Conflict Management Of Stakeholders In The Development Of Archaeological Tourism Scenery

Archaeological tourism is based on archaeological activities and the cultural remains discovered in archaeology, which consists of sight-seeing, learning, experiencing, and relaxing functions. Modern archaeological tourism develops from the eighties of the last century and quickly extends on a world scale in the twenty-first century. The development of archaeological tourism begins in the nineties in the twentieth century in China and expands fast recently. The supply level of archaeological tourism improves significantly, but in general, it remains still low.Due to historical and realistic reasons, problems which need resolution exist in archaeological tourism sceneries, especially interest conflicts among stakeholders of sceneries. There are plenty of interest stakeholders in such sceneries and their relationships are quite complicated which also evolves. Their goals and value cognition are different, resulting in chaotic management, unclear responsibilities, damage to archaeological resources, unattractive tourism products, losses in operation, and continual conflicts, etc. These impede the effectiveness and sustainable development of archaeological tourism. Conflicts among interest stakeholders become a significant problem to the development of archaeological tourism. Therefore, conflict management should be the key questions in the development of archaeological tourism. Effective conflict management can reduce destructive conflicts among stakeholders, stimulate constructive conflicts, improve general benefits, and enable sustainable development of archaeological tourism sceneries.According to the above, this thesis uses a project and strategy management perspective, adopts stakeholder management, conflict management, tourism management and heritage economics, engages in comparative analysis, literature review, standard research, and case analysis, to categorize stakeholder conflicts in the development of archaeological tourism sceneries and propose conflict management strategies. Finally, it utilizes the case on Huayang Palace in Jinan, Shandong to provide insights on how to effectively conduct conflict management in practice, so as to offer theoretical reference on the sustainable development of archaeological tourism sceneries.This thesis is divided into seven parts. The first chapter develops the research question, elaborates on its contributions and main contents. The second chapter reviews literature on conflict management inside and outside China and proposes the theoretical framework on how to solve conflicts among stakeholders. The third chapter recognizes the different key stakeholders in archaeological tourism sceneries and analyzes their interests. The fourth chapter classifies stakeholder conflicts based on reasons that result in conflicts as well as conflict characteristics. The fifth chapter develops a theoretical framework on conflict management strategies, according to management, archaeology, tourism management, and heritage economics. The sixth chapter uses the case on Huayang Palace in Jinan to offer practical insights. The seventh chapter summarizes the whole thesis and further points out new problems as well as future research directions.