Introduction

With the growing importance of tourism worldwide, it has also become a significant and leading economic activity in Hong Kong. Obviously, the direction of current tourism development tends to focus on promoting Hong Kong as an international modern and variety city. In recent years, the spotlight promotion theme of our city is the “City of Life”.


 


It is not suspect that the current position of Hong Kong as a paradise of food and shopping is the most direct way of generating economic benefits to our city. However, other than the short-term economic benefit, we should initiate to seek for sustainable development of our tourism. It arouses a question of what would be the direction of long-term tourism development in Hong Kong?


 

The purpose of our project is to create a new tourism culture in Hong Kong. Our project “Experience Cultural Heritage in Hong Kong” is a pilot project that it is propose to develop by LTM students of City University of Hong Kong from now on to the future.


 


The cultural heritage contains significance symbolic meaning of our past, which has high education value. Only by learning more of our precious history, would broaden our perspective of planning our future and hence proceed an avenue to sustainable tourism development


 



 


Goals and Objective

Increase competitiveness of domestic tourism


In recent years, promoting cultural heritage has become a worldwide tourism trend.


Statistics indicated that the outbreak of SARS last year had generated imperative impact to our domestic tourism. More and more people had showed interests on the cultural heritage routes. They tend to search for more choices of meaningful or healthy activities in their leisure time. As a result, exploring a brand new cultural heritage route combining education and entertainment would provide a good choice to the public and also increase the competitiveness of our domestic tourism.


 


Create Social Commitment


We are aiming to let people learn more of our history and the lives in the past, so as to arouse public awareness towards the preserving of the heritage assets and hence create a social commitment in our community. It provides an opportunity for the public to review what is the most important to their life and our community.


 


Draw potential students in tourism


Furthermore, another goal is to exploit our unique cultural heritage in further to develop our attractiveness to the students who had potential to join in the tourism industry. Education is an essential and necessary means to stir up the interest of the potential target group with an insight of the current situation of tourism. Throughout providing professional education to students that will serves as an impetus to their pursuit of further education in related area. With the expectation of continuous preserving work that past from generation to generation would hence attain the goal of sustainable tourism development.


Enrich the life of people 


In recent decades, most people are tending to pursue a higher level of satisfactions (psychological) in leisure time after fulfilling the essential living (physical). Therefore, we aim to provide another opportunity for the public to spend their leisure time more worthily by exploring the domestic cultural heritage tourism. Hence, we would like to reveal how the development of cultural heritage can enhance our qualities of life.


  Features of our project   Getting real and direct experience

Our tour is quite different from the general tour from several aspects. First of all, general tours are tended to bring people to have a quick look of the heritage assets. However, we are much more than that. In addition to provide people the background history of the spots, our tour is focus on letting the participants to have a real and direct experience of the life in the past. Hoping that after learning more of our history would arouse people’s awareness of planning the future development of the heritage tourism.


 


Combine education & entertainment


As we learn there are six main tourism perspectives, such as food, shopping accommodations, transportation, education and entertainment. Addition to the perspectives of food and shopping which Hong Kong are heightened of, the infrastructure of our transportation network is already well established. Besides, the standard of accommodation also reach the international level in general. However, the perspectives of education and entertainment in tourism are not treated as important as the others at the moment. Since then, our project focuses on combing the education and entertainment with the aim of diversity development by adding more features, our tour has included variety elements.


 


Further, there are several reasons that we chose to repackage the Kam Tin route. First and foremost, we found that there are collective of various culture heritages (which would be illustrated in detail in the following parts). Many of the assets have memorable history backgrounds that are worthy to investigate and be preserved.


 


Another motive for us to choose Kam Tim route is the easy accessibility. Since “West Rail” which opened in December 2003, it becomes very convenient for us to visit there. We would travel west rail to the “Kam Sheung Road” station and then just travel five more minutes by taxi, mini-bus or bus to our first sight (Kat Hing Wai). The transportation network is really providing us much convenience.


