Online social construction of Taiwan's rural image: Comparison between Taiwanese self-representation and Chinese perception

Rurality is well-known to be over-idealised and romanticised as a result of the rural idyll in mass media. As online media evolves, diverse messages and images disseminated potentially reinforce inhabitants' mindset and influence outsider perceptions. In contrast to tourism websites that adopt only a single perspective, this study uses a web-content mining approach to examine Taiwan's rural image. A total of 3034 articles, including 2398 from online media in Taiwan and 636 from China on WeChat, related to rural Taiwan were collected and analysed. The results demonstrated that Taiwanese rurality as represented in local media is based on collective memories of the past and the harsh face of modern rural living mingled with idealised lifestyle concepts. Differences were also observed between the two local media: One presented a richly diverse rurality, whereas the other featured various topical reports about peasant resistance. Rurality from an outsider perspective evoked a picturesque Taiwan countryside instead of inhabitants' real lives. This study concluded that hybrid ideological influences, including urbancentric and market-oriented standpoints, a rural complex based on rural identity, the tension between Chinese and Western cultures, and the cross-strait relationship between Taiwan and China, influenced the construction of Taiwanese rural images.     

Mediating urban transition through rural tourism

This study examines China’s urban–rural transition in the process of development and change. Regarding tourism as a discourse of difference, it focuses on a rural ethnic community, Jiabang, in Southwest China. It aims to highlight the role of tourism in providing a stimulus for the creation of a local group identity that subverts wider discourses of rural areas. With the goal of understanding how toured places are imagined, presented and consumed, this study utilises mixed data sources collected from tourism promotional materials and ethnographic fieldwork. The findings suggest that the forces behind the touristic place creation and consumption are both integral to and the result of the changing attitudes and perceptions of people and places in contemporary China.     

Segmentation by motivation for rural tourism activities in The Gambia

In The Gambia, as in many other African countries, rural areas rarely profit from the turnover earned in the country's tourism sector. In academic and political literature, however, rural tourism is frequently identified as a diversification strategy that may trigger local economic development in remote communities. To promote rural tourism development, further knowledge is required to understand why tourists are motivated to engage in distinct tourism market segments. In this study, survey data was collected from 450 tourists in The Gambia using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was constructed to identify the key characteristics and motivations of tourists so that the significant market segments could be categorized and the (latent) tourist demand for rural tourism activities could be gauged. This study identified four distinct segments of tourists in The Gambia: heritage & nature seekers, multi-experiences seekers, multi-experiences & beach seekers, and sun & beach seekers. Drawing on our key findings, we conclude by identifying a development path that could diversify Gambia's tourism sector. The development path would also include event-based rural tourism initiatives that align with the motivations of the identified market segments and may additionally benefit rural communities by reducing economic leakage rates.     

Emotional responses toward Tourism Performing Arts Development: A comparison of urban and rural residents in China

In contrast to the substantial work on resident perceptions toward tourism development, relatively little is known about residents' emotional responses. By applying cognitive appraisal theory, this study aims to identify the causes and consequences of resident emotions toward Tourism Performing Arts (TPA) developments across urban and rural communities. Based on a quota sampling method, surveys of 438 and 435 residents were undertaken in two typical urban (Hangzhou) and rural (Yangshuo) TPA destinations in China. Results revealed that rural residents reported a higher intensity of positive emotions and were more supportive towards TPA development. Positive emotions (i.e., happy, loving and grateful) for rural and urban residents were elicited by outcome desirability, fairness, and coping potential whereas negative emotions were generated differently. Complex emotions, rather than specific emotions were found to be related behavioral intentions towards TPA development. Findings suggest targeted strategies such as promoting TPA in urban communities and offering preferential local access for rural communities.     

