By Zhang Heming 

Wolong Natural Reserve (WNR), known as a shining pearl in the southwest China, is the largest national-level natural reserve specializing in protecting giant pandas and natural ecological system. With repect to protection and development, active efforts were made in the 1990s but failed. It was widely acknowledged that tourism should be given the top priority for the development and protection of WNR. Therefore it is of great necessity to re-consider the tourism development strategy so as to make it more efficient and more compliant with market rules.

Advantages in Resources & Marketing Orientation
Famed as the "Hometown of the Giant Panda" and with a total area of 2000 km2, WNR is located in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Nationalities Autonomous Prefecture, and is just 120 km from Chengdu.

Advantages in Resources

Nature has richly endowed in tourism resources, including natural resources     such as wild animals and plants, forests, mountains, lakes and pleasant weather conditions. WNR boasts abundant cultural resources from the religious traditions of Taoism & Buddhism, customs of Tibetan and Qiang nationality and local house styles. WNR accommodates over 100 Pandas in the wild, 10% of the total wild population, and 64 Pandas in its breeding center. Moreover, WNR has a complicated land ecology system with 7 vertical ecology system belts resulting in tremondous biological diversity. There are 1989 higher plants varieties and 450 kinds of vertibra, of which 57 under key state protection. WNR has a world-class panda protection research center, the only-one panda museum, and the largest trial park for training animals back to the wild. Wild animals and rare birds can be easily observed in various places within WNR. Flocks of blue sheep and Takins in Yinlonggu, thousands of swifts in Guanyingya and rare birds including the Tibetan Eared Pheasant, blood pheasants and Chinese Monals in Pengsheng Gaur Valley can all be seen in WNR. It has the largest primitive Davidia forest in China and two highland grasslands, Huangcaoping and Niupingzhi.

Market Orientation

The development of tourism in WNR should be aimed at an inter-national, high-quality ecology tours oriented to domestic and foreign markets, featuring by giant pandas and the beautiflul scenery of their natural habitats.

Products Patterns & Strategic Targets

Stress will be laid on the following four tour product patterns. 1. Forest holiday-making. With comfortable weather conditions, fresh air, and sufficient sunshine and, tour products such as forest recuperation, travels, conference tours, and health-making tours can be developed. Villas and hotels for holiday-seekers can be constructed accordingly. 2. Unique eco-tour. Its waters, large areas of virgin forests, wild animals, numerous snow-capped mountains and waterfalls are extremely suitable for eco-tours. 3. Panda image products. The image resources of pandas should be turned into actual resources by constructing a panda ecology valley where people can go directly to see pandas in the wild. This would allow WNR to produce tour souvenirs for tourists and videos of the giant pandas for tourists. 4. Ethnic culture products.
Generally, the development of tourism in WNR will concentrate on creating a world-class ecology tour attraction and China's national park by 2005; bidding for world heritage, serving as a model for sustainable development among national reserves and world natural heritages, and enjoying an important position among tour sites in Sichuan as well as in China.

Principles & Measures for Development

The following principles should be observed in the tourism development of WNR: 1. Protection of unique and irreplacable resources; 2. Market-oriented, sustainable development; 3.Harmonious co-existence between humans and nature. Based on the ideas and development principles above, and practical experiences in developing eco-tour sites at home and abroad, the development of WNR must follow the principle of "Tour inside, lodge outside". A "For-ecology Moving-out" Project will be implemented, that willl move all residents in Wolong Township to Gengda Township, merging Gengda and Wolong Township to create a new township with strong ethnic flavors so as to make it a reception center for tourists. An ecology protection system that is much stricter than other reserve areas should be established and implemented in order to have ecology-friendly protection regulations.

Operation & Management Measures

The reserve should be strictly administered in accordance with the management rules of national park and natural heritage regulations. A new method of "Separation of Rights" will be introduced, namely separating the rights of ownership, management and operation. The ideas above have been included in the just-completed WNR General Plan of Eco-tourism. By now the preparatory works for merchant-invitations and project-bidding have already been started. We firmly believe that in near future China's national Yellow Stone Park or a World-Class Eco-tour Attraction will emerge in southwest China.