The Integration of Cultural Tourism Industry: Comparison
Please note this is a comparison between Version 1 by Linqing Fang and Version 2 by Rita Xu.

The development and integration of industries have promoted economic growth and gradually become an important perspective to understand the country’s modernized construction. The cultural industry and the tourism industry are naturally coupled, which is an important part of the process of industrial integration. In addition, the country’s drive towards modernization needs to improve the overall level of industrial integration, and rural revitalization is one of the key links to this.

  • the integration of cultural tourism industry
  • new urbanization
  • rural revitalization

1. Introduction

With the development of the global economy, many developing, and even developed, countries are beginning to face frequent rural problems, including rural exodus [1], environmental pollution, and relative poverty [2][3][2,3]. With these new situations, promoting rural development has become the inevitable choice to achieve both national and common prosperity [4]. In this context, China has put forward the “rural revitalization strategy”, which is based on the current situation of China’s “agriculture, countryside, and farmers” and aims to solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development in China in the new era [1].
The rural revitalization strategy was first put forward at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017. It highlighted the importance of agriculture, countryside, and farmers in people’s livelihood. In 2018, China issued the No.1 Central Document, which laid out detailed plans for further implementing the rural revitalization strategy. Thus, the implementation framework of the rural revitalization strategy was formally established. In the following four years, the Chinese government introduced specific construction plans for rural vitalization, such as the implementation of the responsibility system and the management of subsidy funds. The “four major construction projects and eight major projects” of the rural revitalization strategy had been preliminarily established.
The rural revitalization strategy is a long-term task in China’s modernization construction, including industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance, and affluent life [5]. Among them, industrial prosperity is the basis for implementing the rural revitalization strategy [6]. Cultivating and building a sustainable industrial structure can help to better carry out rural construction in various aspects, such as the ecological environment and social atmosphere. At present, the relationship between industrial development and rural revitalization has received extensive attention from scholars. Studies have explored the relationships between new energy industries [7], industrial transformation [8], industrial development mechanisms in minority areas [9], and rural revitalization. However, few studies have explored this from the perspective of industrial convergence.
Due to the urgency of the transformation and upgrading of the cultural and tourism industries, Chinese government has issued a series of policies to promote the integrated development of the cultural and tourism industries [10]. Meanwhile, in order to better coordinate the development of cultural undertakings, cultural industry, and tourism resources, the Chinese government reformed and optimized relevant government institutions in 2018. In addition, China is very concerned about the social impact of the integration of cultural tourism industry, especially the impact on rural revitalization. The integration of cultural tourism industry and rural revitalization have been jointly discussed at several important meetings in China. However, the academic community has paid less attention to this issue. Few studies have explored the relationship and influence mechanism of the cultural and tourism industries on rural revitalization [11]. Research on the impact of the integration of cultural tourism industry on rural revitalization is even rarer [12].

2. Cultural Industry

The term “cultural industry” was first proposed by German scholars Horkheimer and Adorno [13][15], and refers to the standardization of popular cultural products. The original cultural industry has a negative meaning [14][16]. With the change in the international environment, the concept of cultural industry has become more neutral. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization considered cultural industry to be knowledge- and labor-intensive [15][17]. Due to the different level of social and cultural development, the definition and scope of cultural industry vary in different countries [14][16]. For example, the Chinese government defines cultural industry in its official documents as a collection of production activities that provide cultural products, and culture-related products, to the public, based on its own development stage [16][18]. In this definition, cultural industry includes six core areas: news information service, content creation and production, creative design, cultural communication, cultural investment and operation, news information service; and three culture-related areas: cultural service production and intermediary service, cultural equipment production, and cultural consumption terminal producers [17][19]. The most basic work of cultural industry research is to clarify its development status and future potential [18][20]. A study constructs the index system of the development factors of China’s cultural industry from the macro level, including 15 internal factors and 8 external factors, forming a three-factor model of the development of the cultural industry [19][21]. Yang [20][22] focused on the subdivision of the cultural industry, such as the sports culture industry, and constructed evaluation indicators and a growth forecast model. In addition, there are also some studies on the construction of cultural industry policy evaluation systems [21][23]. However, on the whole, a complete cultural industry evaluation system has not been established [19][21]. In addition, the influence of cultural industry on the economy and on society is also an important subject of academic research. Shao et al. [22][24] found that budget allocations for the entertainment and cultural industries are crucial to ensuring environmental sustainability. Parameswara et al. [23][25] found, through interviews, that a cultural industry based on local wisdom can promote sustainable development of the region.