 


More, we may also gain something by traveling the West Rail. The participants can also find that the “Kam Sheung Road” station concourse is bright and spacious, this is a chance for them to see how this grand infrastructure is. Moreover, near each of the station in West Rail, there are many different kinds of delicious foods and drinks for the participants to choose, so it is easily for them to find a restaurant to have their meal in our trip.


 


In addition to, Kam Tin has a long history in many years ago. Many of its relics and historical buildings, crisscrossing the area, are the outstanding examples of traditional Chinese architecture. These can help in reminding the participants and other overseas visitors of what “Yuen Long” used to be in a bygone era.


Besides, after the participants finish their trip, we will go to a place which call “Kam Tin Country Club” to have a sharing and small discussion on there. Also, there have a variety of leisure activities for then to choose, such as war games, fishing, feeding animals, BBQ etc. It provides a chance for participants to enjoy different leisure activities after knowing more of the culture heritage and having experience the life in the past. Thus, they can gain both education and entertainment in our trip.


 


About the Kam Tin Routine History of the Kam Tin

Kam Tin was originally known as Sham Tin, Since there was a severe famine in Ming Dynasty, Tang Yuen-fan generously contributed the rice to save the population, district magistrate found that the land was fertile and suggested to rename Sham Tin as Kam Tin, “ornamented fields”. With the historical background, it is valuable place for us to pay a visit to Kam Tin.


 


Some promoted spots


There is altogether 14 heritage points in our routine. The first station would be Kat Hing Wai (吉慶圍). Kat Hing Wai was built during the Ming Dynasty by Tsang Pak-chin, where is a typical walled village. Actually, Kat Hing Wai is stepping into the changing process; the residents are trying to adapt the changes and searching ways to make profit from it. For example, visitors are required to contribute HK before enter the village for charity purpose. However, as from the perspective of tourism development, there still are many areas waiting for improvements.


 


 


After then, we will continue our trip and go though different heritage. As mention that our tour is not just providing information, but also to let the participants have a real experience. There is a chance in another spot, Cheung Chun Yuen (長春園). It was a court providing for people to learn and practice Kung Fu there in the past. In our trip, we can re-experience the life there by providing a Kung Fu lesson to the participants.


 


Furthermore, we would make negotiations with the local residents to earn their permission so that we could arrange a past class-learning in Yi Tai College (二帝書院) for participants to experience.


 


At last, we will stay at a place where can have various leisure activities that including BBQ, fishing, war game etc. So we can gain both education and entertainment in our trip.


 


More, for the purpose of education, there is not only with the route, within the route, each heritage point will have provided a worksheet, which can let the participants know more of the basic information. Besides of the worksheet, our trip will also decided some different games in different points according to the background of the sites. Some of the games have explained above. Furthermore, there is still much area to operate a trip. Such as promotion, budget, trip leader, emergency plan which would be illustrated as follows:


 



 


Promotion


Since our targets are the people who have interest on it, specially the senior secondary students and the program is decided to hold by LTM students. There is a great network for the LTM students to promote to their secondary school.


 


Budget

Our trip is organized on the non-profit basic, and the tour guide is act as a voluntary. Therefore, no application free is required for the participants. However, the participants needed to pay for the transport free of the public transport and lunch themselves.


 


Trip leader

To stabilize the service quality of trip leader, there is training provided before they are going to lead the trip in the real. The main skills and knowledge will teach, and a guidebook for the trip lead will distribute to them for a reference.


 


Emergency plan

A contingency plan is decided for the emergency case. For example, each trip we are going to arrange at least one trip leader with the first-aid certificate. If there is cohesion that accident happens, there still have a quick and qualified care for the participles. Furthermore, as the trip is a out-door activities, which is much more depend on the weather. If in the bad weather, the trip will be change base on the government alert. If in the rainy day, there still have some games and videos provide of the participants, who had assemble, to look at. And the rearranged trip, will be confirm as soon as possible, and alert to the participants at first.


Current state of cultural heritage promotion

Role of Government


Undeniably, the development of tourism cause great impact on our economy and society of both positives and negatives. It comes to a question of what is the current role of the Government playing in tourism industry? How would she contribute to its development in the future?


