A Study On The Social Change During The Process Of Island Tourism Development

The ocean and island development have risen to the height of the national strategy under the current situation, and our country is evoking an ocean and island development upsurge. During the upsurge the tourism development of ocean and island is also subject to universal attention. Chinese coastal areas all take tourism industry as an important industry, and as an important component of marine economy, island tourism industry is playing more and more important role in the process of development and industrial transformation of the island economy.The traditional study on the tourism influence has been unable to cover all the roles and influences the tourism industry has brought to the society in the destination. Tourism development has brought various influences to the regional society, which are not only reflected in the traditional sense of the economy, social culture and environment, but also affect the system change, population change and technology change at all levels. From the interdisciplinary perspective of tourism and sociology, the paper makes a research on the social change in the island areas under the influence of island tourism development from the angle of social change, the traditional theme of sociology, trying to explore the influences island tourism has had on the social change in the destination and deepening the research on the tourism impact to take island tourism as a case. The main research contents are as follows:First, a theoretical model of impact island tourism development has had on the social change is constructed, and the theory hypotheses are put forward from the three aspects of economic change, social culture change and population change. The research hypotheses are tested using the data collected by the questionnaire survey later.Second, the evaluation index system of impact island tourism development has had on the social change is established using the research methods of Delphi and AHP based on the literature analysis. The weight of the indexes as well as their operational definitions and index data sources are analyzed.Third, a deep analysis is made on the social change of the tourist village through the field survey. It’s pointed out that island tourism development has promoted the local industry structure from the primary industry to the tourist-oriented tertiary industry in the past over twenty years, optimized the economic structure in the tourist destination, and created employment opportunities for the majority of the villagers at home to increase income. The island tourism development has changed the traditional lifestyle of the villagers, and the villagers’ social hours and lifestyle have changed greatly with the seasonality of island tourism. Moreover, tourism development has had a direct impact on the villagers’ ideas and economic consciousness, and their traditional values and ideas have changed in some degree. The island tourism development has also caused the large scale of population change at the village.Fourth, a field survey is made to investigate the social change of the past twenty years occurred at the traditional fishing village. It’s believed that this is a period of collective ownership changing to the joint-stock cooperative system in the fishing area, reform of production relations, and the rapid development of fisheries productivity. The social and cultural changes of the fishing area have been analyzed, and it’s pointed out that the local population change is quite outstanding.Finally, a comparative study is made between the tourism village and the traditional fishing village. It’s believed that on one hand the social changes occurred in the two villages have something in common, such as the greatly improved villagers’ income level, continuous improvement of living conditions, more abundant material culture and spiritual culture life than before, frequent population movement, lots of problems and contradictions arisen in the social changes. On the other hand, the differences of social changes between the two villages have been summarized, which are mainly reflected in the changes of industrial structure adjustment, employment opportunities, the present situation of village sustainable development, the perfect degree of infrastructure construction, occupation structure and the population flow direction, etc.. The social changes are even more great and profound in the tourism village compared with the fishing village.Through the comparative study, this research thinks that there exist obvious differences in the degree and effect of social changes between the tourism village and the traditional fishing village. In general the positive effects of social changes at the tourism village are more prominent. The social changes island tourism development brought to the destination are bidirectional, and at present the positive effects are dominated. The supporting role to the economic development and the driving effects on other aspects of tourism industry are obvious. The island tourism development has already become an important engine promoting the construction of new socialist countryside in the island area. Therefore, tourism development has a strong practical significance for promoting the social change and the implementation of sustainable development in the local society under the background of socialist countryside construction in the current Chinese island regions and other inland rural areas, and island tourism development is undoubtedly a new model to promote the social change in the island fishing and rural regions.