Shangri-La: It’s Real, and It’s a Successful Marketing Ploy
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.05.07 | 8:03 AM ET
Photo by Perhaps too successful. Five years ago the Chinese town of Zhongdian renamed itself Shangri-La, claiming that the town was the basis for the Shangri-La described in James Hilton’s 1933 novel “Lost Horizon.” “Evidence is sketchy,” we wrote back then, “but no matter.” They moved forward with their plan and now Shangri-La has become besieged by tourists. Whether that’s good or not depends on your perspective.
Tourists complain of newness and too many shopping centers, according to a recent report by NPR’s Louisa Lim. Some locals also seem fed up, but, as Lim reports, it’s a complicated situation.
New temples are being built, showing the upside of tourism.
At one of the local Buddhist temples, a small souvenir shop is staffed by monks selling necklaces and bracelets. The monks say that all the objects they are selling are for religious use and what they’re doing is for the good of the temple.
However, to be involved in this financial transaction day in day out seems far from the type of spiritual life that many of the monks may have been seeking when they came here.
The situation will only get more complicated. More than 3 million people visited Shangri-La (population: 50,000) last year, and that number is expected to increase by 20 percent this year.
How does a Shangri-La inundated by tourists feel? From the middle of it all, Lim says: “I feel about as far as possible from that mythological paradise.”