The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree

doi:10.4236/ib.2013.53B007

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iBusiness, 2013, 5, 30-35

http: //dx.doi.org/10.4236/ib.2013.53B007 Published Online September 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ib)

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and

Its Realization Degree

Weiwei Wu1, Yexin Zhu1, Chunyan Zhang2

1School of management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; 2Heilongjiang Province Tourism Agency, Harbin

150001, China.

Email: [email protected]

Received May, 2013

ABSTRACT

The development of the ice-snow tourism needs a scientific and effective method to assess the value of ice-snow tour-

ism resource and its realization degree effectively and reasonability. Based on the analysis of expectation value and

realization value of ice-snow tourism resource, this paper designs a three-dimension assessment index system and con-

structs the method of assessing the value of ice-snow tourism resource and its realization degree. Finally using ISW

scenic area in Heilongjiang Province as an example for empirical analysis, the results show that the method can be ef-

fective in assessing the value of ice-snow tourism resource and its realization degree.

Keywords: Ice-snow Tourist Resources; Value Assessment; Realization Degree

1. Introduction

China’s tourism industry has made considerable devel-

opment since the reform and opening up, and more and

more tourists prefer specialized tourism such as sport

tourism than simply sightseeing-type tourism. Especially

after the “World Conference on Sport and Tourism” was

held by World Tourism Organization and International

Olympic Committee, sport tourism is becoming a new

focus [1]. As an important part of sport tourism, ice-snow

tourism is one of the most rapidly developing tourism.

Now China has built up nearly 200 ski resorts and earned

more than one billion per year. Experts expect that

ice-snow tourists in China will reach 13 million and oc-

cupy 1% of the total population [2].

Ice-snow tourism resource value refers to the sum of

different values in the processes of the ice-snow tourism

operators developing and managing ice-snow tourism

resource, and attracting tourists to consume it. It is sig-

nificant for ice-snow tourism resource value to measure

whether ice-snow scenic spots have the potential to be

developed [3]. In China at present, the scale of ice-snow

tourism is enlarging rapidly, whereas developers lack

effective and scientific method of evaluating ice-snow

tourism resource value, and cannot fully understand the

development degree of ice-snow tourism resource, which

leads to the wasting, the predatory exploitation and re-

peated development of ice-snow tourism resource. All

these further lead to the low economic efficiency of

ice-snow tourism, and become an obstacle to gain a fur-

ther development of ice-snow tourism [4]. Therefore, in

order to recognize the value of ice-snow tourism re-

sources fully and develop ice-snow tourism resource

reasonably, it is of great significance to establish a scien-

tific and reasonable evaluation index system, making a

macro analysis and evaluation towards ice-snow tourism

resource value and its realized degree.

2. The Value of Ice-snow Tourism Resource

All kind of resource value has multiple-functions, and

tourism value is just an additional value produced by one

of these functions. This kind of value is firstly reflected

during people’s pursuing the comfortable life, and then is

promoted gradually with the strengthening of the

source’s scarcity and is known and selected by more

people. When this resource value is selected, it also

means it is being produced and realized. The tourism

value of ice-snow resource is first reflected when people

gain relaxation and an understanding of exotic through

touring. From the economic point of view, the value of

ice and snow tourism resource is more essentially re-

flected as a willingness to pay when people want to gain

a comfortable environment, spectacular enjoyment, or

cultural influence. Thus, to understand the value of

ice-snow resource, must emphasis not only the additional

value of the resource, but also the essential attributes.

From this perspective, tourism resource value is mostly

reflected through expectation value (EX) and realization

value (RX).

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree 31

Expectation value is the potential value of ice-snow

tourism resource. Ice-snow tourism resource value is

influenced by the environment and resource it relied on.

Therefore, we should have a clear acknowledge towards

the resource subject of ice-snow tourism system and the

environment, time, and space resource factor it relies on

to grasp the ice-snow tourism resource value accurately.

From this we can understand that a symbiotic relation-

ship exists between ice-snow tourism resource and envi-

ronment resource, and time and space resource is also

dynamic factors to influent tourism quality and prefer-

ences of tourists. This four resource factors are contained

in the potential value of ice-snow tourism resource, and

can decide what the largest value ice-snow tourism re-

source value is expected to attain to some.

Realization value is the value that ice-snow tourism

value is actually reflected or realized. Realization value

is closely related to the interaction between the subjec-

tive and objective bodies of ice-snow tourism resource.

