The economics of cultural heritage : development and sustainability of Meizhou City’s cultural tourism industry

Abstract

Meizhou City is the author’s hometown, and it is considered the heartland of the Hakka culture in China’s Guangdong province. As a tier-three city, it is an under-developed city while it strives to become a higher tier city in China. In the past, the primary source of its economy was agriculture. Since China’s economic reform and liberalization (known as the “Open Door Policy”) in 1978, Meizhou City has started diversifying its economy, and one of such diversifications is by taking advantage of its cultural heritage – tangible and intangible, especially the Hakka’s – to develop cultural tourism. The author, having visited his hometown regularly, has discovered that there has not been any study on how successful Meizhou City’s cultural tourism has been from an economic point of view. As a trained economist, the author finds this to be a research opportunity, to analyze with economic and heritage data, whether or not the city’s cultural tourism development has been proceeding in the right direction, and if so, what are the areas for improvement, and if not, what rectifications to be made. Many studies suggest economic effects of culture on the regional economy, both in terms of generated revenues and employment effects, which for an economist seem to be grossly exaggerated. The author’s view is that because some previous analyses may have been subject to misuse in the public debate, there is still a need for a sober analysis of the topic. The effects of investing in culture are diverse and vary by site, project, and over time. In the author’s opinion, there is a need for a clear view of the total economic impacts of investing in culture, spanning from ticket sales and the like, to the more long-term effects that may arise from culture. This research focuses on Meizhou City’s cultural tourism industry, and the scope is to evaluate its success or otherwise from economic data of the industry and, most of all, the cost on conservation from an economic and cultural perspective.