 


In fact, the current practices of the government in heritage conservation involves the identification of potential heritage items, assessment and selection, declaration, restoration, repairs and maintenance, adaptive re-use interpretation and management, and periodic review of the conservation plan.


 


To promote the conserved heritages, Hong Kong Government has already developed three main heritage trails such as the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, the Lung Yuek Tau Heritage Trail and the Central and Western Heritage Trail.


 


These trails link monuments and significant historical buildings or sites located within walking distance of each other. Since their establishment, these heritage trails have been well patronized by local residents and overseas tourists.


 


Actually, there were 78 declared monuments at 31 December 2003. Among which 60 were building and 18 were rock carvings, forts and archaeological sites, etc.


Of the 60 buildings, 28 are Government building, including the Legislative Council Building, Government House, Flagstaff House, the Court of Final Appeal Building, Central Police Station, the former Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison, all of which occupy prime sites in Central District.


 


Besides, the non-government monuments are mainly religious buildings, school buildings or clan properties. There is a system under which the government would provide financial assistance to the property owners in relieving the maintenance cost of their buildings.


 


Policy set up

The current heritage conservation policy is to support and promote the conservation of heritage in Hong Kong with regard to the following fundamental principles:


 


Ø          To conserve but not to take over ownership


Ø          Conservation should be based on heritage value, not simply the age of a building


Ø          A balance between conservation needs and economic cost should be maintained


Ø          Private property rights should be given due regard


 


The enabling legislation in Hong Kong is the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance, Cap. 53. under the Ordinance, the Secretary for Home Affairs is the Antiquities Authority who may, after consultation with the Antiquities Advisory Board and with the approval of the Chief Executive, by notice in the Gazette, declare a place, building, site or structure which he considers to be of public interest by reasons of its historical, archaeological or palaeontological significance to be a monument for protection.


 


The Antiquities Advisory Board is a statutory advisory body that advises the Antiquities Authority on matters relating to antiquities and monuments. It comprises non-official members appointed by the Chief Executive. The Antiquities and Monuments Office of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department is the executive arm of the Antiquities Authority.


 


It researches, identifies, records, conserves and maintains heritage items and also carries out various publicity and educational programmes such as The Hong Kong Heritage Awards and the Friends of Heritage Scheme.


 


At present, this is the main incentive to induce owners to consent to declaration. Although there are policy set to conserve the cultural heritage in Hong Kong, the fact is show would the established “system” applicable to reality? What is the direction of tourism development in long-term? In fact, Hong Kong really encompasses series of challenges of preserve and promote the cultural heritage. We are going to evaluate some in the following part.


  Challenges of preserve & promote cultural heritage in HK

The majority of people would consent that we should conserve our heritage assets. However, not everyone shares the same understanding of the purpose of conservation as well as the criteria for selecting heritage items. Should we choose an object simply due to its oldness or base on the beautiful outlook? Or should we evaluate by the hidden symbolic meaning of it? Actually, majority of our heritage assets have a collective memory behind.


 


There has not been much community discussion on important issues such as what to conserve and why. As a result the government cannot be certain that its conservation efforts have broad community support.


 


Rapid pace of urbanization and high land values pose difficulties. The government is often expected to shoulder all responsibilities and to pay for all costs, including compensation, to affected owners. When historical buildings of outstanding merits but with high conservation costs are proposed for conservation, questions are often raised about how much public money should be spent on a particular project.


 


The ordinance is rather rigid in that it only provides for one form of conservation (i.e. to declare building as monuments) and that stringent requirements are applied to alteration works after declaration. As a result, the property owners become less willing to accept declaration. Sometimes this also makes it difficult to put the declared building to beneficial use.


 


To conclude, the government does not have sufficient economic incentives to induce owner’s consent for conservation. It is the primary factor influencing the development of the cultural tourism in Hong Kong.


 


Conclusion

Hoping that by learn more of our previous history would broaden our perspective of planning our future. History would be a good reference for us. The work of preserving the valuable cultural heritage assets is not a short-term task, but a long-term procedure that require the efforts of different bodies. Provided that we initiate by ourselves, it certainly would gain progress in the future.




Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com


0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
Top