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    Buddhist Temple Hopes Free Entry Will See Tourism Soar

    Tiantai County has waived ticket fees at its top-class temple, but local vendors say they have yet to see the benefits.
    Jun 02, 2017#business

    ZHEJIANG, East China — On the cobbled path to Guoqing Temple, nestled in a green blur of trees and bamboo, it is easy to picture the past. The famed temple in the Tiantai Mountains was built more than 1,400 years ago during the Sui Dynasty, and it is considered the birthplace of China’s first Buddhist sect, the Tiantai school. Its reputation and delightful surrounding scenery draw tourists as well as devotees, though one day before the national Dragon Boat Festival at the end of May, the area was quiet.

    The name “Tiantai” literally translates as “platform of the sky,” and these days, local vendors and business owners hope the site will lift them into wealth as well as enlightenment.

    In 2015, the Tiantai scenic area was awarded 5A-level status, the highest grade in the China National Tourism Administration’s ranking. On May 19, 2017, it became only the third of 247 5A-level sites in the country to offer free entry to its main attraction, Guoqing Temple, a policy intended to boost tourism and the regional economy. But residents say more must be done to benefit local businesses, while tourists complain that the site lacks facilities.

    “More people have visited in the past week, but business is not improving,” a local resident and vendor surnamed Yang told Sixth Tone on Saturday. It had been one week since the free entry policy was implemented, but that morning, she had not sold any souvenirs at her shop just meters from the gate of the temple tourist site.

    Even before doing away with ticket fees, the Guoqing Temple tourist site had an entry cost of only 15 yuan ($2.20), which included a 5-yuan donation to the temple — a small amount relative to other 5A scenic areas, where the average ticket price was estimated at 112 yuan in 2014, according to The Beijing News. However, price comparison is tricky, as some scenic areas offer a single entry fee, while others ticket each individual attraction separately.

    Fan Lifei, who owns an eight-room homestay hotel in a village 10 minutes’ walk from the site, said that the policy had done little to increase business, especially on weekdays. “The Tiantai [County] government hasn’t promoted it enough,” said Fan, whose business mainly comes from casual visitors and hikers.

    The free entry policy is a part of a wider regional tourism development strategy in Tiantai County that intends to turn every village into a travel destination. Yu Changjie, director of the tourism development committee in Tiantai County, told Sixth Tone that the policy aims to benefit local businesses by enticing tourists to stay longer in the neighborhood and spend more on food and accommodations. Waiving ticket fees for the site will cost the government 20 million yuan per year in lost revenue.

    “We have been experimenting with the policy since 2011 with short-term trials during holidays, and we’ve made sure that the management and facilities are in place for a growing number of tourists,” Yu said.

    According to Yu, the government also subsidizes the construction of homestay hotels near tourist spots and fronts half the cost of design. But Fan, who opened her hotel in May 2016, said she had never heard of the construction subsidy. “The only subsidy I can apply for is one where you receive 1,000 yuan for each bed in the hotel,” she said, “but almost a year has passed since I applied, and I am still waiting.” Fan’s village currently has three homestay hotels, and two more will open in July. All were built and are being run by villagers.

    The Tiantai County government’s strategy is based on the success of other 5A scenic areas that have seen growth after implementing free entry policies. In 2002, Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou began offering tourists free entry to the West Lake scenic area. Over the next decade, the number of visitors to Hangzhou nearly tripled, rising from around 27.6 million in 2002 to 74.9 million in 2011, and the city’s revenue from tourism increased fourfold, according to state news agency Xinhua.

    Yet this may not be a fair comparison, as the West Lake scenic area is rich in services and facilities compared to Tiantai. In 2014, there were around 650 restaurants on-site, according to Party-affiliated newspaper China Youth Daily, while Guoqing Temple currently only serves 30 to 40 vegetarian meals per day to visitors, according to a monk guarding the temple gate. Aside from the temple kitchen, there are just a few small eateries outside the gate.

    “We love the spot, but we couldn’t find a restaurant [we liked] on-site, so we had to rely on provisions we brought for lunch,” said a tourist from Shanghai surnamed Cao, who visited the site with his wife on Saturday. The couple were browsing online for places to visit during the Dragon Boat Festival when they came across the news that Guoqing Temple had begun offering free entry.

    Qi Lisha, vice president of the state-owned enterprise that manages the Tiantai tourist sites, told Sixth Tone that a commercial area near the site is currently under construction and will open to the public in October. “There will be homestay hotels, cultural museums, and imported goods such as food and cosmetics, all to give tourists a reason to stay longer,” said Qi.

    But for the time being, the temple area has little to offer visitors, unless they have a particular interest in the Tiantai school of Buddhism. “Tourists tend to leave after one or two hours,” said hotelier Fan. “The site is not attractive enough to keep them around.”

    Other tourist initiatives in Tiantai have proven successful. In Houan, a small village one hour’s drive from Guoqing Temple, the homestay business is thriving, as the village’s beautiful scenery and myriad activities attract a growing stream of visitors. The village’s income increased to 3 million yuan in 2016, compared to 100,000 yuan three years earlier.

    Tourism revenue is growing in Tiantai County as a whole, spurred on by the county’s village-focused strategy, with 2016’s income of nearly 15.4 billion yuan representing an increase of almost 25 percent from the previous year.

    But for Fan, the money she and her husband make from their small homestay is barely an improvement on the wages they took home when her husband worked as a mason and she was employed at another hotel. “Our rooms are only fully booked on national holidays and some special occasions,” Fan said. In China, there are only 11 days of national holiday each year.

    “It really is a quiet and relaxing place, and the free ticket policy is a good thing,” said Cao, the tourist from Shanghai. “But when it comes to generating profits, I think the government should aim to raise the incomes of the local people.”

    For the Guoqing Temple monks, however, such earthly affairs are beyond their concern. “We monks don’t communicate with businessmen or reporters,” said one monk who did not reveal his name. “We must focus on maintaining a lucid mind, practicing Buddhism, and spreading [the philosophy] to people with worries.”

    Editor: Qian Jinghua.

    (Header image: Young monks visiting Guoqing Temple pose for photos with a statue of Ji Gong, a famous monk from the Southern Song Dynasty, in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, May 27, 2017. Wang Yiwei/Sixth Tone)