The place regenerating of an old industrial city in Northeast China driven by ice and snow tourism

This study is based on the background of Northeast China's comprehensive revitalization strategy and the Harbin phenomenon, focusing on the case of Harbin. It proposes an analytical framework of “local context - structural embedding - agency force” to explore the local redevelopment mechanism and externality effects driven by ice and snow tourism. This study found that Harbin has a dual local context, facing revitalization pressure as a city in Northeast China under national discourse practice and a national local imagination. First， as an ice and snow tourism destination, Harbin has long been in a state of “quasi-supply”, and this dual local context forms the basis for its place regenerating. Second, the formal and informal institutions of the locality provide action methods and innovative conditions for the place regenerating tourism destinations as rules and resources of the structure. Third, the agency and interaction of multiple actors create an external effect for tourism destinations. Finally, in the process of the locality towards a relational orientation, the innovative development of tourism destinations can activate more extensive place vitality through the accumulation of externalities and network externalities, specifically manifesting in the vitality and value spillover of ice and snow resources, population vitality, urban vitality, attention, and other aspects, transforming the Northeast region into a state of “dynamic supply”.