China's outbound tourism – Stages,policies and choices

China's outbound tourism has developed rapidly in recent years. This development has been accompanied by a continuous and expanding deficit in the tourism balance of trade, triggering debate among government officials and academia about whether China's outbound tourism development has outgrown general economic development. Understanding China's growth in outbound tourism and its impact has therefore become more than an academic issue; it also affects the future orientation of China's tourism policy. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the tourists, spatial flow, market size, and expenditure. Despite the above concerns, it is suggested that China's outbound tourism is still in a preliminary stage of development and furthermore complies fully with national policies. Therefore, orderly guidance and discretionary market policies are proposed to further facilitate the growth of the outbound tourism market in China.     

Applying diffusion theory to destination stakeholder understanding of sustainable tourism development: a case from Thailand

The concept of sustainable tourism development is widely considered to be necessary for successful tourism development, but there is uncertainty over destination stakeholders’ understanding and thus ability to implement the concept. Utilising diffusion theory, this paper explores the diffusion of the sustainable tourism development concept among stakeholders in the tourism destination of Kret Island, Thailand. The primary data collection involved semi-structured, in-depth interviews undertaken with 10 local government authorities and 45 local residents, and data were analysed using content analysis. Interpersonal communication was the key channel for the concept's diffusion, and the involvement of opinion leaders, change agents and social networks in this diffusion was explored. Many local residents were laggards in the diffusion of sustainable tourism development thinking in comparison with local government and local opinion leaders. It is argued that both interpersonal and media communication and the identification of key actors in the community are needed to effectively diffuse sustainable tourism ideas among destination stakeholders. The results validate the use of diffusion theory as a means to understand the transfer of the sustainable tourism development concept among stakeholders, and they also provide information useful for the design of information dissemination programmes.     

Recent Tourism and Hospitality Research in China

ABSTRACT

Although China's tourism has become a vital part in the world tourism market, little is known internationally about tourism and hospitality research in China. This study reviewed 500 articles published from 2000 to 2005 in China's leading tourism research journal, Tourism Tribune, and provided an overview of China's recent tourism and hospitality research. Content analysis results showed that tourism research themes in China primarily focused on tourism attraction/resources development and management, tourism planning, and tourism industry development issues. Most research under review used a qualitative approach, while 15% of the articles employed some quantitative methods. Articles using advanced statistical techniques were scarce.     

Developing a Tourism Destination Monitoring System: A Case of the Hawaii Tourism Dashboard

To develop and manage a tourism destination sustainably, it is important for all stakeholders to understand the interrelated tourism dimensions and activities within a destination. One way of determining the conditions of a destination's “health” is to establish a process by which existing data on various aspects of a destination can be assessed. For this purpose, this paper presents the development processes of the Hawaii Tourism Dashboard (HTD), an online information clearinghouse for multiple stakeholders and a diagnostic tool to monitor the conditions of Hawaii's tourism. As a joint effort between the industry and academia, it is hoped that the HTD can play an important role in increasing public awareness about tourism's multifaceted characteristics and in assisting decision-making and policy development by the government and the industry.     

Challenges and potential improvements in the policy and regulatory framework for sustainable tourism planning in China: the case of Shanxi Province

A sound policy and regulatory framework is essential in planning for sustainable tourism development. The paper examines opportunities and challenges for China's planning for sustainable tourism development from both policy and regulatory perspectives. Despite the enthusiasm for sustainable tourism, China's existing relevant policy and regulatory frameworks are generally fraught with contradictory objectives, and they are also often incoherent, have ambiguous legal provisions, and many organizations have duplicate responsibilities, unclear definitions of responsibilities, interlocking activities, and weak coordination due to the complicated institutional structure. Based on Shanxi Province, the paper explores the policy and regulatory issues affecting tourism and its sustainability, and it also assesses the possible options to foster an improved policy and regulatory framework for China's sustainable tourism development. A much stronger political will from all levels of government will be required to overcome a prevalent mindset for short-term economic growth and deep-rooted practices in pursuit of departmental benefits. It is also necessary for China and Shanxi under the new national tourism law to articulate and coordinate its laws and regulations with much improved supportive bylaws. Finally, more rational and effective institutional arrangements are needed, with clearly defined functions and responsibilities for government at varied levels.     