Ice-snow tourism resource is the subjective body of

ice-snow tourists and tour operators. Tourists and tour

operators are also subject and object with each other the

same time. In the process to get the active awareness and

practice activity of the subject and object, ice-snow tour-

ism resource value can be achieved. Ice-snow tourism

resource developers realize the value of the tourism re-

source by collecting information of tourists and investi-

gating tourism resource. On this basis, they implement

their development towards tourism resource and practice

management (including marketing, maintenance and ser-

vice, etc). By transferring the temporary tenure of ice-

snow tourism facilities, ice-snow tourism products and

services to tourists to realize its economic value, devel-

opers can re-recognize the value. Tourists can recognize

and realize the ice-snow tourism resource value through

obtaining the temporary tenure of the processed tourism

products to visit and experience activities. From the

ice-snow tourists’ point of view, the value of ice-snow

tourism resource is more essentially reflected as a will-

ingness to pay when tourists want to gain a comfortable

environment, spectacular enjoyment, or cultural influ-

ence. On the other side, from the ice-snow tourism re-

source operators, they paid effort during the process of

developing and managing the ice-snow tourism resource.

According to the Marx‘s Labor Value, they created value.

For the ice-snow tourism resource itself has the feature of

scarcity and the utility to meet the demand of tourists,

which is conform to the subjective utility theory of value

of western economics about conditions of product’s

worth. Therefore, we can consider that as a kind of natu-

ral resource, ice-snow tourism resource itself possesses

value. Ice-snow tourism resource is the subjective body

of ice-snow tourists and tour operators. Tourists and tour

operators are also subject and object each other the same

time. The Knowing and practicing activity are cycling all

the time between the two and interplaying each other.

(See Figure 1)

In short, ice-snow tourism resource value will be in-

fluenced by the environment and resource, under the ef-

fect of dynamic, coordination, and coupling mechanism,

the resource value system starts to take shape and com-

bine the environment, time, and space resource value it

relies on efficiently. However, ice-snow tourism resource

value could not exist without the demand of the subject,

thus the value can only be realized only by perceiving the

subject & object of ice-snow tourism resource activity

and practicing. Realized value / expected value is called

realized degree (β), which can represent the develop-

ment level and result of the ice-snow tourism resource.

As a natural tourism resource, the ice-snow tourism

resource value can be reflected in the aspects of size and

diversity, popularity and influence, specialty of land-

scapes, suitability for recreation and quality of service,

etc. Taking the regional and seasonal characteristics of

Figure 1. Ice-snow tourism resource value cognitive model.

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree

ice-snow tourism resource into account, ice-snow tour-

ism resource value is related to the indicators of its ap-

plicable tourism range and period. At the same time, as a

cultural tourism resource, ice-snow tourism resource has

a strong cultural connotation. On one hand it reflects

from the ice-snow art, clothing culture, architectural cul-

ture, eating culture, entertainment culture, and scientific

and technological culture, etc. Formally, ice-snow art is

the most important level, which shows the artistic side of

design of ice-snow landscape can reflect the value of ice-

snow tourism resource. On the other hand, it reflected

from the ice-snow tourism object culture, such as ice-

snow tourism resource, facilities, products, and the cul-

ture connotation that the ice-snow tourism managers

show during the management process. Ice-snow tourism

resource value can be reflected by tourism cultural het-

erogeneity, the conceptualization of the theme culture,

participatory of the designed tourism project and suit-

ability to display tourism culture. Such indicators can

reflect the ice-snow tourism resource value. In addition,

to achieve the sustainable development of the ice-snow

tourism resource, it is necessary to protect the ecological

environment, to maintain the integrity, and enhance the

coordination of it. Ice-snow tourism scenic landscape

design should pay attention to maintain the original eco-

logical environment, reflecting the ecological atmosphere

to be corresponded with the landscape and the theme

culture. So it can be put forward that the integrity of

ecological resource and the ecologic of landscape design

index can reflect the value of ice-snow tourism re-

source[4].Based on the foregoing analysis, it can be con-

sidered that the ice-snow tourism resource value factors

mainly includes three dimensions: economic, cultural and

ecological dimensions (see Figure 2).

Accordingly, ice-snow tourism resource can be de-

composed into economic value, cultural value and eco-

logical value. Based on the natural reproduction capacity

of ice-snow tourism resource, economic value is the nec-

essary labor time to protect, recover and add value to

ice-snow reproduction, which reflects the investing value

of society. Cultural value mainly points to resource val-

ues that can satisfy the mankind's spirit cultural and

moral need, such as the artistic of designed landscape,

tourism cultural heterogeneity, theme culture concept, etc.

Ecological value mainly reflects the elements of

ice-snow tourism resource value on the ecological aspect.

Such as ecological landscape design, integrity of eco-

logical resources, environmental protection, and coordi-

nation of ecological environment. By referencing domes-

tic and foreign researchers’ results [5-7], it is possible to

build the ice-snow tourism resource value evaluation

system (Table 1).

