Rural community participation in tourism development: Cases from Hainan Province, China

Western academics have long recommended community participation in planning as one most important element to induce an equitable distribution of development benefits. However, its implementation at destinations with different political, socio-cultural or economic conditions is hard to guarantee. Furthermore, it is useful to make a distinction between participating in planning and participating in development to share in the benefits; either of which can theoretically occur as means or end in development. Based on literature, a Participatory Spiral is presented as an hypothesis suggesting that planning for disadvantaged social groups' participation in development may be initiated through benefit-sharing, gradually proceeding to shared decision making and planning. It is expected that people will become more and more capable through participating in benefit-sharing activities and then their interest in and capacity to participate in decision making will increase. Moreover, the hypothetical spiral suggests that the planning process may be viewed as having several stages. Initially, those receiving the negative influences of development as "impactees" might first become "beneficiaries" through the provision of compensation for losses and by involving them in various activities to share in the benefits. Local capacities may then become strengthened and participation may be enhanced so that the "beneficiaries" become "clients" who have more initiative and control over development. Eventually they may become "owners" of development interventions. This does not mean that they actually "own" everything, rather it means that they can collectively exercise the right to determine decisions that affect their lives.; This study examines the hypothesis at four rural communities in different ethnicities in a tourism development context at Hainan Province, China and explores the initial stimulus, current level and future trend of participation in tourism development among rural communities which successfully participate in tourism development. The fieldwork was conducted in 2005, using methods of literature review, participatory research, survey, key-informant interview, face-to-face interview and on-site observation.; The research verifies that participation in development should be planned in stages. Furthermore, it supports the principle that initial planning should promote sharing in benefits. Once capacities have been strengthened, shared decision making may then be considered. It is suggested that the spiral model adopted in the study as theoretical hypothesis has great instructional significance. Many outside factors, however, can influence the continual improvement of community participation toward a sharing decision-making end. Therefore, as a theoretical model, it must be acknowledged that such a complicated social phenomenon as community participation in development cannot be successfully reduced to simple spiral model. However, the research results do show that the participation of rural community's in sharing the benefits of development as "beneficiaries" can be promoted successfully in previously poor villages. The concept is easy to be accepted and understood by traditional decision makers and by the rural people themselves. Research also provides hints that some communities might become "clients" if current progress continues and more outside assistance is provided. On the other hand, rural people and traditional decision makers generally lack understanding about the concept of sharing decision-making power and do not ascribe great importance to it. Even so, some actions occurred in the Ya Zi and Dong Yu cases suggesting that people's concerns could be collected and considered in making decisions. Such embryonic initiatives could eventually become a small-scale process of consultation focusing on specific issues and carried out by the traditional decision makers. Furthermore, the study does not verify the whole spiral process d...