A Research On Synergetic Development Between Tourism And Community In Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area Based On Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

Livelihood is the main driving factor to the evolution of human-land system as one of the uppermost behaviors of humankinds.Rural sustainable livelihoods research is closely related to China’s social and economic hot issues such as "three rural problems",urbanization,new rural community construction,poverty alleviation,and rural revitalization.Rural tourism is considered to be one of the substitute developing strategies for rural economical sustainability.Local farmers’ livelihood capital and living strategies are prompted to change and evolve,therefore the livelihood vulnerability of farmers living on rural tourism and combined living strategies declines compared with that of traditional living types.Rural communities are fundamental factors to tourism development,while destination residents are crucial stakeholders of rural tourism,tourism integrated with rural communities development is the best way to ensure tourist destination and local communities to reach common interest and harmonious relationship for both parties.However there are some regions in central and western China rich in tourism resources but underdeveloped in economy,rural tourism booms rapidly with negative effects such as environmental deterioration,widen gap between the poor and the rich,intensified social and cultural conflicts which are all related to community development reveal.These issues go against sustainable development of rural tourism,and threat to the growth of sustainable livelihoods of local farmers and communities.Qinling and Daba Mountainous Area is identified as the national ecological function zone for its biological diversity and water conservation,and one of the concentrated continuous destitute districts authorized by the State Council.Located in central Qinling and Daba Mountainous Area,the whole region of Ankang is included to Qinba Concentrated Continuous Destitute District,the social,economical and cultural development lag behind with inadequate infrastructure and frequent occurrence of natural disasters such as flood and mudslides resulting to,severe hazards.At the same time,Ankang is affirmed as key ecological function zone with limited construct possibilities according to the National Key Function Zone Planning.With the massive conflicts among the initiative for social and economical development,resource exploitation and environmental protection,it has practical significance to do the research concerning farmers and communities sustainable livelihoods for regional development.The areas obtain rich tourism resources,rural tourism has significant effects for increasing rural household income,improvement of infrastructure.Nevertheless rural households and communities are facing higher risks and pressure of ecology and economy.The research which combines tourism and rural sustainable livelihoods from the perspective of community development has important theoretical value and practical significance.Sustainable Livelihoods Theory offers a rational analytical tool for analyzing the mutual influencing mechanism among livelihood strategies such as rural tourism,farmers and communities in destitute areas.It also provides a new thinking for reviewing the poverty condition and barriers,potential risks and enacting policies for sustainable livelihoods in Qinlin-Daba Mountainous Area.From the perspective of sustainable livelihoods,the developing concepts including destination vulnerability of social-ecological systems,community-involvement,community empowerment,integration of tourism and community provide a theoretical foundation to form a common community of interest between rural society and tourism development,enhance self-development capability of farmers and communities,ensure communities’ rights and benefits from tourism,improve farmers’ ability of resisting livelihood risks.Combining quantitative method and qualitative method,the research integrates human-land relation theory and social economics,analyzes the mutual impacting mechanism to different dimensions and influential factors among rural tourism,sustainable livelihoods,rural communities from the perspective of SLF.A comprehensive study is conducted in multi-scales and multi-factors following the logic thinking along rural sustainable livelihoods level and spatial difference in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Areas impacted by tourism--livelihoods vulnerability of farmers and communities--mutual influences between livelihood capital and community development—synergetic development of rural tourism and community,clarify the mutual influential mechanism,spatial difference and internal logic among tourism,rural livelihoods and community in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area and propose policies and suggestions to improve destination sustainable livelihoods and community development.The main findings and conclusions are as follows:1.The sustainable livelihoods level of rural households and communities impacted by rural tourism boosts in Qinling and Daba Mountainous Area,along with livelihood capital improved and positive livelihood outcomes achieved.Constructing a comprehensive evaluating model to assess the sustainable livelihood level of destination,the research makes a quantitative analysis from aspects of vulnerability background,livelihood assets,transforming structures and processes,livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes,evaluate rural livelihood level in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Areas.It finds that tourism has significant impacts to rural livelihoods,rural tourism helps to improve farmers’ self adaptive ability and ensure their livelihood level,it achieves significant effects to poverty alleviation,tourism-involved households attain better sustainable livelihood level compared with the general level of the whole region,rural livelihood assets are raised but the social capital remains in a comparatively low level,farmers have limited social recourses.Rural community organizations have positive influence on expanding farmers’ livelihood assets.2.Spatial differences concerning livelihood assets exist among different rural tourist destinations,farmers prefer for tourism as their livelihood strategy but insufficient livelihood assets and low involvement in community tourism are main obstacles for them to be engaged