3. The Evaluation Model of Ice-snow

Tourism Resource Value

Weight of ice-snow tourism resource value evaluation

index is determined by analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

In order to determine the weight of each index, ques-

tionnaires are given out to 12 ice-snow tourism scholars

and practitioners, to get a comparison between different

levels of evaluation importance. Experts will give the

two evaluation indicators’ relative importance based on

their judgment, the value space is an integer between 1 to

9, and 1

ij ji



. The value criterion been taken is

shown in Table 2.

Process the data obtained from the investigation and

get the mean value, constructing pairwise comparison

judgment matrix, and use Analytic Hierarchy Process to

calculate the weight of each arrange evaluation index.

The result is shown in Table 3.

Regional characteristics

Seasonal characteristics

Natural Characteristics

Cultural dimension

Economic dimension

Ecological

rimitiveness

Harmony with landscape

Synergy with cultural themes

Ice-snow art Ice-snow tourism object culture

Ecological dimension

Figure 2. Three-dimension structure of ice-snow tourism resources value.

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree 33

Table 1. Ice-snow tourism resource value evaluation system.

Primary

Index

Secondary

Index Third level Index Analysis of

variance

Specialty of Landscapes X11

Suitability for recreation X12

Size and diversity X13

Popularity and influence X14

Appropriate travel period X15

Appropriate travel area X16

Economic

Value(X1)

Service quality X17

Landscape design X21

Tourism cultural

heterogeneity X22

Theme culture concept X23

Participatory of project

design X24

Cultural

Value(X2)

Suitability of culture show X25

Ecological landscape

design X31

Integrity of

ecological resources X32

Environmental protection X33

Ice -snow

tourism

resource

value (X)

Ecological

Value(X3)

Coordination with

ecological environment X34

Table 2. Evaluation standards.

Score Explanation

1 ui is equally important compared with uj

3 ui is slightly more important compared with uj

5 ui is obviously more important compared with uj

7 ui is far more important compared with uj

9 ui is extremely more important compared with uj

2, 4, 6, 8 The medianbetween 1-3, 3-5, 5-7, 7-9

Table 3. Evaluation index weight value.

Index Weight

X11 0.112

X12 0.123

X13 0.123

X14 0.141

X15 0.167

X16 0.167

X17 0.167

0.50

X21 0.168

X22 0.198

X23 0.198

X24 0.222

X25 0.214

0.30

X31 0.297

X32 0.203

X33 0.297

X34 0.203

0.20

The evaluation models of, economic value, cultural

value, and ecological value of ice-snow tourism resource

value are shown as following.

1111213

15 16 17

0.112 0.1230.123 0.141

0.167 0.167 0.167

XXX





(1)

22122

24 25

0.168 0.1980.198

0.222 0.214





(2)

3313233

0.297 0.203 0.2970.203

XXXX



 (3)

0.500.300.20 3

XXX



 (4)

90X

shows that ice-snow tourism resource value is

very high and has a very good potential for development;

70 90



 shows that ice-snow tourism resource

value is relatively high and has a good potential for de-

velopment, 50 70X





shows ice-snow tourism re-

source value is ordinary and also has an ordinary poten-

tial for development; 50X



 shows the ice-snow

tourism resource value is low and has a bad potential for

development; shows ice-snow tourism resource

value is very low and does not have enough potential for

development

30X

The expect value () and realized value () of

ice-snow tourism resource value can be gotten by for-

mula (1), formula (2) and formula (3). RX/EX is the re-

alized degree (β), which can be shown as:

EX RX



 (5)

Thus, the realized degree of economic value is:



 (6)

The realized degree of cultural value is:



 (7)

The realized degree of ecological value is:



 (8)

0.9



 shows the effect of ice-snow tourism re-

source value development is very good, 0.7 0.9







0.5

shows the effect is ordinary, 0.3



 shows the

effect is bad, 0.3



 shows the development result is

very bad.

4. The Empirical Analysis

Scenic spot ISW is located in Heilongjiang Province

which has an abundant ice-snow tourism resource. Ice-

snow tourism activity is held every year with a specific

theme. In this scenic spot, the essence of ice-snow art is

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree

concentrated. It is one of the biggest ice-snow scenic spot

in the world and has a lot of ice-snow patches and vari-

ous forms of recreation and entertainment. The ice-snow

tourism resource in scenic spot A includes natural tour-

ism resource and cultural tourism resource, which can

reflect the categories and characteristics of ice-snow

tourism resource, and also is a typical accumulation area

of ice-snow tourism resource.

4.1. Data

In order to obtain the required data for evaluation, ice-

snow tourism resource value evaluation questionnaire is

designed based on the ice-snow tourism resource value

evaluation index system. 500 questionnaires are given

out to tourists in ISW scenic area, of which 448 is valid.

