At a seminar in the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on tourism internationalization of its Old Town, on Nov 3, there were Suzhou Tourism Bureau personnel and professors from the UK’s University of Bath on hand to discuss the development and internationalization of Suzhou’s culture and its relics as a new starting point for Suzhou tourism.

The seminar, in Suzhou’s Xucheng Building and with sponsorship from the Suzhou Tourism Board, had Bath University’s Prof.Andrew Manley giving his ideas on how to protect Suzhou’s old city and developing it with clear directions for its scenic spots, better traffic control, and increased marketing.

In addition, Prof Holger, from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, spoke about a soft project development approach to Suzhou’s heritage while Tourism Bureau personnel described their plans for the old city area in planning, investment, services, brands, signs, and marketing.

Suzhou started a partnership with the University of Bath, in 2012, for a cultural heritage protection strategy and international marketing of Suzhou and, between 2013 and 2014, a Bath project team did a survey of the city, led by Prof Michael Silk, from the humanities and social science department, mainly using online questionnaires, interviews, and social media to get the feeling of international visitors toward Suzhou.

Part of their ideas for promoting the city in China and Britain was to encourage visitors to share their photos with captions of Suzhou, which went into a special column of Facebook, which has gotten a lot of attention online.

The city was founded in 514 BC, and it has 2,500 years of interesting history and an abundance of relics, as well as a reputation as the "Venice of the East" for its beautiful scenery and its canals and stone bridges. Its pagodas and meticulous gardens contribute to its status as one of China’s top tourist attractions, and with nine of its gardens on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

Its Kunqu Opera and Suzhou Pingtan represent traditional Chinese culture and the Suzhou Museum has a great collection of relics from around Suzhou, including stele carvings, folk customs, embroidery, silk cloth, coins and Buddhist artifacts. Now, after years of development, it has improved its environment and service facilities, with free Wi-Fi in public areas and better sign and tourist services, but still has some problems in conflicts between development and protection of the old city, slower economic growth, and a single industrial structure.

In the future, it wants to focus on tourism internationalization and get Bath University to promote it in Britain. Sheng Lei, the deputy mayor of Suzhou who took part in the seminar, gave a concluding speech.[Photo/Suzhou Tourism Bureau]