Remaking the rural as a tourism place: how smallholder adapt to the new rural paradigm

ABSTRACT

With continuous improvement in contemporary material living standards and the advancement of urbanization, rural areas throughout the world have increasingly become tourist destinations. However, due to differences between the needs of tourists and villagers, rural place remaking for tourism results in rural areas that are more inclined to meet the needs of the tourism industry than those of residents. Existing research shows that smallholders are essential for the sustainable development of rural tourism, but paradoxically, they are often marginalized in the process of rural remaking. This paper uses the lens of place as a research perspective and examines tourism-oriented rural places remaking. This paper uses S Village, China as a case study to discuss how smallholders cope with changes in the experience, significance and importance of rural place in order to adapt to the new rurality that has emerged through the tourism development process.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural place remaking
• rural tourism
• tourism place
• smallholder

Acknowledgements

Deepest thanks to Dr. Dan Swanton of the University of Edinburgh for his inspiring and impressive advice in the formation of the paper. Thanks to the editor Prof. Chirs Cooper and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and kind suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Center for Chinese Urbanization Studies, Soochow University [grant number 22CZHE016] and Collaborative Innovation Center for New Urbanization and Social Governance of universities in Jiangsu [grant number SX14700121].