| Abstract: | Traditional rice-fish agricultural heritage site in Qingtian County, China, one of the pilot sites of Glob-ally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), is of great value in tourism development. This paper aims to explore how to realize sustainable tourism development in agricultural heritage site through identifying current problems in GIAHS site, and making constructive recommendations for coupled development of heritage preserva-tion and economic development. Field survey was carried out and data was collected through field questionnaire surveys of tourists and residents' in Longxian Village of Qingtian County, as well as interviews of residents with semi-structured questionnaires for their perceptions and attitudes to tourism development. The following results are got.(1) the tourism industry is still at its early state of Nongjiale tourism (enjoy and experience authentic country life-style), under very limited administrative management; (2) what attracts visitors most are delicious fish and beautiful natural environment, but not agricultural heritage itself; (3) most tourists come from adjacent areas and stay only half a day, many of whom pay their visits twice or more; (4) a few local residents take part in the activities of tourism industry, but in very limited manners even if they do.Current patterns of tourism development are casting negative impacts on agricultural heritage. Conservation agricultural heritage should be put in the first place for sustainable tourism development. Agricultural heritage, as a key attraction, should be taken as the focus for tourism development. The important thing is to change the present Nongjiale tourism into real heritage tourism, to establish a cooperative mechanism among different stakeholders,and to increase local residents' income through engaging in tourism industry. |
