Lin Jingwen: President of the Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Association
Lin Jingwen, male, Tujia ethnicity, 35 years old, high school education, tour guide at the Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Management Service Center. In 2005, he founded the "Tour Guide Forum," trained more than 3,600 tour guides, provided over 130 voluntary training sessions for travel agencies and tour guides, and passed on the tour-leading experience he accumulated over many years without reservation to Zhangjiajie's tour guides, raising the commentary standards of Zhangjiajie's guides as a whole. During his tenure as vice president of the Tour Guide Association, he contributed ideas and strategies and once successfully supported the "Tujia Folk Customs Park,"
Lin Jingwen, male, Tujia ethnic group, 35 years old, high school education, tour guide at Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Management Service Center.
In 2005, he founded the "Tour Guide Forum," trained more than 3,600 tour guides, voluntarily conducted over 130 training sessions for travel agencies and tour guides, and unreservedly passed on his years of accumulated tour-leading experience to Zhangjiajie tour guides, improving the commentary standards of Zhangjiajie tour guides as a whole.
During his tenure as vice president of the Tour Guide Association, he offered suggestions and strategies, and successfully supported second-tier scenic areas such as "Tujia Customs Park," "Yuanjia Village," and "Loujiang Rafting," driving the development of Zhangjiajie's tourism economy as a whole. He integrated 21 outstanding tour guide elites in Zhangjiajie to jointly establish Zhangjiajie's and even China's first tour guide service company funded by tour guides themselves—Zhangjiajie Powerful Tour Guide Marketing Service Company, successfully helping with the marketing planning of scenic areas such as Furong Town, and received unanimous praise from Zhangjiajie's tourism industry. Since 2001, he has been rated as an outstanding tour guide many times.
Emerging into Prominence
Lin Jingwen was born in 1973 into a farmer's family in Chaoyang Village, Shadi Township, Yongding District. He began first grade at the age of nine. After graduating from high school in 1994, he attended a one-and-a-half-month chef training in the city, and then went alone to Guangdong to work. During his working years, he cooked for others, worked as a packer, painter, color-painting worker, administrator, and more. At the end of 1999, he returned home and used his five years of savings to build the most beautiful Western-style house in the entire village. In 2000, he tried his hand at the clothing business, and in less than a year, he switched to working as a tour guide.
Having followed his parents since childhood in farm work such as cutting firewood, farming, digging herbs, and hoeing weeds, Lin Jingwen developed a hardworking and resilient personality. During his time working in Guangdong, he was also exposed to new ways of thinking and economic awareness, and from the moment he became a tour guide, he worked diligently. Over a long period in the profession, Lin Jingwen believed that Zhangjiajie's tour guides had a certain situation: tour guides were closed off and guarded against one another, and although they were in contact, they did not reveal work techniques, lacking necessary experience exchange, making it difficult to improve professional quality and standards as a whole; relevant functional departments also rarely held large-scale events centered on tour guides; and in the eyes of the general public, tour guides were a bunch of "big shots" taking kickbacks, with a not very good impression.
This understanding prompted Lin Jingwen to develop an idea: to change the work techniques and model of Zhangjiajie tour guides, and improve tour guide quality and overall image.
In 2004, Lin Jingwen contacted a group of influential tour guides in Zhangjiajie and founded Zhangjiajie's first tour guide forum, building a platform for tour guides to exchange experience and techniques, discuss professional knowledge, and improve professional standards. After the forum opened, Lin Jingwen shared all his tour-leading techniques and methods with his peers. Although only about 80 tour guides attended the first class, after listening, all the tour guides thought the results were very good.
With the experience and influence of the first class, the second class struck a deep chord.
The second class was held at Wulingyuan International Hotel, with the theme "How to Promote Zhangjiajie's Local Specialties." More than 1,200 tour guides attended this class, and the training site was unprecedentedly packed.
After personally "passing on the scriptures" several times, Lin Jingwen expanded his influence among his peers, won their support and trust, and broke the closed professional tradition in which Zhangjiajie tour guides did not "show their skills" to one another. Lin Jingwen himself also began to attract the attention of various tourism businesses in Zhangjiajie and even Changsha and Shaoshan. At the same time, after Lin Jingwen passed on the shopping promotion techniques he had mastered to tour guides, through the guides' extensive promotion, tourists gained a deeper understanding of Zhangjiajie's tourism products. The proportion of tourists coming to Zhangjiajie who made additional purchases increased, the variety of goods consumed grew, the consumption chain lengthened, and more consumption funds were spent.
