A Study On The Tourism Development And Protection Of Ancient Village Under The Angle Of Community Building

Ancient villages have not only gained the most attention of whole society on account oftheir material heritage, such as historic buildings, settlement patterns, but also attracted tonsof tourists based on colorful intangible cultures. However, the development model which fromtop to bottom or from the outside, has led to numerous contradictions. Thus, as for thesustainable development, it’s crucial to search for new thoughts of ancient villages’ tourismdevelopment and protection.The core of ancient villages is the homes of local residents, therefore the constructionand transformation of ancient villages should reflect the will of the residents and theircollective memories and beautiful imagination of their homes. Community-building is anattempt to retrieve lost homes, to set community’s well-being as the goal, to transit from theone-sided pursuit of the rapid development of external material and economic benefits toemphasis on community’s traditional context and social welfare, so as to reshape the residents’attribution and memory of their homes. At the same time, community-building contributes tofulfill residents’common vision of the future in homeland by their joint efforts, to preservelocal history and culture so as to regenerate traditional virtues and interpersonal networks andrevive industrial economy, to diverse and absorb multi-culture and lifestyle. Finally, a vibrantand everlasting local communities will be established.In this paper, systemic summary and discussion of the concept and research oncommunity-building have clearly revealed results of theory and practice at home and abroad.Summary of researches on ancient villages tourism from community perspective not onlyillustrates the importance of community, but also lays the theoretical foundation ofcommunity and finds out its development origin in mainland China. Based on the theory ofcommunity participation and empowerment, endogenous development theory and the organicrenewal theory, learned from the community-building theory of Japan and Taiwan, thisresearch studies the theory of community-building of ancient villages from such three aspects:subjects and organizations, goals and objects, processes and principles. Through comparativeanalysis and research on successful and typical community-building cases in Japan andTaiwan, this article not only reveals the advantages of community-building mode, but also sets successful examples for mainland China. Then, based on field surveys of Huizhou ancientvillages, this article analyzes four factors of community-building in Huizhou ancient villages:intrinsic base, catalytic power, external environment and the potential barriers, and is finishedwith some strategies for ancient villages’ tourism development and protection formcommunity-building perspective.