Interviewer: I am glad to be able to interview a lady who is helping Chinese cities identify their unique heritage advantages to better develop their tourism.

Thank you for being here today with us. Where is the company located?

Interviewee: We are located in ShanHai，just near the ECNU University.

Interviewer: Could you tell us the name of the company?

Interviewee: Wen Gu Fang

Interviewer: Does the company name have a meaning?

Interviewee: Yes. The expression “Wen Gu” is the first part and it means “study the old traditions”

Then the second part is “Zhi Xin” which means “Know the new things”. The expression of “Wen Gu Zhi Xin” is from Confucius, which is also the discipline of our company.

Interviewer: How does the company name relate to your job?

Interviewee: Because our company does culture consulting and heritage protection.

The heritage concept includes both tangible and intangible things. So we need to do research to study about the old traditions which is the spirit of the country. That is one part.

Right now we need to help make the old things more creative to all people. That’s why we have the name.

Interviewer: Could you tell us a city that is doing heritage protection?

Interviewee: Yes. There is a water town in Shanghai called “Zhu Jia Jiao”. This was a project we once did. We worked together with Tonghi University in Shanghai.

Interviewer: How did your company work together with Tongji University?

Interviewee: They were responsible for the protection of the architecture and we were working on the cultural part. Like the history and traditional industry of the area. It was actually a center for rice trading.

There we can see the culture of the Yangtze River Delta. We dug out the details of the area and we resumed the traditional festivals in that area. So that is what we basically do. We provide the content.

Interviewer: How long can such a project take?

Interviewee: It depends. Between 3 months and 1 year

Interviewer: Is the local government involved deeply in the project?

Interviewee: Yes, they invite us to do the professional job of promoting the cultural tourism.

Interviewer: Do you believe that many other cities in China will do projects like this?

Interviewee: Yes. I am very positive of that. Firstly, architecture can be duplicated easily anywhere however the content of the local culture is the most special aspect that will attract people. That’s the most attractive part of a tourism area.

Secondly，based on our research of local culture we can develop cultural products.

Interviewer: Is that why you are building a platform?

Interviewee: Yes, that is why I meet with people from Tongji University which is famous for urban planning and designers who can do good designs for projects.

For example, there can be even a local expression in a certain area that we can develop into a product.

Interviewer: What is your goal now?

Interviewee: Maybe that villages or ancient towns can come to us because we can offer them professional knowledge of culture protection. Even their diet, living style can be attractive to visitors. We would like to create more special content to make them more unique.

Interviewer: I agree. Perhaps if a place is more unique then more people will visit

Can you tell us more about your services.

Interviewee: We can change the product periodically to keep it attractive so the people will come back again.

Thus we can see 2 aspects:

1. Festivals – we can develop festivals. One year we can do one way then the next year do it another way.

2. Souvenirs – we can do many designs based on the local culture and also change this periodically.

Interviewer: What is your expectation of the industries future?

Interviewee: I believe content will become more important in the future. Also there will be more creativity in the content.

However the question is how can one keep the inspiration and I come back to the name of our company which says one has to do much research and study.

That’s being responsible for the culture industry. Now people don’t want to spend much time on study because during that time less money is made but I do believe all the studies will become a foundation if you want to develop well the culture industry we need to do this type of study.

We need content for the culture industry, that is the most important part.

Interviewer: Thank you Ruby Guo for explaining your services and the wonderful opportunities cities and towns can enjoy if they correctly discover and promote their heritage the citizens of China and the world.

I wish you much further success in the future.

Interviewee: Thank you.