Tourism Development between 1949 and 1978

After a long turbulent history of foreign invasions (the Sino-Japanese War and the Civil War between 1842 and 1949), the liberation of 1949 was a relief to the great majority of the Chinese people. This is not because the Communists were winning the war, but because Mao’s government, compared with the Capitalist’s, was much stronger. For the first time in many centuries China was ruled by a strong Chinese authority, which reunited the country, settled internal dissension and promised land reform (Haw, 1995). Under these circumstances, the Economic Development Policy from 1949 was characterised by independence of foreign intervention and strong central authority. In reality the structure of the machinery of government in China was fundamentally identical with what it was under the earlier imperial dynasties. The idealism of those who led the party and the country to victory became the policies of the nation. Mao’s ideological policies that prevailed between 1949 and 1978 strongly influenced tourism development in China.

2.2.1 Economic Policies before 1978 2.2.1.1 Economic Policy

From the experience of war and the reality of the 20 years embargo imposed on China after 1949 under the leadership of the USA, Mao formed his own Economic Development Model. His vision of economic reform was totally different to that of the west. Self-reliance was the core of his economic model. In this model, less external influence would lead to less vulnerability to the outside economic climate.

Mao launched several economic reform movements to translate his vision into reality.

As a result, most of the work units in China became almost fully self-functioning. For example, Tsinghua University in Beijing is like a small city. It has everything it

needs. A huge logistics department provides everything necessary for all staff and students needs for living and studying on its campus. It has its own markets, hotels, hospitals, and book-stores. It provides its own staff housing facilities and dormitory space for every student free of charge. It also has sanatoria in other parts of the country so that staff of the university could also recuperate in other areas. All of these facilities were internally oriented.

It was hard to fit tourism under this autocratic style of economic model. However, just as the basic elements of life (clothing, food, and housing), travel was always needed by society. Consequently, many tourism facilities were developed as attachments to work units of different sizes. Admission to these tourism facilities was based on the connections between the work units. There was no totally independent domestic tourism industry in China before 1978. The official travel organisations such as CITS (China International Travel Service) and CTS (China Travel Service) were only responsible for the arrangement of inbound travel under the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

2.2.1.2 Low Wage Policy

Food and clothing along with housing were considered by the government as basics.

Houses and flats belonged to a category of property that should be publicly owned.

Long-distance travel was not considered as a basic element of people’s life. During the early years of the young People’s Republic, many private and joint venture businesses managed themselves poorly (profiting through cheating and low quality products), and consequently put themselves at risk. As some Western business people who are familiar with Chinese commercial arrangements have said, “In the West, business people are trying to beat each other under the system. However, in China business people are trying to beat the system.”. This behaviour was condemned by the public. Private and joint venture businesses became a symbol of untrustworthiness by the general public. Mao’s distrust of private ownership had made public ownership an

ideological economic model and the Communist Party the genuine representative of the proletariat who should scorn private ownership of any property.

Under public ownership, people can only rent from the government. The ideology was developed further to apply to wages policy. Should the government give the rent money to its employees by one hand and then take the same money back by another, as if the money was taken out of the left pocket and put back in the right one? This was considered a waste of time. As a result, wages became only a means to purchase necessary food and clothing, and housing became almost free except for token rent.

2.2.2 Tourism Development Before 1978

As a result of the policies mentioned above, especially the low income policy, tourism development in China before 1978 was non-existent. Travel from personal income was simply too expensive to be a real life choice. For travel to occur, it had to be a part of government business and at government expense. Consequently, travel developed as a cost to the government of billions of dollars. Under this system, travel gradually became a kind of government subsidy for a luxury life style. Subsequently, it became part of the bureaucratic hierarchy. Firstly, the higher the rank of officials, the more luxurious the travel. Secondly, travel was often awarded to employees in recognition of their contribution to work units, so that travel became a bonus outside the normal income system. Thirdly, travel became the pride of professional people.

This group of people were often required to travel to national meetings in other parts of the country.

Before 1978, outbound travel from China was limited exclusively to diplomats and government officials. For a long time, outbound tourism was essentially a “diplomatic activity”, serving political goals rather than economic ones. During this period, leisure travel had been considered a bourgeois lifestyle, contrary to communist ethics (Zhang, G. 1995), so that tourism in China was considered a non-economic activity with no economic significance. However, the significance of travel as a life style was always

regarded by the general public as desirable. The popularity of travel has never abated.

Government and work units very often used travel and sightseeing as an incentive to reward workers for performance. The popular travel forms before 1978 were:

• Government activity.

• Recuperation for model workers, the sick, and the injured (at work).

• Family reunion during Spring Festival.

• Business activity.

• Student travel during school holidays.

• Visiting friends and relatives.

China’s transportation capacity before 1978 was also limited. To avoid conflict between public and private demand on the overcrowded railway system and to give public interest a higher priority, a letter of introduction was required to buy the limited tickets available. During peak seasons, even a government letter could not guarantee a ticket and waiting for a few days for a ticket was common.

2.2.3 The Travel Industry Prior to 1978

Although travel agencies such as CITS and CTS were set up in the 1950s, travel agencies for domestic tourism were non-existent. CITS was set up to service foreign guests and friends and CTS was mainly to serve overseas Chinese. The travel activity was centred around “people to people diplomacy”, seeking no economic benefit for the country. Overseas tourists, at that time were treated as VIPs, with endless banquets, meetings with leaders, courtesy calls, and visits to model work units, regardless of their real interests (Zhang, G. 1995). Overseas visits to China were treated as a foreign affairs activity and guided by the principal of “nothing is minor in the handling of foreign affairs, and everything done requires asking for instructions.”

This approach was initiated by the late Premier Zhou Enlai.

The low level development of the domestic travel and tourism industry in China was the direct result of an autocratic economic development model and the low income

policy. This was also due to a lack of recognition of the importance of leisure in personal life, and a lack of recognition of the contribution that the travel and tourism industry can make to a national economy. However, travel remained popular and often sightseeing became an automatic extension of a business trip, most of the time at government cost. Even the central government indulged themselves in luxury travel. For example, after the PRC was established in 1949, the communist leaders did not break the royal tradition of former dynasties spending the hot summer months at summer resorts. In August, for instance, the whole government usually moved to the beach resort of Beidaihe on the Gulf of Bohai on a par with the Qing administration move to a Summer Resort Villa in Chengde.

The inharmonious relationship between Mao’s ideology and party leaders’ practice and the conflicts between Mao’s ideology and people’s desire to see the natural beauty of their homeland invited corrupt practices. However, these corrupt practices were justified under the slogan of ‘learning to love our motherland, to love rivers and mountains of our country and to make acquaintance with our nation’ (a common Chinese excuse for travelling at government expense).

Generally speaking, Mao’s socialist ideology resulted in an inadequate tourism infrastructure and further limited the development of the domestic tourism industry prior to 1978.