Conflict in tourism development in rural China

This paper explores the phenomenon of conflict in tourism development in rural China. Four cases were selected and analyzed as part of this exploration. The study identified eight major conflict issues: land expropriation, ticket revenue distribution, vending rights, tourism management rights, house demolition, house building, entry restrictions, and village elections. The conflict evolution process indicates that these issues are dynamic and connected rather than static and isolated. Local government was found to be the most important conflicting party for local people due to its authority and economic interests in tourism development. In addition, an often-ignored conflicting party, villagers' committees, was found to have limitations in maintaining local people's interests. The findings of this study shed light on this complicated and sensitive tourism conflict phenomenon in rural China. A couple of practical implications for local authorities and UNESCO are outlined at the end of the paper.     

Implementing integrated rural tourism: An event-based approach

In the past two decades, community involvement in local policy-making has gained increasing attention as an alternative approach to rural development in the European Union (EU), particularly in the context of the complementary sectors of agriculture such as tourism. Although there is a wide range of integrated approaches to tourism development in rural areas identified in the literature, the event-based approach has not been at the centre of attention so far. This paper aims to fill this gap and reports on the collaborative capacity building of the LEADER¹ Local Action Groups (LAGs) for rural tourism promotion in the context of an innovative, national-level event, the ‘Hungarian Rural Tourism Days’. A mixed-method approach was applied to explore and compare the supply-side views on the successes and failures of the event planning and organisation process and to derive key success factors of the event-based approach to Integrated Rural Tourism (IRT). The results provided evidence on the consequences of the failure to integrate local concerns into the event organisation process and highlighted the critical role of the intermediary management in establishing trust relationships with the rural service providers. Furthermore, it is argued that the major challenge of the event-based approach to IRT rests in the capacity of the stakeholders to collectively plan and implement a marketing strategy at the local level.     

The roles of social entrepreneurs in rural destination development

This paper seeks to explore how social entrepreneurs are relevant to our consideration of rural destination development. While many peripheral rural areas face significant challenges in terms of sustaining communities and attracting tourists it is often social entrepreneurs, as much as traditional entrepreneurs, who are involved in developing new ideas, new products and activities, and envisioning a future for the area. This study, which is based on case studies resulting from nine semi-structured interviews carried out in rural areas in Ireland, South Africa and USA, identifies key roles that social entrepreneurs play in terms of rural destination development; namely that of an opportunist, catalyst, and network architect, and this is used to build a theoretical framework within which SEs can be analyzed.     

旅游绅士化:概念、类型与机制

在全球化背景下,旅游业愈益成为城市经济发展、竞争力提升的重要战略手段.在许多城市出现了投资较高、规模巨大的旅游休闲娱乐项目,这些大型旅游项目往往都与城市更新与改造紧密相关,深刻地影响着城市社会、经济、文化等各个方面,并逐渐形成一种旅游绅士化倾向,即通过大型旅游和娱乐项目开发而引起的城市中某些地域的重新建设,从而使其周边邻里地区发展成为富裕、独立区域的社会现象.本文依据依托物的不同,提出了3种旅游绅士化类型,借鉴旅游地生命周期理论,划分了旅游绅士化发展的4个阶段,并且分析了在全球与地方互动环境下,地方政府、房地产开发商在旅游绅士化中的作用机制,以及大型旅游休闲娱乐项目在重塑地区旅游和休闲娱乐环境中的重要角色.     

Social capital and entrepreneurial mobility in early-stage tourism development: A case from rural China

Early-stage tourism destinations often seek external capital to establish, invest and participate in tourism businesses at various levels. Entrepreneurial mobility at these destinations is thus an important phenomenon in need of further exploration both empirically and theoretically. This study uses an early-stage destination in rural China as a case to explore the experiences of inward entrepreneurial migrants in tourism development and associates their mobility, geographical and organisational, with dimensions of social capital, including institutional support, community openness and personal social networks. Primary interview data were collected from inward tourism entrepreneurs, key local community members and government officials related to tourism projects. The findings suggest that the inward entrepreneurs had unrealistic perceptions of the tourism industry before they entered. Entrepreneurial mobility in tourism development is influenced by all three social capital dimensions. The integration with the locality enhances the potential contribution of entrepreneurial mobility to tourism development.     