A review and evaluation of China's quality assurance system for tour guiding

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of China's tour guiding quality assurance system as an instrument for sustainable tourism. It notes the importance of China's 131,000 tour guides for inbound, outbound and domestic tourism. China's tour guiding quality assurance and regulatory mechanisms are then reviewed, including qualification examination, licensing, professional certification, training, awards for excellence, professional associations and codes of conduct. Structurally, China's comprehensive and comparatively regulated system may be recommendable to other countries, particularly its certification and licensing systems. However, the findings suggest that tour guide quality assurance in China may be constrained by an over-reliance on government and the absence of industry-driven mechanisms for some elements such as monitoring, enforcement and rewarding excellence. Most importantly, the focus of China's quality assurance system is on a limited number of tour guiding roles and tends to overlook those most critical to harnessing the guide as a vehicle for sustainable tourism. Key future development areas could extend recognition and reward for the guide's performance as a role model, advocate, mentor, interpreter, cultural broker and environmental monitor.     

Total Factor Productivity Assessment of Tourism Industry: Evidence from China

This paper adopts the Malmquist Index and panel data model to measure and test the spatial–temporal evolutionary characteristics and the factors that affect total factor productivity of China's tourism industry from 2001 to 2009. The results show the following: there is a trend of growth in the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry, and technological progress is the dominant factor that affects total factor productivity changes, which indicates that the growth pattern of China's tourism industry has changed from a pattern driven by input factors to a pattern driven by technology; the spatial pattern of the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry has changed from a spatial pattern dominated by provinces with a low productivity to a spatial pattern dominated by provinces with a high productivity; the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry is mainly affected by the levels of economic and service industry development.     

Sustaining culture and seeking a Just Destination: governments,power and tension – a life-cycle approach to analysing tourism development in an ethnic-inhabited scenic area in Xinjiang,China

Set against the background of China's changing economy and its rapid rise as a major tourism provider, this paper examines the development of tourism, and tourism policies, in Kanas (Xinjiang), an ethnic inhabited scenic area in north-western China which has seen visitor numbers rise from c. 800 to c. 1 million annually from 1990 to 2013. It uses the first four stages of Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle model (TALC) as a framework, analysing governments’ role in policy-making and implementation, and the tensions and conflicts at each TALC stage. It finds that the TALC is a useful analytical framework in China, despite its command economy, and governments’ multiple roles in tourism development. The position of cultural heritage and the characteristics of the Tuva and Kazakh ethnic minority peoples in tourism in Kanas are critically examined, as is China's concept of social harmony and progress. Social harmony is compared – and contrasted – with the emerging concept of the Just Destination in destination planning and management. The minorities are found to be weak in knowledge, capital and bargaining power, but the relationships involved are complex and still evolving. The paper is one of a JOST series on China's new tourism management policies.     

Tea tourism development in Xinyang,China: Stakeholders' view

Tea continues to be a popular beverage in the world. As a new niche tourism market, tea tourism has developed both in China and many other countries for decades, but academic research has lagged behind tea tourism development. This paper focuses on stakeholders' views of tourism development, their potential roles and concerns in the case of tea tourism in Xinyang prefecture of central China. Interviews and open ended questionnaires were conducted in 2007 and 2008. Qualitative analysis indicates the following: 1) According to stakeholders' view, tea tourism development in Xinyang failed despite many good tea tourism attractions, and better tea tourism planning, marketing and collaboration between stakeholders in Xinyang is required for successful tea tourism development; 2) Local government, tea garden owners, media, travel agencies and tea tourists are thought to be the principal stakeholders with different roles to develop tea tourism; 3) Collaboration between stakeholders is crucial for tea tourism development. The implications of the findings are discussed with a view to permit recommendations to be made.     

Distortions in Tourism Development in the Dali Autonomous Region,China

This paper presents a tourism destination development sequence for Dali, Yunnan Province, China. The development of Dali highlights limits in the power of the local government as the lead stakeholder, which took a top-down approach to economic development. The government sought to address increasing control of the tourism sector by external tour operators through increasing its own control of local tourism attractions. This approach has been only partially successful in reducing distortions in the tourism channel. The origins of these distortions are described and analysed. A number of additional responses are suggested to improve the local benefits obtained from the inflow of tourists to this new destination area including development of a more market oriented competitive strategy that seeks to co-opt stakeholders into collaborative activities.     

Residents' Perceived Impacts of Gaming Development in Macau: Social Representation Perspectives

The purpose of the research was to provide a better understanding of local residents' perceived impacts of gaming tourism based on social representations theory. An empirical investigation was conducted in Macau, where gaming tourism is under explosive development. Through a survey of 396 local residents, two social representation groups were identified: “Ambivalents” and “Rationalists”. The two social representation groups presented significantly different perceptions and attitudes toward the impacts of gaming tourism in Macau. The three most significant factors that influenced residents' representations were personal income, perceptions of gaming tourism being able to increase personal/family income, and satisfaction with government performance in managing gaming tourism development. The research provides theoretical implications for future gaming impact studies and also practical ones for local governments and stakeholders in the tourism industry in Macau and other gaming destinations.     

