The Research Of The Supportive Social Structure For The Culture Production Of Tourist Destination

Based on the case of"Hongshan"scenic area in Sanya, Hainan provice, by using the measures of observation, literature and interview as well as the conception tool of"supportive social structure for the culture production of tourist destination", this study takes an empirical study on the social process behind the culture production of tourist destination, for the purpose of sociological investigation on tourism development. This study uses the theoretical perspective of"culture producation"referring to the social process behind culture production, that considers the culture as an production made through an organizational process."The supportive social structure for the culture production of tourist destination"refers to the integrated relation patterns and arrangements between social actors participating in the tourism development on the basis of tourism resources, these patterns and attangements of their relationships are stable for some period, influencing and determining the processes and performances of culture production of tourist destination.First of all, by the field work and theoretical analysis, this study achieves the following main findings:1. The supportive social structure for the culture production contains comprehensive relationships including cooperations and contradictions, which make the structure to be an integrated system containing two conflict-related ones. In order to illustrate its operational logic and the contradictory state, this study names the practical operation of these two substrucures as"the organizational process of culture production of tourist destination"and"the anti-organizational process of culture production of tourist destination". Researching on the two related and contradictory organizational process, the study attempts to get a comprehensive and thorough analysis on the social processes behind the tourism development and its culture production.2. The organizational process concludes social actors as follows: local government, companies, investors, Buddhist organizations and tourist guides. Its operation mechanism contains the following features: (1)the tourist destination is built under the power of local government, during which the local government and the Buddhist organizations have a close cooperation. The participations of the Buddhist organizaions promot the production of Buddhist culture and help the tourist destination get legal status in the Buddhist field. The consideration for the interests of local government, companies and tourists lead the Buddhist culture production deviate the traditional religious culture to some extent, reflecting the features of tourism and commerce culture. (2)these front-line cultural workers take an important role in the culture production of the main viewpoints within the tourist destination. Their actions are affected by the tourists who are the audience of the culture production, reflecting the conflict-related relationships between the Buddhist culture and commercial operation. The commercial traits of the culture production sponsors cause the marked commercial atmosphere of the culture production, for the commercial needs to recover their investments. The organization of different powers causes a comprehensive feature containing the Buddhist culture, tourism culture and the commercial operation. (3)the operation mode of the company set up the whole interests structure and interaction border for these participants. The company representing the overall scienic area, the investors, the local government and other actors practise kinds of communications and exchanges in this framework. These relationships are integrated and resulted in a relatively stable institutional framework for the culture production process of tourist destination. (4)as a special actor, the tourist guides have their own industry situation and interests. They assume the function of cultural production to some extent, and also affect tourists'experiences for the culture of tourist destination. On the whole, despite the relationships containing both cooperation and contradictory, their actions have largely been incorporated into the interest patterns and action framework that made by local government and companies for the purpose to attract tourists, develop the tourism and collect the profits of tourism developing.3. The anti-organizational process exists and functions around the scienic area, which concludes four main actors: the local government, the company, village leaders and villagers. They are involved in integrated relations with different interests and goals. This anti-organizational process begins with the development of the tourist destination and the land events, coring at the unbalanced distribution of benefits and kinds of emerging conflicts in the reality, which has a operation process related as well as antagonistic to the organizational process of the culture production of tourist destination. The local government and the company attempt to make the process into the tourism developing framework of beautifying the scienic area and attracting tourists, however, the existing structural contradictions always lead to vaviety problems around the scienic area, which cause their tourism development goal into trouble. On the one hand, the anti-organizational processes interrelate with the changes of the social structure in the surrounding villages. With the advance of the anti-organization process, the relationship structure between the company, villagers and village leaders is constantly undergoing adjustment. As the village leaders take a special role in land acquisition and mobilizing the villagers, they have their own space of benefits and freedom to use their power. They gradually become the spokesman of the developing company to communicate with the villagers to some extent, this situation strenghens the weak state of the villagers. Due to the village leaders'behavior of moving close to the interests of the company system, the villagers have more and more complaints, and they start to take some strategies to protect their own interests, trying to increase the bargaining power with the developing company and the village leaders. Meanwhile, the new interest relationships started by the tourism development impact and change the traditional emotional and social relations, and lead the contradictions between villagers of groups. The unequal behaviors of village leaders contribute to deepening the isolation of social life between villagers. On the other hand, the anti-organization process is interwoven with the poverty of villagers, and gradully lead to a culture of poverty in villagers, which reflecting as the villegers'hostility and hatred to the local government and the developing company, the deeping sense of powerlessness and helplessness after long-term struggle, and the villagers'negative adaptation to the reality. In all, the production of tourist destination culture and the production of poverty culture from the anti-organizational process contact and have mutual influences.Secondly, based on the existing findings, more in-depth studys discover that:1. Although the organization process and the anti-organization process are integrated in the supportive social structure of the culture production of tourist destination, the two process are very different even opposite to each other in the aspects of power orientation, impact to tourism development, the internal driving force, the actual experience that they bring to tourists, as well as their relationships with the government and the developing company.2. The field work and the theory analysis of this study have make some contributions to the development of sociology studies. On the one hand, it enables to rich the sociological research on cultural phenomena, secondly, it reveals the links between culture and social structure in tourism developing practice, such efforts are conductive to deepen and broaden the relationship study between culture and social structure.3. The study reveals that the government and the company are facing a dilemma in developing tourism. Their intend to attract tourists and promote tourism profits as well as motivate local economic and social development by the culture production of tourist destination, but they always face difficulties. The study finds that the social process of culture production of tourist destination is full of contradictions, and they are not always in control of the government and the company. It contains a structural conflict, which lead to a variety of practical problems. Meanwhile, the structural conflict exacerbates poverty of the villagers, making the culture of tourist destination show the side they do not want to see. Various pactical problems and events caused by the structural conflict from time to time challenge the tourism developing goal of the government and the company. 4. The findings of this study explain why these material help and assistance to the surrounding area could not achieve their practical results. Due to the presence of the structural conflict in tourism development, a variety of aid and assistance are always been intercepted by village leaders who are the interest group formed in the tourism development. So, these measures would not eradicate poverty, but may exacerbate the poverty state of villagers, promoting the production of poverty culture in the villagers. Meanwhile, the suppression on villagers'"disturbing behaviors"by the local government in order to control the surrounding environment and establish a better image of the scienic area are often a temporary solution, because they are only on the surface to solve these problems temporarily, but the underlying structural difficulties remain existing.5. The actual situation of villagers around the scienic area can be seen more clearly by analyzing with the theory of"tourism empowerment", which reflects that the villagers are comprehensive"weak right"state in economic, psychological, political and social aspects. The"weak right"state lead the local villagers into a bad situation of control right for tourism development, tourism benefits share, practical social life and participation to the tourism development. Due to the field research and theoretical analysis of the study, the key reason to the comprehensive"weak right"state is the social structural contradiction behind the cultural production of tourist destination, which causes the local villagers into an organizational process isolating them from the rights to participate, control or get benefits from the tourism development.