3. Tourism Industry

At present, the academic circle has not formed a clear definition of tourism industry. Some scholars believe that tourism and tourism industry are equivalent [24][26], while some scholars disagree with this view. For example, Nell’s [25][27] view is that tourism is essentially a partially industrial process, consisting of several functional and spatially linked sectors. Meanwhile, tourism can also sustain the tourism industry. The study of tourism industry mainly focuses on regional economic development and tourism industry cluster. In terms of regional economic development, the promoting effect of tourism industry on economic development has been confirmed by a large number of studies [26][28]. However, there is still no consensus on the impact of tourism industry development on regional economic disparities. Leatherman et al. [27][29] found that tourism industry development will expand the income distribution gap between regions. Zhang et al. [28][30] found that, in the context of China, the development of tourism industry can significantly narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas, thus contributing to the coordinated development of the regional economy. In terms of tourism industry clusters, some researchers built a potential index system of tourism industry clusters through macro, meso, and micro environmental analysis, and measured the potential of tourism destination. In addition, some scholars analyzed the development of tourism industry clusters [29][31] and their spillover effects [30][32] from the national level. Although the research on tourism industry has been relatively mature, there are still gaps to be filled. Research on tourism industry and rural revitalization mainly focuses on the planning and development of the rural tourism industry, and puts forward suggestions on industrial upgrading and optimization paths. On the whole, the framework construction and influence path between the tourism industry and rural revitalization need to be explored.

4. The Integration of Cultural Tourism Industry

The term “integration” originated from Rosenberg’s research on technological changes in the American machine tool industry [31][33]. Under the framework of evolutionary economics, Hacklin et al. [32][34] divided the integration process into four stages: knowledge, technology, application, and industry fusion. “Industrial integration” refers to the blurring of the boundary between different industries through the integration of value proposition, technology, and the market [33][35], which can promote the improvement of the status of different industries in the national economy. Industrial integration can be divided into the following two types: the first type refers to the merger of two different industries to form a new industry segment, replacing the previous market segment; the second type is the integration of originally different industries to form new inter-industry segments [34][36]. At present, most industrial integration belongs to the latter type [35][37], including the integration of cultural tourism industry. The integration of cultural tourism industry is the tourismization of cultural industry and the culturalization of tourism industry. Based on market demand, it satisfies the growing cultural tourism needs of tourists [36][38]. The integration of cultural tourism industry is not the simple addition of the cultural and tourism industries’ content, but a new mode of industrial development that deeply integrates ideas, functions, resources, industries, technologies, and other fields, under the guidance of theories such as industrial chain theory and industrial coupling theory. On the one hand, the integration of cultural tourism industry not only contributes to enhance cross-cultural communication [37][39] and people’s cultural confidence [38][40], but also helps to form Chinese national community consciousness [39][41]. On the other hand, it is helpful to enhance the cultural connotation of tourism [40][42] and promote the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry, so as to facilitate the high-quality development of tourism [41][43]. At present, the studies on integration of cultural tourism industry mainly focus on economic development and integration level. From the perspective of economic development, Li et al. [10] found that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of digital economy could promote the integration of China’s cultural tourism industry. Focusing on rural economic development, Qin [42][44] found that the integrated development of the cultural and tourism industries is a sustainable way to achieve the development of rural tourism economy. There are also some scholars from the level of integration who have carried out relevant research. For example, based on the data of Shandong Province measured by the DEA cross-efficiency model, Lu et al. [43][45] constructed an evaluation index system for the efficiency of cultural and tourism integration. In addition, based on the coupling coordination model, Li et al. [40][42] found that the main driving force of the coupling coordination between the cultural and tourism industries was the proportion of the added value of the cultural and creative industries in the city’s GDP and tourism foreign exchange income. In recent years, the path of rural revitalization, brought about by the cultural and tourism industries’ integration, also began to attract academic attention. Wen et al. [44][46] constructed the logical structure diagram of the rural cultural tourism industry enabling rural revitalization and analyzed the driving force mechanism of rural cultural tourism. However, in general, the existing research on the integration of cultural tourism industry is still mainly theoretical research, lacking empirical consideration.