Conference Reports

Governments at all levels have assumed greater responsibility for, and involvement in, tourism destination planning and development. In the post-Brundtland era local governments in particular have been under closer scrutiny for their role in driving the sustainable development agenda in tourism destination contexts. Yet, a notable research gap still exists despite the increased focus on local government, particularly in terms of empirical research investigating the roles and responsibilities of local government in addressing sustainable tourism development. Given this context, this paper explores the role of local government in facilitating, or indeed inhibiting, sustainable development objectives in a tourism destination context. To assess this issue, it uses in-depth interviews with local government representatives and key destination stakeholders from five local government areas in Queensland, Australia. It shows that local government had assumed responsibility for facilitating the sustainable tourism agenda, due to the absence of strong industry leadership and due to top-down directives from state and federal governments. However, power struggles, tokenistic public participation and the strong influence of the local government authority in local governance structures were found to be inhibitors to sustainable tourism development.     

Exploring the impacts of tourism on the livelihoods of local poor: the role of local government and major investors

This study identifies the impacts of tourism development on the living conditions of local poor and examines the role of local government and major investors in this process. A village in southern China was chosen as the research site. Because of tourism development, the villagers had all been relocated and initially, it was thought that their housing conditions had improved. Nevertheless, the relocated houses were later criticized as being small and of low quality. The traditional local means of livelihood also changed, from farming and fishing to mainly being employed in paid work. Yet, because of the high cost of living, the villagers' actual living standards had not greatly improved. This study claims that, since the municipal government took a developmental approach and investors followed market logic, the interests of the local poor were sacrificed to tourism development. This suggests that if tourism development is to reduce local levels of poverty, the interests of the local community should be front and center. Particularly in cases when tourism development tends to cause the transformation of local means of production, supportive initiatives and proper supervision and management strategies are needed in helping the poor adapt to new conditions.     

Investigating sustainable tourism heterogeneity: competing orders of worth among stakeholders of a Nordic destination

This paper contributes to increased knowledge of sustainable tourism heterogeneity by identifying how different underlying mindsets characterise negotiations among community stakeholders in a popular Nordic destination. Based on convention theory (orders of worth), this paper theorises how sustainable tourism is negotiated in-between tourism regimes that are shaped by order structures of society. While much research argues for stakeholder heterogeneity by presupposing the influence of a dominant tourism-centric logic, our ethnographic inspired study reveals the co-presence of an “activist” regime that brings about social change among “welfare” and “professional market” regimes. Assessing the disputes among stakeholders we reveal six orders of worth that constitute opposing justifications of sustainable tourism and thus the underlying mindsets of heterogeneity. We discover that stakeholders from various local cultures legitimise their positions quite arbitrarily across the various regimes to question previous theoretical accounts of the community-based perspective. We theorise the challenge of “boundary worth”, i.e. when a tourism initiative receives its identity on behalf of different orders of worth that blurs expectation and intentions. Finally, we argue that activist involvement in a destination can result in “composite compromises” that ease heterogeneity by balancing conflicting regimes without converging to either of the respective logics.     

Understanding primary stakeholders' multiple roles in hallmark event tourism management

This paper contributes insights into stakeholder theory in hallmark event tourism and the implications for engaging primary stakeholders in further tourism management settings. The tangible and symbolic tourism benefits instilled in destinations by hallmark events are well-documented; with destination managers increasingly adopting event portfolio approaches to nurture and develop existing and new hallmark events. Nevertheless, limited understanding exists of how stakeholders engage with hallmark events over time; their lived experiences in event tourism; and consequent management implications. This paper uncovers multiple and shifting roles of primary stakeholders in a long-established hallmark event tourism context (Edinburgh's Festival Fringe). It presents a typology identifying five primary stakeholder roles. Phenomenological interviews with twenty-one primary stakeholders revealed that most fulfilled multiple roles. Existing concurrently and historically, these differed throughout stakeholders' lived experiences and engagement. In its findings, this paper extends knowledge of stakeholders' roles in event tourism and implications in further tourism management settings.     