In 2004, due to his outstanding promotion and recommendation skills, Lin Jingwen won first place in Zhangjiajie for total annual tourism product sales, and the Tujia Mei shopping store rewarded him with a car. From then on, Lin Jingwen began to establish his own tour guide brand through practical action.
Role Transition
At the end of 2004, Lin Jingwen signed a cooperation agreement with the Tujia Customs Park, helping it with publicity and promotion, expanding its influence and enhancing its brand image. Based on his experience as a tour guide, Lin Jingwen analyzed the current state of tourism in Zhangjiajie and proposed a series of measures. He believed that "Tujia Customs Park" was not a very good name for a tourist attraction and should be changed to "Tusi City." Because when guests travel, they hope that what they see and learn is authentic, original, and primitive. If the three words "Tusi City" were used for promotion, it would not only convey a different feeling but also carry an air of ancient historical charm. At the same time, the Tujia culinary culture brand "Ten Big Bowls" should seek a breakthrough in quality, deeply excavating the historical and cultural content of "Ten Big Bowls" to whet tourists' appetites. Through these measures and promotional points, tour guides would explain to visitors the historical value of Tusi City in the entire Xiangxi region and its tourism significance today, thereby attracting tourists' attention to the Tujia Customs Park and achieving the goals of publicity, promotion, and enhancing the attraction's influence.
In order to create core influence, Lin Jingwen held four large-scale performance events at the Tujia Customs Park, printed unified promotional materials, carried out exchanges and networking among industry peers, and distributed materials to tour guides. In 2004, in addition to unifying the commentary for the Tujia Customs Park and expanding its core competitiveness, Lin Jingwen also systematically planned commentary for promoting Zhangjiajie's local specialties.
Previously, many tour guides were unclear about whether Zhangjiajie had local specialties and which were authentic ones. Lin Jingwen guided other tour guides to explain local specialties in four steps: let guests know what Zhangjiajie has; what the local specialties actually are; what role the local specialties played in the past and present, and how to use them. One example of Lin Jingwen promoting a local specialty shows how he stood out. For instance, he introduced the local specialty Gegen (kudzu root) to tourists like this:
"Dear tourist friends, the river we just passed is the Lishui River, one of the four major rivers in Hunan. It originates from the Badagong Mountain in Sangzhi County, the hometown of Marshal He Long, and flows into Dongting Lake. It is the cradle of life for the Tujia people. Why is it named the Lishui River? From the characters, it can be analyzed like this: the left side of the character 'Li' is the three-dot water radical, representing a river; the right side is divided into two parts. The upper part is the character for 'song.' The sound of the river flowing day and night is like an endless song of the great mountains, and even more a song of life for Tujia sons and daughters who have always bravely pressed forward; below is the character 'dou' for soybean. It is a wild vine-like plant growing at an altitude of 200-800 meters, with purple-blue flowers, bearing seeds in summer. In autumn, when the Tujia people had no food during the lean season, they dug up its roots and extracted the fine powder using one of the oldest Tujia processing methods. It could be eaten as food, used in dishes, and also used to sober up and reduce internal heat. This is Gegen powder."
By learning these techniques and experiences, tour guides played a positive role in guiding guests to correctly understand consumption and attracting tourists to voluntarily make additional purchases. This series of measures not only helped tour guides improve their professional quality and increase their income, but also promoted tourism products with local characteristics, and to a certain extent promoted the development of the tourism economy.
Active Advocacy
In 2006, Lin Jingwen was elected executive vice president of the Tour Guide Association. Together with the association and several other vice presidents, he worked to raise the status of tour guides in society as a whole, and strove even harder to reduce the burden and pressure on tour guides.
At the end of 1994, Wang Guobin, a veteran of the tour guide industry, had a daughter who suffered from leukemia and could not afford treatment. Lin Jingwen organized a large-scale fundraising event for him. At the fundraising site, Lin Jingwen's passionate speech, filled with tears, stirred the resonance of all the tour guides present. Everyone donated one after another to help Wang Guobin in his difficulties.
On May 6, 2008, Lin Jingwen joined with some ambitious and passionate tour guides to establish the Zhangjiajie Strength-Faction Tour Guide Marketing Service Company, specially planning for scenic spots and shopping stores and building a platform for tour guides.
This series of efforts by Lin Jingwen provided a platform for free exchanges among tour guides and for equal dialogue between tour guides and scenic spot enterprises. He made selfless contributions to creating a harmonious tourism environment in Zhangjiajie and promoting the healthy development of the tourism industry. At the same time, with his own genuine actions, he won the respect of peers and the industry.
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