Sustainability and Effectiveness of Chinese Outline for National Tourism and Leisure

This study is addressed to understand: (1) how the Chinese policies for tourism meet the international guidelines for sustainable development promoted by the United Nations, through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and (2) how the Chinese policies for tourism are applied in reality by design practice. To answer these two research questions, the research considers mainly three groups of reference sources: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the Outline for National Tourism and Leisure 2013–2020 (ONTL) of the Chinese Government and their analyses from independent sources; the descriptions of architectural interventions for hospitality. According with the two research questions, the research is based on two phases: (1) a comparison between the Chinese policies for tourism development and the international policies for sustainable development; (2) a search of sustainable policies in the design practice, through the analysis of 30 projects for hospitality, realized in China after 2013. The results of both the phases propose a new paradigm in understanding China’s role as a country leading sustainable tourism for development.