The Wujin-Taihu Bay Holiday Resort represents a significant opportunity to develop a high quality tourism destination in response to the changing holiday and leisure patterns presently being experienced in China’s tourism market.

The Tourism Plan for the Wujin-Taihu Bay Holiday Resort Area provides a development framework for the planning, construction, promotion, and management of the resort area. The Report identifies a robust and diverse development strategy born of the need to differentiate the proposed resort from competing destinations and based on identified market segments. Additionally the recommendations take account of changing leisure and transportation preferences in China to provide a range of attractions and infrastructure matched to these changing patterns of use.

Two particular issues merit special mention. The environmental challenges that the study area presents and the absence of a USP, or unique selling point, associated with the proposed resort area. The combination of these

  factors has led the consultants to recommend a unique environmentally themed visitor attraction for the area - sthe Pangu Centre.

The development of the proposed resort will present many challenges, not the least of which will be the need to remain focused on the identified strategy for an exclusive and high quality resort area. Any deviation from this strategy, and in particular the introduction of mass market tourist attractions, will negatively impact upon the identified development plan and the viability of the resort.

The Changzhou Municipality Government and the Government of Wujin District place great emphasis on the development of tourism in the city. They are well aware of their strategic location between the major metropolitan centres of Shanghai and Nanjing and the potential of tourism to win long-term benefits for the city and its inhabitants. To this end the city has identified six priority areas for tourism development of which the Wujin-Taihu Bay site is one.

Due to the very high and growing, demand from local, regional, national, and international tourists as well as the local demand for recreational facilities and services, a well-planned and controlled tourism development strategy is required in order to obtain long-term and sustainable benefits for Changzhou and Wujin District.

Changzhou and Wujin governments are well aware of the potential for development of the site, which covers their total frontage to Lake Taihu. They recognize that a comprehensive and coherent planning and development strategy is required and that the focus of the plan should be on high quality sustainable development.

The study area, covering some thirty square kilometers, has been the subject numerous design and planning proposals over recent years, and some limited development has taken place on the site. The present study seeks to take onboard a number of these proposals.

The International Consultants were fielded in Wujin in March 2004, and a Study Steering Committee was formed with the participation of the Jiangsu Provincial tourism Administration, Changzhou Municipal Government, and Wujin District Government.