A Proposed Sustainable Rural Development Index (SRDI): Lessons from Hajij village,Iran

While there are many indices to gauge growth and development, there remains an ambiguity on how best to measure the development of tourism in rural locations. Current thinking emphasizes the specific characteristics of a given location and the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas depicts a requirement for participatory processes in local development. This study is inspired by implementation of the European Charter in Northern Italy, using it as a guideline. The context for this study is Hajij Village in Iran, and the approach adopted differed from that undertaken in Italy with regards to the main target, time and procedures of implementation. The study proposes the novel index based on the weighted averages of 20 variables as used with a sample of 87 members of the Hajij Community. The study explores the possibility of quantitative measurements between the weaknesses, strengths, threats, and opportunities associated with development plans.     

Urban vs. rural destinations: Residents’ perceptions,community participation and support for tourism development

This paper investigates and compares the effects of residents' perceptions of the impacts of tourism on community participation and support for tourism development across urban and rural world heritage sites (WHSs). Partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), has been employed to perform the analysis. The results reveal significant differences between the effects of residents' perceptions and community participation on support for tourism development in urban and rural destinations. However, the findings did not support any differences between the effects of positive perceptions on community participation, and the indirect effects of negative perceptions on support for tourism development. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution to the urban and rural tourism and residents’ perceptions literature by comparing rural and urban WHSs residents. Furthermore, this study has a number of practical implications for the local authorities of rural and urban WHSs.     

The effect of tourism activity on housing affordability

Although researchers have confirmed the impact of tourism on housing prices in many destinations affected with overtourism, they do not consider housing affordability in relation to the population's income levels. This study explores the relationship between tourism activity and housing affordability, using a sample of Croatian municipalities. Specifically, the study investigates how tourist accommodation, concentration, seasonality and overall vulnerability to tourism influence housing affordability in this emerging tourism-driven European country. The results obtained reveal tourism intensification's deteriorating effect on local residents' abilities to afford housing. The findings indicate a particularly strong tourism seasonality impact, suggesting the presence of common negative externalities, such as employment fluctuations, difficulties in maintaining economic status, and revenue instabilities, in localities prone to seasonal tourism fluctuations.     

A phenomenological explication of guanxi in rural tourism management: A case study of a village in China

Drawing on hermeneutic phenomenology in tourism studies as well as Heidegger's concept of being-in-the-world, this paper reveals how tourism can and should be done in a Chinese rural village. This research contributes a contextual interpretation of guanxi in Chinese rural tourism development through an empirical study of a traditional agricultural village in China that has been transformed through tourism development. The paper argues that for the Chinese indigenous residents who are the primary actors engaged in tourism, guanxi is, neither a Confucian political ideal nor an instrumental tool, but the specific manner in which they dwell in their place. It demonstrates how the tourist destination, landscape and managerial regulation have been modified and adapted in a guanxi way. The paper suggests that an emic understanding of guanxi and the roles it plays in tourism participants' daily life is warranted and can provide a more holistic picture of tourism development in rural China.     

An Exploratory Evaluation of Rural Tourism Websites

Abstract

An evaluation of 50 rural tourism websites in the United States was undertaken using 23 parameters of stickiness drivers. The parameters measured the websites' effectiveness in the three areas of content, interactivity, and promotional value. The study found that rural tourism websites were largely driven by vertical contents, demonstrated poor interactivity, and had only marginal promotional value in them. Results indicate the need for rural destination-marketing organizations to work closely with neighboring destinations to enhance horizontal content, so that they improve the drawing power of their websites. Also, findings suggest the need for websites to better exploit the interactive capabilities of the Internet to capture tourist imagination in the travel purchase decision-making process.     

