Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development Officer Zhou Zhengyu said during a presentation at the city's municipal congress conference that Beijing would include tourism development into the city's comprehensive planning scheme, which includes land use, transportation, and infrastructure planning.

Zhou Zhengyu said at the conference that Beijing would place tourism development into the overall urban planning and economic development plan. "In urban space and land-use planning, we should give full consideration to the needs of tourism development, including the spatial distribution of land use, population distribution, infrastructure planning and project entitlement," said Zhou.

According to Liu Simin, researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Special Tourism Research Center, in China, urban planning has addressed tourism development more or less, but the part of the plan that concerns tourism development is usually implicit and insignificant. Despite the importance of tourism in China's urban development, it has not gained sufficient attention in urban planning.

Liu Simin told the reporter that there is an urgent need for tourism development to coordinate with transportation planning. For example, Beijing's Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Xiangshan Mountain have experienced traffic congestion during peak tourism season. Urban planners can address this issue by taking the needs of the tourist crowds into account.

Data from the Beijing Tourism Commission shows that in 2012 Beijing's total tourism income was 362.6 billion RMB, which was brought in by 231 million tourist population. The city's tourism industry accounted for 7.5% of GDP, and investment in tourism-related industries accounted for 10.5% of the city's total investment in fixed assets.

How is tourism development addressed in your city's planning process?

Credits: Images and data linked to sources.

The original article, published in Chinese, can be found here.