 Reasonable Allocation of Functions

The development of tourist tourism-oriented characteristic small town should be reasonably allocated based on the layout of industry and the need of tourism development. The functions of small town generally include the following several aspects: on the one hand, the allocation of function of the small town needs to meet the needs of local residents, on the other hand, it also needs to meet the requirements of outside tourists. When allocating the functions of small town, first of all, the core functional area should be arranged according to the town planning and the overall tourism planning. In general, the core functional area should be equipped with tourist center, parking lot and major tourism projects, etc. Secondly, relying on local unique resources to create the sub-projects of tourism, through the landing of sub-projects to achieve the coverage of project peripheral functions, in addition, according to the interaction between the functions as well as the topographical factor of the small town to divide the functional land, so as to realize the intensification of land use, at the same time to realize the mutual connection between the functions, so that meeting the life needs of the tourists and the local residents.

5.3 Enriching Tourism Products and Realizing the Tourism in Whole Region

The development in whole region of the tourism-oriented characteristic small town should take the characteristic of small town as the leading part from the perspective of the whole region, at the same time, strengthening the creation of tourism products and the finding of the tourism characteristics of small town, so as to solve the problems in homogenization of tourism products and the strong concentration of the tourism regions, thus realizing the tourism with full time as well as the space in whole region [9]. Full-time tourism in the whole region needs small town to rely on local tourism activities or folk customs to create festival activities, so that connecting the tourism activities with tourism areas in time; the full-space tourism in the whole region needs the small town to do a good tourism planning, so as to connect the different regions of the town through tourism activities and tourism regions, combining the different spaces of the small town into an organic whole and realizing the tourism in whole region.

6 Conclusions

The tourism-oriented characteristic small town is the key point of developing the characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province. Optimizing the development mode of the characteristic small town becomes the important way to solve the problems existing in the tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province, such as imperfection of the industrial system, the disharmony between tourism industry and the residents' life, serious homogenization of tourism products. According to the in-depth analysis of the development mode and problems of tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province, the small town should be continuously optimized its development mode from the aspects of perfecting the industrial system, rationally allocating the functions and realizing the tourism in whole region, so as to promote the development of small town and to solve the problems existing in the development of tourism-oriented characteristic small town in Jiangxi Province.