or employed in tourism.The surveyed areas are divided to four categories of destination according to regional and marketing conditions,i.e.city centre-based destination,large and medium-sized city suburb destination,scenic spot adjacent destination and destination in remote area.With the comparison of rural livelihood assets of the above mentioned destinations,it is found that household assets differences exist among the four destinations,farmers in large and medium-sized city suburb rural tourism destination achieve better financial,social and physical capital interacted with rural tourism development,and large and medium-sized city suburb rural tourism destination excels the other destinations with an overall preferable livelihood outcomes.The survey to farmers’ preference and intentions to livelihood strategy indicates that in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area,rural residents have strong desires to be involved or engaged to tourism industry,but there are some obstacles for them to participate in rural tourism.By principal component analysis,it finds that the main obstacle factors are tourism infrastructure construction,decision making and involvement degree of rural residents and communities to tourism,capital and loans attainability.The above obstacle factors are related to shortage of physical capital,finance capital,social capital and low community participation to tourism.3.The vulnerability of Social-Ecological-Systems has significant impacts to sustainable livelihoods of rural destinations in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area.There are marked differences concerning livelihood vulnerability among four kinds of destinations.As one part of the national concentrated contiguous destitute areas,Qinling-Bashan Mountainous areas are rich in ecotourism attractions but vulnerable in ecological environment.Rural tourism is confronted with higher risks and pressure influenced by natural hazards,market fluctuation,poverty and fragile livelihoods,etc.Combining rural tourism,social-ecological systems and sustainable livelihood theories,the research sets up a rural livelihood vulnerability evaluation framework including exposure,sensitivity,and adaptability degrees,studies the acting mechanism to rural livelihoods and livelihood vulnerability disturbed by rural tourism in Qinling-Bashan Mountainous areas.It finds that rural livelihood vulnerability in the surveyed rural tourism destinations exists on a medium level,the system is insufficient in capacity to resist risks and strikes;livelihood vulnerability varies among different tourism destinations,fragile levels in descending order are: destination in remote area,scenic spot adjacent destination,city centre-based destination and large and medium-sized city suburb destination;the stepwise regression shows that the assessment indices such as livelihood capital and diversified livelihood strategies have notable effects to improve farmers’ adaptive ability;the assessment indices such as social security system and investment,disasters response and efficiency,and community development play influential roles to reduce rural livelihood vulnerability.4.Community development and rural livelihoods assets of tourist destinations in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Areas are closely related.The key indicators of community development have significant impacts to sustainable livelihoods and livelihood capital.Under the sustainable livelihoods framework of DFID,an assessment indicator system to evaluate the livelihoods assets of famers impacted by rural tourism is set up to measures changes in capital scale and structures,and goes further to analyze how rural tourism community development impacts famers’ livelihoods assets.The findings includes: ○1 Farmers’ livelihoods assets impacted by rural tourism in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area have been improved on an overall scale,and farmers’ livelihoods tend to be more diverse in the surveyed areas.○2 Under the influences of tourism,famers’ financial capital,physical capital,natural capital and human capital have all been increased,while the social capital still stayed in a comparatively low level.○3 A correlation analysis shows that key factors concerning tourism community development and livelihood capital variables are closely related.The binary logistic regression analysis result shows that obtained profits from tourism,community participation in the development of tourism,and the infrastructure,public service and other basic conditions for community tourism development have significant positive influences on improving and optimizing famers’ livelihoods assets.5.The synergetic development between rural tourism and community can effectively drive tourism to boost and community livelihoods develop sustainably,it is also the foundation for self-develoment ability and community planning adaptivity improvement in Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area.Establishing a comprehensive tourism-community synergetic evaluation index system from 6 dimensions including psychology,culture,politics & management,economy,environment and society,the chapter evaluates and analyzes the degree of tourism-community synergism in Qinling-Daba Mountainous area.It finds that the surveyed area remains in moderate high level of tourism-community synergism,the coupling degree is relatively high in psychological and social level,and is moderate in economical,cultural and environmental levels,but is comparatively low in political and administrative level.The Press-Stress-Response analysis shows that rural tourism community is driven by livelihood vulnerability,internal and external pressures and community tourism development.Synergetic development between tourism and community can effectively promote sustainable livelihood level of rural communities and sustainable development of tourism in Qinling-Daba Mountainous areas.and it also lays the foundation for enhancing self-developing capacity of rural households and planning adaptability of communities.Synergetic effects interconnected between community and tourism will better drive regional development,urge communities in tourist destinations to evolve from loose and disordered status to orderly-coordinated-sustainable stage oriented to sustainable livelihoods.Based on Sustainable Livelihoods Framework of DFID,the implementation path and governance policies to rural tourism-community synergism are presented at the end of the research.