The effective rate is 89.6%. The questionnaire is divided

into three parts. The first part is the value of tourism re-

source evaluation survey in ISW scenic area of Heilong-

jiang Province. Tourists grade each indicator that is been

designed with a full mark of 100.The second part is a

survey of realized degree in ISW scenic area in Heilong-

jiang Province. Tourists grade the realization degree of

each indicator. The third part shows the basic situation of

the respondents, such as place of origin, age, education

degree, etc.

Cronbach alpha is used to test the reliability of the

questionnaire, and the expert investigation method and

factor analysis method are used to test the content valid-

ity and structure validity of the questionnaire. The alpha

reliability coefficient is over 0.8, which indicates that the

indicators designed in the questionnaire have acceptable

reliability. Many previous research results are applied in

the design of the questionnaire, and the items of the

questionnaire are revised by the expert investigation

method to make sure that the selected items represent the

contents. So that the questionnaire has good content’s

validity. On conducting the structure validity to each

index, it is found that the value of KMO is greater than

0.5, which shows that there exist seven common factors,

which are the same as the secondary indicators of the

index system. Thus, the questionnaire design has good

structure validity.

4.2. Results

Processing the data of indicators collected from the first

and the second part in the questionnaire and calculate the

mean, and then combining the index weights equation

(1)-(8) obtained in Table 3, we can calculate the eco-

nomic value, cultural value, and ecological value of

ice-snow tourism resource, the ice-snow tourism resource

value and the realization degree. The result is shown in

Table 4.

Table 4. Evaluation result.

Indicators Economic

value

Cultural

value

Ecological

value

Ice-snow tourism

resource value

RX 66.54 36.39 49.30 54.19

EX 80.30 90.87 85.16 84.34

Realization

degree 82.9% 40.10% 57.90% 64.20%

It can be seen from table 4 that the expected economic

value o f ice-snow tourism resource of ISW scenic area is

80.30, expected cultural value is 90.87, expected eco-

logical value is 84.34. ISW scenic area obsesses a fine

ice-snow tourism resource and fine development poten-

tial reflected from the data above. From the composition

of the ice-snow tourism resource value, cultural value has

the highest score, followed by the ecological value, eco-

nomic value as the last. This shows that, compared with

the economic value, ISW scenic area has a higher cul-

tural and ecological value. The result of this evaluation

requires managers in ISW scenic area that more attention

should be paid to cultural values and ecological value

than economic value.

The realization value of the economic value of ISW

scenic area is 66.54, with cultural value 36.39, and eco-

logical value 49.30. The realization value of ice-snow

tourism resource is 54.19. The realization degree of

ice-snow tourism resource of ISW scenic area is 64.20%,

which shows the realization degree of ice-snow tourism

resource value of ISW scenic area is not high and has an

ordinary development result. The realization degree of

economic value is 82.90%, with cultural value 40.10%,

and ecological value 57.90%. This indicates that the

economic value of ice-snow tourism resource value of

ISW scenic is fully developed and has a fine develop-

ment result. On the other hand, the development of eco-

logical and cultural values is not effective, especially

cultural values, which still has a great room for im-

provement. Therefore, ISW scenic area will continuing

increase the development of the ice-snow tourism re-

source value, especially to strengthen the development of

cultural and ecological value, striving to improve the

realization degree.

5. Conclusions

Based on the analysis of expectation value and realiza-

tion value of ice-snow tourism resource, this paper de-

signs an analytical framework of three-dimension in-

cluding economic value, cultural value and ecological

value combined with the characteristic of ice-snow tour-

ism resource. From the three aspects, an assessment in-

dex system is designed, including 3 hierarchies, 16 indi-

cators. Comparisons are made with the studies by differ-

The Assessment of Ice-snow Tourism Resources Value and Its Realization Degree

ent scholars in the same field from home and abroad

when choosing indicators to ensure that the selected in-

dicators are comprehensive, scientific and rational [8,9].

Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to determine the

index weight, and based on this, economic value, cultural

value, ecological value, as well as ice-snow tourism re-

source value and are analyzed, the model of ice-snow

tourism resource value is constructed, and the develop-

ment of ice-snow tourism resource value is assessed. It

can be seen from the evaluation and analysis of ice-snow

tourism resource value of ISW scenic area in Heilongji-

ang province that the evaluation model and methods de-

veloped in this paper can make scientific and reasonable

evaluation towards ice-snow tourism resource value and

are beneficial to improving the result of ice-snow tourism

resource development.

This paper only provides a preliminary exploration on

the assessment of the ice-snow tourism resource value,

and there are many other important issues need to be

further studied. For example, the interaction and coupling

relationships among the three dimensions have a certain

influence on the ice-snow tourism resource value, and

can be included into the index system in further research

to achieve a more precise evaluation result.

6. Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper is supported by the

Philosophy and Social Science Project in Heilongjiang

Province (08C059).

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