Chapter 1097 — This Beats Robbing a Bank by a Mile

Tourism.

To be honest, this topic was a bit beyond Meitzen's depth — and probably beyond the depth of most dragons in Tarronde.

In its days of glory and strength, Tarronde had been advanced in everything. The dragons, bored out of their minds, had turned nearly every form of entertainment into an art — yet the word "tourism" alone had never had any place in dragon life. Externally, Tarronde was sealed off completely, enforcing under the Great Shield a strict policy that barred all visitors; internally, Tarronde had been stagnant for a million years, and what had stagnated along with society was the daily life of vast numbers of lower-class dragons. Add to that the abuse of enhancement agents, the extreme development of virtual entertainment, the replacement of traditional amusements by extreme competitive sports, and so on — the dragons had long since lost any concept of a tourism industry, and a "working dragon" like Meitzen, born under a company order, even more so...

But that did not stop her from grasping the concept Gao Yang was describing. She was simply full of doubt about its feasibility: "Is that all it takes? Bring people from Loren to Tarronde, protect them well, and then they will just open their purses?"

"That is the most basic level. But if you truly intend to run this as a major venture, the basics alone will not be enough," Gao Yang said, his interest in the matter suddenly immense — this was not merely a chance to win over the dragons and probe further into Tarronde's secrets. If handled properly, it would also be the first time in Loren's history that the continent established exchange with another land, and the foundational, driving effect this would have on countless unexplored fields was beyond imagining. "You should build a full range of supporting services. For instance, set up tourism agencies at every level on Loren — you should be familiar with that; the Mithril Vault's operations in this area give you at least some foundation. Second, you should design suitable 'sightseeing routes' on Loren and squeeze as much profit out of them as possible. You could also run some value-added services and the like..."

Gao Yang deliberately spoke in general terms, and this indeed further stoked Meitzen's interest. The blue dragon lady immediately leaned closer: "And the specifics?"

"First, the people interested in a mysterious land like Tarronde come in many kinds. There are ordinary citizens with a little savings and a lot of curiosity; adventurers with an exploratory spirit; scholars interested in dragon culture and exotic knowledge; and nobles with heads full of novel ideas and more money than sense. You need to divide your services into tiers according to these groups — an economy tour, a premium tour, a luxury tour, plus a few specialized cultural study tours, exotic exploration tours, and so on. In truth, the places you take them are mostly the same — after all, you only have so many safe zones over there — but when you advertise, you must draw clear distinctions. Make every tier sound alluring enough, yet make each sound like a different class of experience. Then set up waystations and inns of matching tiers, so that every coin spent seems worth it...

"Next, the sightseeing routes. Most of that land is still wasteland, after all, and you certainly cannot just dump your guests into the wasteland. So you need to plan out areas that are safe enough and attractive enough — explored factory ruins, city ruins, or battlefield remains out in the wilds. Perhaps you think those ruins have no sightseeing value, but trust me, everything that happened on that land is worth understanding, and the people who travel thousands of miles to Tarronde... what they want to understand is everything behind those ruins.

"Finally, the value-added services. Those wealthy people who travel all the way to Tarronde — if they only go to look at the scenery, that would be a terrible waste. After all, magic illusions and memory implantation can achieve much the same effect. So to make these people feel their trip was worthwhile, you need to come up with projects that cannot be replaced. For example, you could run a 'wasteland survival experience,' or a 'Tarronde folkways simulation,' or something like that..."

Halfway through Gao Yang's explanation, Meitzen could not help but interrupt: "A wasteland survival experience? That sounds... a bit dangerous?"

"Ahem, not the way you imagine it," Gao Yang cleared his throat twice, ideas rapidly taking shape in his mind. "You certainly cannot really take people into the wasteland to experience extreme survival. But you can have them, in relatively safe places, take part in things that exist only in the wasteland. For instance, give them tools and let them experience dismantling and salvaging dragon architecture; let them experience filtering clean water out of contaminated water; let them experience operating your production machinery..."

The more Meitzen listened, the more dumbfounded she became, and at last she could not help but speak up again: "Wait — you are having them do work for us — and charging them for it?"

"...These are experience programs," Gao Yang said after a two-second pause, his face utterly serious. "And after the customers finish experiencing them, you should give them some souvenirs — pick a few items from what they produced, put them in nice packaging, that sort of thing. If there is surplus output you cannot use, you can put it in the shops along the sightseeing routes and sell it to other tour groups later..."

Meitzen felt she could barely keep her mouth closed. She could not resist asking again: "And that so-called Tarronde folkways simulation..."

"The glorious sights of old Tarronde are certainly gone now, and you cannot recreate anything like them in the short term — but the visitors do not know that. Just set up some distinctive scenes of food, lodging, social life, and entertainment. If you have the resources, build a few more experience zones, and advertise it as 'let guests live a day in the life of a dragon'... You have over a million years of history, after all. I once asked around — over such a span you have even reshaped the continental landscape and your people's modes of survival several times. So no matter how bizarre the 'experiences' you design, somewhere in that million-year history there will be a corresponding precedent. Told that way, it is not even a lie...

"You can put this project in the luxury tour. Charging a high price is no problem. Most of those who sign up will be nobles and rich merchants, and for them, 'living like a dragon' is more thrilling than injecting your enhancement agents."

Meitzen's expression had gone somewhat wooden: "If you have more ideas, just say them..."

"There are indeed a few more," Gao Yang thought for a moment, then nodded. "For example, you can further refine the sightseeing programs for different groups.

"For instance, for scholars interested in Tarronde culture, you can build exhibition halls, academic museums, and facilities of that kind. Take the scrap metal you have collected from the ruins that can be made public, tidy it up, and put it on display, with a rough introduction to its functions and a story or two connected to each piece. For knowledge like that, those scholars would even be willing to stay inside for ten days or half a month.