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| A STUDY ON THE COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION MODEL OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORIAL AND CULTURAL PRESERVATION ZONES |
| YAN Ya-yu, HUANG Hai-yu |
| Tourism and Hospitality Department, School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China |
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Abstract In order to fully utilize resources to develop regional economy and satisfy social needs of tourism, many historical and cultural preservation zones have been developed into tourism communities. Community residents participate in the tourism development of the historical and cultural preservation zones, share the responsibilities and achievements of the development. In the historical and cultural preservation zones, the community residents obtain various benefits with different community participation elements, such as assets, human resources and community culture, etc., forming three different types of community participation models: assets participation, human resource participation and community cultural participation.
Issues raised from the development of community tourism are inevitable. For example, the benefit-expression mechanism in community participation is not formed in China. These issues are only discussed in local administrations and the residents' opinions are always ignored. So conflicts frequently exist in the process of land requisition. And because of the restriction of individual economic strength, the residents with low participation scale are often at a disadvantage facing the intense competition of tourism market. Urge to earn the gains of the tourism development, they often solicit or cheat customers and even ruin the image of scenic spots. Their behaviors are actually harmful to the sustainable development of community-participation tourism.
Community participation is indispensable to the tourism development of the historical and cultural preservation zones. And the utility of community-participation is the key element of the tourism development. The utility of community-participation is relative to not only the general utility of the community tourism development, but also the participators' ability to share benefits. In order to make the participators obtain more utilities, three programs should be implemented. First, to increase the general utilities, community participators should be encouraged to devote their own tourism resources and human resources. Rational evaluation of the devoted resources is needed to make sure the participated residents as a disadvantaged group can obtain benefits from the tourism development. Second, the participators' privileges of sharing benefits should be admitted and expanded.So the establishment of an evaluation system of tourism resources is urgent. Third, the mechanism of interest's protection for community participation in the tourism development should be constructed. The responsibilities and privileges of the participated residents should be clearly stalemated and regulated. And the interest protection mechanism must be amended constantly with the change of the participation models and various benefit demands.
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Received: 13 March 2008
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2008, Vol. 23 