Local government intervention in tourism-driven rural gentrification: Types and interpretative framework

Exploring the role that the local government plays in tourism-driven rural gentrification has the potential to make a contribution to rethinking the influence of power mobility on local development. Using 115 in-depth interviews and non-participant observation, this study examines the local government's changes in interventions in Pingnan county, Fujian province in China. It was found that the Pingnan County Government adopted deregulated, performative, and contractual interventions as strategies in three different spatio-temporal scenarios of tourism-driven rural gentrification; the underlying logic of tourism-driven rural gentrification is the vertical and horizontal mobility of power, which is directed by the internal mechanism of “political utility-power flexibility-risk control.” This study is expected to extend the applicability of rural gentrification theory to government-dominated contexts and provide practical insights for policymakers to intervene in an adaptive and periodic manner in local socio-economic affairs, including rural tourism development.     

Evolving roles for local government in tourism development: a political economy perspective

This paper interrogates the changing role of local government in tourism development. It does so through the examination of the Hurunui District, a rural district in New Zealand which has experienced significant transformation in the tourism sector and a concomitant increase in public sector input over the past 25 years. By situating this interrogation within an evolving neoliberal public policy context, this paper explores the tensions at play between tourism stakeholders and decision-makers, and it critiques the way in which local government involvement in the sector is manifested as regulation, promotion, and ownership of key tourism resources in the District. The significance of this paper is that it extends our understanding of the role of the state in tourism and of the influence of public policy on tourism development, potentially including sustainable tourism development. Specifically, it draws our attention to the rationality, roles and activities of public sector engagement in the tourism sector, particularly at local government level. We conclude that the nature and extent of debate evident in the case study, and verified in the literature, indicates that the boundary of government activity and intervention in the tourism market is, and will continue to be, socially contested and mediated.     

多民族地区旅游发展对当地族群关系的影响——以川滇泸沽湖地区为例

文章考察地处四川和云南之间泸沽湖地区旅游的发展及其对当地族群关系的影响.以观察、访谈和问卷的方式,研究小组收集当地人对旅游开发后泸沽湖地区族群关系互动的认识.研究发现,旅游的发展促进了该地区族群间的交流和融合,强化了当地居民(特别是摩梭人)的族群认同.但旅游开发并没有完全消除当地族群间存在的偏见和歧视,旅游发展带来的对传统文化的冲击、族群意识的加强、市场经济的竞争和贫富差距的增大,都影响当地族群关系的健康发展.文章建议,在多民族地区旅游开发中,推行参与式开发和包客性增长的策略.     

Archaeological heritage tourism in China: the case of the Daming Palace from the tourists' perspective

Archaeological heritage tourism has been critical in historic cultural revival, archaeological knowledge dissemination, environment upgrading, and local community improvement. Little has been undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness and consequences of archaeological heritage projects in China from the tourist perspective. This study of the Daming Palace Heritage Site in Xi’an illustrates how archaeological and cultural resources have contributed to tourists' experiences. Through investigating an array of approaches that have been applied to advance tourists' understanding of archaeological and cultural resources, the paper proposes that more versatile methods and creative works are to be integrated to develop effective interpretative methods for both education and entertainment purposes. Local government needs to change its top-down approach to a more inclusive one, to establish strong networks among state and non-state stakeholders, and to promote their collective involvement in archaeological heritage tourism. Heritage site packaging strategies and partnerships among heritage resources citywide are advocated. More attention should be given to how to integrate various resources of local communities into heritage tourism. The current organization of government-run archaeological heritage in China calls for more opportunities for archaeologists to contribute actively with their expertise to enhance interpretive programmes and general tourist experience.     

Development Regimes in the City Fringe: The Case of Discover Islington,London

There is a growing recognition of the importance of inter-organisational collaborations, or partnerships, for tourism development at various geographical and sectoral levels. Academic studies of the phenomenon are, in part, a reflection of the increasing number and forms of partnership arrangements being established in a range of settings to develop tourism. This paper examines a particular case of inter-organisational collaboration for local tourism development for the London inner city fringe. Established in 1991, Discover Islington provides an illustration of an agency involving representation from diverse stakeholders with an interest in tourism within a single administrative district. The agency has been innovative in its approach to local tourism development in the inner city fringe, but it is confronted by issues that may affect its longer-term viability. The perspectives and experiences of the partners represented on the Board of Discover Islington are pertinent to the study of comparable collaborative arrangements for local tourism development in other urban fringe contexts. The analysis is based on interviews with Board members and their policy and strategy documents within a theoretical framework that draws on regime theory. Implications for other inner city fringe tourism development partnerships are offered in the conclusion of this paper.