Tourism development, rights consciousness and the empowerment of Chinese historical village communities

Abstract

In recent years, China's tourism researchers have started to pay attention to the empowerment of rural communities. Current theoretical research and social practices reflect that tourism needs to seek localized empowerment with respect to different types of tourism destinations. This paper, taking Furong Historical Village in Zhejiang Province as a case study, examines a special kind of Chinese historical village community in which the villagers’ consciousness of their rights is weak and tourism development is only in its initial stages. Based on the field surveys, this paper points out four roots of such a community's disempowerment: (1) the failure of political institutions to ensure the community's public interest; (2) accusations of historical villages ‘damaging protection’; (3) information asymmetry in the relationship between rural leaders and villagers; and (4) a sense of powerlessness in the daily lives of rural residents. Based on these findings, this paper suggests several empowerment paths: (1) placing the enhancement of psychological power as the core of community empowerment; (2) addressing villager empowerment needs according to different types, rather than generalizing a community as a whole; and (3) including a diversity of subjects in the process of empowerment. These empowerment paths would be a moderate extension toward increasing community empowerment, based on this empirical study.

Keywords:

• empowerment
• tourism communities
• rights consciousness
• historical villages
• China

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Jigang Bao for his valuable comments on the first draft of this paper and Prof. Alan A. Lew for his kindness and careful proofreading.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shixiu Weng

Shixiu Weng is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. His research focuses on tourism geographies, especially on community tourism and heritage tourism.

Hua Peng

Hua Peng is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. His research focuses on tourism planning and Danxia landform.