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2022-2023 Colloquium Series
The Tourism Studies Working Group is pleased to present
"Exotic" Xinjiang and Han Chinese Tourism:
A Review of Tourism Economic Policies and Practices
Yunzi Zhang, PhDc
School of Business
Northern Marianas College
Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands
Friday, February 17, 4PM-6PM PST
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About the Presentation:
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China is strategically positioned, by the Chinese central government, as one major economic hub in northwestern China due to its geographical and cultural proximity to Central Asia and critical role in trading along the ancient Silk Roads. Besides energy and agriculture, tourism remains a main economic sector that has long attracted scholarly attention. Tourism development of XUAR is of strategic importance for China for multiple reasons. One of the most prominent is Beijing's goal to alleviate poverty in especially towns and cities dominated by ethnic minorities. Through a top-down approach, tourism policies in and for XUAR may be considered as development aid to solve a series of challenges that Beijing had faced in the past decades, including heavy social tensions between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, Uyghur separatism and other socio-economic complications
This presentation aims to provide the audience with an updated review of tourism economic policies and practices since the author's publication in 2019. It incorporates three areas of information:
- An update on tourism development policies and observations of other Xinjiang-related policies since 2020
- A discussion on Xinjiang tourism from Han Chinese perspectives, based on scholarly literature and first-hand witness accounts
- Commentary on future research of Xinjiang tourism against the context of Chinese minority research
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