5. New Urbanization

As a new stage of urbanization development, new urbanization is an important strategy in the process of China’s economic transformation [45][47]. At present, scholars have a relatively consistent understanding of the overall development direction of new urbanization, but its exact connotation is not very clear. For example, Shan et al. [46][48] put forward the concept of new urbanization from four perspectives: coping with the future, reflecting on tradition, learning from the international community, and governing the government. According to the study, the connotation of new urbanization is people’s livelihood, sustainable development, and quality. Its core goal is to pursue equality, happiness, and transformation, while being green, healthy, and intensive. According to cultural capital theory, Li et al. [47][49] put forward four basic requirements for new urbanization, namely, “human nature”, “intensive”, “inclusive”, and “sustainable”. Liu et al. [48][50] pointed out that new urbanization focuses more on people than the economy, which is also a difference between new and traditional urbanization. At present, the urban-rural gap and innovation are important research themes of new urbanization. For instance, by using the difference-in-difference model and the mediating effect model, Liu et al. [49][51] found that new urbanization can significantly reduce the urban-rural gap, and that the effect varies, depending on place and time. Chi et al. [50][52] also discussed the convergence path of the urban-rural income gap in the process of new urbanization. Moreover, existing research has explored the relationships between new urbanization, technological innovation [51][53], green innovation [52][54], financial innovation [53][55], and the urban innovative ecological system [54][56]. It is easy to see that the research on new urbanization still has deficiencies; on the one hand, research has not paid much attention to the development motive mechanism of new urbanization, and has not formed a comprehensive research framework. On the other hand, interdisciplinary analyses of new urbanization research are relatively few, and the research perspective is not rich enough.

6. Rural Revitalization

Rural revitalization is an important strategic deployment, focusing on agriculture, countryside, and farmers in China [55][57], which has a great impact on China and even the world [56][58]. The definition of the concept of rural revitalization is mainly based on the 20-character requirements put forward in the report of the 19th CPC National Congress. Specifically, rural revitalization refers to a comprehensive rural governance system in the process of rural development that focuses on the whole process of construction [57][59]. This system emphasizes not only the improvement of infrastructure [58][60], but also the protection of the environment [59][61] and the construction of rural style [60][62]. Studies on rural revitalization are mainly carried out from the perspectives of new urbanization [61][62][63][63,64,65] and industrial development [8][9][11][8,9,11]. In terms of new urbanization, Guo [62][64] found that new urbanization and rural revitalization can develop in tandem and boost economic growth. Further, Chen et al. [63][65] predicted five major trends of new urbanization and rural revitalization in the future, including: (1) a new type of urbanization, featuring two-way interaction between urban and rural areas; (2) integration between urban and rural areas; (3) stable urban-rural gap; (4) relatively narrow urban-rural gap; and (5) coordinated urban-rural governance. In addition, some scholars have discussed the coupling relationship between new urbanization and rural revitalization [61][63]. In terms of industry development, Jiang et al. [8] found that the industrial transformation of fishery could promote rural revitalization, to a certain extent. Meanwhile, some scholars have studied industrial development within the context of rural revitalization [7][11][7,11].