Local border and mobility: impacts of bordered community scenic areas

ABSTRACT

Border is often used as a way to define a tourism scenic area and enable a management potential. However, both its development as well as its impacts in the tourism context remains under-researched. Through linking the (im)mobilities of residents, tourists and materiality with borders, the nature of border and its impacts on local communities can be better understood. In this paper, interviews and observation were conducted to explore the intricacies of local border and (im)mobilities at a bordered community attraction in China. The findings show that: (a) local borders can increase mobilities in different dimensions; (b) tourism development accelerates the transformation of a production place (traditional rural community) into a consumption place; and (c) immobile facilities/infrastructures represent the interests of stakeholders by guiding and governing mobilities. This paper argues that borders for community tourism are made for the economic gains with the social costs. And the functions, as well as impacts of local border can be better understood with the consideration of (im)mobilities. Implications of this study are provided in closing.

KEYWORDS:

• Local border
• (im)mobilities
• consuming place
• community tourism
• Hongcun Scenic Area

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 41911530150].

Notes on contributors

Xingyu Huang

Xingyu Huang is a PhD student in Fox School of Business with a concentration in Tourism and Sport at Temple University. Her current research interests lie in health in tourism and hospitality, consumer behaviours and experience.

Honggang Xu

Honggang Xu is a Professor and the Dean of the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests include tourism geography, mobilities, and system dynamics.