A Study On The Local Identity Structure Of Tourists In Ethnic Tourism Communities In Typical Western Cities

In the wave of globalization, "place" is no longer unchangeable, and "placeness" maintenance encounters varies impacts and challenges. The background culture which fertilizes and underpins "placeness" is quietly changing. Striving to pay closer attention to special regions' placeness maintenance practice and expand place and placeness theories to some extent, based on previous studies of the project, this thesis further integrated different cases studies and focused on three ethnic tourism communities in typical cities, which are Hui Community in Xi'an, Old Town of Lijiang and Bakhor Street in Lhasa, in hope of clarifying the following issues through comprehensive analysis:(1) Placeness manifestation modes and placeness characteristics of tourism communities in Chinese western cities; (2) what is the intercommunity structure of tourists' placeness identity of ethnic tourism communities in Chinese western cities? (3) how about the interactive influences in the structure of tourists' placeness identity?In response to the questions raised above, the thesis conducted field researches from 2013 to 2015 for three consecutive years, and analyzed tourists' placeness identity of three typical cases by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The research process and technical route are as follows:analyzed interview data and text material with the adoption of grounded theory; classified the structure of tourists' placeness identity into three core categories and five subcatcgories, and preliminarily established theoretical model of tourists' placeness identity; drew up questionnaire according to the theoretical model and interview data, and settled the structure of tourists' placeness identity through pre-test of questionnaire, field survey and structural equation test; at last, explained details of tourists' placeness identity.This thesis reached some specific conclusions as below:(1) Physical environment identity, social life identity and place significance identity are the fundamental composition of tourists' placeness identity. This research established tentative theoretical model of tourists' placeness identity in three ethnic tourism communities with the adoption of grounded theory. This conceptual model included three core categories which are physical environment identity, social identity and place significance identity, and contains five subcategories such as uniqueness, acceptability of living condition, self-efficiency, emotions and continuous behavior.(2) "Tourist identity" is the principal way to testify placeness identity of tourist destination. This research developed scale to measure the structure of tourists'placeness identity, and discovers that "tourist identity" is the principal way to testify placeness identity of tourist destination. The scale initially had thirty-two items. After item analysis and twice reliability tests, it removed six substandard items, and finally formed a scale in five dimensions with twenty-six items.(3) "Place uniqueness" is the core factor for tourists' placeness identity. The research conducted quantitative analysis on tourists'placeness identity in the three ethnic tourism communities. As for core categories, physical environment identity gets highest average score, followed by place significance identity, while the score of social identity is the lowest. In terms of subcategories, uniqueness ranks first by average score, followed by emotions, continuous behavior, self-efficiency, and acceptability of living conditions. As the analysis result shows, for the dimension "uniqueness", more than a quarter participants selected "strongly agree" and more than forty percent of participants opted for "agree", which reveals that most tourists hold positive attitude on "place uniqueness", and are attracted to visit the destination by the uniqueness. Thus, "place uniqueness" is the essential element for tourists to produce placeness identity.To sum up, this research summarized basic structure of tourists' placeness identity of ethnic tourism communities in typical Chinese western cities through theoretical construction and empirical analysis, which is not only an summative study of the previous researches on the three cases, but also an integrated analysis of evaluation methods for placeness of ethnic tourism communities in Chinese western cities. In theory:(1) the thesis studied and set up intercommunity structure of tourists'placeness identity by the interaction between theoretical construction and validation of measurement, which enriches the research content of placeness theory and meets the needs of expansion and development of the theory; (2) it took "tourists'perspective" as point of cut-in to study placeness identity, offering new angles for clarifying placeness construction between "otherness" and "subjectivity"; (3) the research process of tourists'external identity verified placeness construction process of "stratification, further stratification and no stratification "; (4) quantitative analysis results of tourists' placeness identity provides new ideas for interpreting the motivation and behavior of typical groups with geographical mobility like backpackers and drifters in Tibet. In practice, the commonality rule of tourists'placeness identity structure put forward in this study will have some reference value for ethnic tourism communities to establish evaluation system and conservation measures, which also suggests lessons for promoting harmonious development, protection of cultural authenticity and healthy development of tourism industry in ethnic regions.