1.4 Hangzhou's General Information

Hangzhou is known as a ‘paradise on earth'. The West Lake is like a ‘back garden' and the city is in the middle of the ‘fish and rice' land as well as a production base for silk (Zhang, 2002). Hangzhou has more than 40 scenic spots around the West Lake, a specific feature of this city. Hangzhou is not a very big city, but its economy has attained high status in China. According to China-Window.com (2015), in 2014, the GDP of Hangzhou amounted to 9,201 billion RMB, which ranked second among all provincial capitals, second only to Guangzhou. Hangzhou is a historical city with many cultural resources.Zhang (2002) noted that during the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou was the world's most prosperous city, and the Hangzhou residents' leisure traditions originated from that wealthy era. Hangzhou is one of the more suitable cities with the capacity to hold major international conferences and events.

Hangzhou is the capital city of Zhejiang Province with a city area of 16,596 square kilometres and an urban population of about 6.79million (Hangzhou.gov.cn\, 2016a). The city is located in the southeast of China, which is one of the main economically developed areas in China and it lies among the top in Chinese cities in terms of comprehensive strength. One of its main scenic spots is the West Lake, which is largely artificial and is surrounded by mountains. Not only that, its unique gardening art has integrated cultural and natural landscapes as a key attraction. Recently more than 100 scenic spots have been renovated in Hangzhou, which in 2013 attracted ‘more than three million foreign tourists and ninety million domestic tourists' (Zhejiang Online, 2014).

Hangzhou has long been regarded as a desirable travel and tourism destination in China and it possesses notable historical and cultural features. Marco Polo had praised Hangzhou as ‘the most beautiful and elegant city in the world'.In his travel notesThe Travels of Marco Polo first published in 1298, he meticulously described Hangzhou as the follows: a total of 1.6 million houses, spacious streets with the canal traffic, stone discharge sewage drain; the city's main street has ten big markets, lanes and streets glutted with countless small markets; Hangzhou people treat outside people very kindly, they provide good treatment, support and advice;Hangzhou's citizens like hot water bath services, the city has 3,000 public bathhouses; …people cruising on the West Lake accompanied with many beautiful women, drinking and singing… it is paradise (Polo, 1913). Historically many poets and authors have written thousands of poems to praise Hangzhou. Along with the changes made in China since the late 1970s, the tourism industry has been improved year by year. The West Lake is the heart and soul of Hangzhou's tourism. It has helped brand Hangzhou as a famous tourism city, which has achieved recognition in the honorable verse ‘In heaven there is paradise; on earth, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou'.

The city's history is a long one, and dates back to the Neolithic Hemudu culture 7,000 years ago.According to Chinese Brief History by Du Hongyi(2006),during the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou was the national capital, which made it one of the seven ancient cities in China that have served as capital cities throughout the Chinese history. The West Lake itself still possesses as a feature a causeway built in 1090 by Su Shi (one of China's most famous poets). And when Marco Polo visited Hangzhou, he hailed it as one of the finest cities in the world as noted above. A long history in China is always coupled with a profound culture. Hangzhou thus has marketed itself for both domestic and international tourism as a city of leisure based on cultural and heritage assets (Zheng & Liu, 2005). According to Zhou (2006), Hangzhou has a rich religious culture, especially that of ‘Zen Buddhism'. Many temples were built in Hangzhou and still have high status in Chinese Buddhism. Hangzhou is also one of the world's main cradles of tea culture. It has a conventional tea drinking atmosphere with many teahouses, some even several hundreds of years old. Zhou (2006) also mentioned that the city not only possesses its traditional culture, but has also gained many modern descriptions such as ‘paradise', ‘capital of love', ‘capital of beauty', ‘leisure city', and‘happy Hangzhou'.