基于《里山倡议》的乡村旅游发展途径初探——以台湾桃园地区对乡村旅游转型的需求为例

乡村旅游作为乡村地区发展的途径之一,必须面对当代乡村景观中传统农业主体性破坏对游憩资源运用的影响。在此过程中,最基本的问题在于乡村地区如何在发展与保护之间取得平衡?乡村旅游以环境资源为基础,建立适宜的乡村环境管理与旅游模式才是乡村旅游发展的根本。该研究主要结合《里山倡议(Satoyama Initiative)》的环境管理概念,探讨其融入乡村旅游发展的可能性,并以我国台湾桃园地区乡村景观为案例,通过对桃园地区乡村景观变迁的研究访谈、空间分析及乡村旅游发展课题的探讨,初步提出三种基于里山倡议概念的乡村旅游发展的可行途径,为未来乡村旅游规划活动提供一定的参考。     

Self-efficacy and sustainable rural tourism development: local communities’ perspectives from Kuching,Sarawak

The future of the tourism industry is dependent on local communities’ ability to develop and sustain tourism developments, especially in sensitive rural areas. But there is limited research on this topic to guide tourism authorities and governments. In particular, few studies have studied sustainable rural tourism development from the perspective of the local communities. Therefore, this study examines local communities’ views on their capability to achieve sustainable rural tourism development in selected rural areas in Kuching, Sarawak. Questionnaires were distributed to the local communities residing at three rural tourism destinations in Kuching, Sarawak. Interestingly, the results indicated that local communities’ self-efficacy has a positive relationship with social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. Hence, this study offers theoretical and practical contributions to sustainable rural tourism development literature and the tourism industry.     

Application of appreciative inquiry in tourism research in rural communities

Appreciative inquiry is a participatory research method based on positive psychology. Founded upon grounded theory and the social constructivist paradigm, appreciative inquiry is a simple, effective, and epistemologically sound tool to understand the rural population’s knowledge, needs, and priorities without alienating them from research. Based on the study conducted to comprehend the interrelationships among conservation, livelihood, and tourism development in three rural communities located in the vicinity of Chitwan National Park, Nepal, this study argues that appreciative inquiry can be a useful tool for conducting tourism research in rural communities. This study employs five steps, including grounding, discovery, dream, design, and destiny.     

国外乡村旅游研究述评

国外乡村旅游研究已经积累了不少成果，其研究焦点主要集中在乡村旅游概念研究，乡村旅游与乡村可持续发展的相互关系研究，基于供给和需求的乡村旅游发展的动力机制研究，社区居民对发展旅游的态度研究，乡村旅游发展的管理研究，乡村旅游发展的策略研究，乡村旅游发展中的女性问题研究等7个方面。研究方法以社会学和旅游学的研究方法为主。     

The role of individual entrepreneurs in the development of competitiveness for a rural tourism destination – A case study

The aim of this case study is to increase our understanding of the role of entrepreneurs in enhancing the competitiveness of a rural tourism destination. A literature review of the research on destination competitiveness with a focus on the roles of different stakeholders is first presented, followed by a narrative about rural tourism development, the competitiveness of rural destinations and the role of entrepreneurs in establishing successful destinations. The data consists of six case studies and nine semi-structured interviews among tourism entrepreneurs and managers at a rural tourism destination in Finland. The findings challenge the prevailing DMO dominated approach to destination competitiveness development, and call for the acknowledgment of collaboration between small tourism enterprises in the enhancement of rural destinations. Municipalities have a crucial role as facilitators of the entrepreneurial environment, but without innovative, committed, and risk-taking entrepreneurs no destination will flourish.     

Successful managerial behaviour for farm-based tourism: A functional approach

Despite the overall growth of rural tourism, not all have benefited equally. This study reports research designed to improve managerial performance in the rural tourism sector in Korea. Six areas are identified as being important: product/service development, business planning and evaluation, promotions, human resource management, networking, and cost reduction. It was found managers in farm-based tourism have primarily concentrated on product/service development, human resource management, and cost reduction. Of these areas, only product/service development and promotions have exhibited a statistically significant effect on real profits and on positive subjective evaluations of financial results. Based on these results, this study suggests that continuous investment in product/service development and promotions should have positive effects on operations and result in increased competitiveness and viability in the Korean farm tourism sector.