| Author | Qian, Cheng |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.NR-17-01 |
| Subject(s) | Rural tourism--China (Huangshan Mountain)--Case studies
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| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of philosophy in Natural Resources Management, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. NR-17-01 |
| Abstract | As an approach to achieve sustainable development, tourism has been increasingly used as a livelihood strategy for rural poverty alleviation. A sustainable development approach to tourism seeks to contribute to preservation, community development, and incomegeneration and to minimize the disadvantaged environmental and cultural influences of the industry. And all the participants' environmental and political awareness could be promoting at the same time. However, insufficient funding exerts an extreme negative influence on tourism development in most developing countries and Least Developed Countries, include rural areas of China. In conjunction with tourism development, hybrid governance models have been developed and applied in many rural Chinese tourist destinations. The governance is associated with networks and can be characterized by horizontal relationships among public, civil and private actors that employ hybrid institutional arrangements. Government assistance and multiple stakeholder involvement have altered the livelihoods oflocal households to varying degrees as a result of the particular institutional arrangements. With the development of tourism development in the World Heritage mountain area of Huangshan, each community in this area conducts its own fo1m of rural tourism. Although the majority of the communities share similar physical conditions and community attributes, the outcomes derived from tourism development under the diversity governance of each community are totally different. This study will compare the different outcomes of community-based co-management of tourism (CBT), which refers to the cooperation between government agencies and communities. CBT is a "people-centered, communityoriented, resource-focused and partnership-based management model." Lease-operated tourism (LOT), however, refers to "social-private partnerships between market actors and communities." It is contract-based and facilitates the use of tourism resources but does not convey rights of ownership with respect to resources. This study applies a sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) to compare the different livelihoods and evaluate their institutional airnngements exist in this area based on the local residents' perception. We selected two communities to represent different governance models near the World Heritage Site of Mountain Huangshan and conducted household-level interviews and questionnaire surveys. And we select various variables and indicator sets relating to different kinds of capital and establish a pentagon for livelihood asset. The shape of the pentagon varies according to the different outcomes of the various governance mechanisms concerning tourism development in the case study region. With the aim of assessing local household livelihood assets with respect to tourism development, the study conducts chronological vertical and horizontal comparisons among the various communities to examine the interrelationships between local household livelihoods and the differing institutional arrangements. This study aimed to determine the interrelationships among institutional arrangement, tourism development and improvements in livelihood. We compared the outcomes of the different institutional arrangements through evaluations of efficiency, equality, accountability and adaptability. The results indicated that community-based tourism (CBT) development has considerable advantages, as it largely improved the local households' livelihoods and local awareness of conservation. The findings clearly demonstrated that CBT can yield great economic, ecologic and social benefits. Although the benefits of tourism development are important and significant for the local community, the institutional arrangement requires further improvements. |
| Year | 2017 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. NR-17-01 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Natural Resources Management (NRM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Sasaki, Nophea; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Jourdain, Damien;Kim, Sohee Minsun;Shivakoti, Ganesh P. ; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | International Fellowship ProgramFord Foundation, USAAIT Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2017 |