Transformation of upland ethnic communities driven by tourism

Compared to rural-urban mobility, as an effective livelihood approach to alleviate poverty without rural population mobility, ethnic tourism has become the primary selection of economic development in upland ethnic areas... [ view full abstract ]

Compared to rural-urban mobility, as an effective livelihood approach to alleviate poverty without rural population mobility, ethnic tourism has become the primary selection of economic development in upland ethnic areas worldwide in addition to traditional livelihood approaches. This research applies theories of livelihood to the study of community evolution over livelihood approaches and examines three mountainous tourism communities in different tourist area life cycles. Together with GIS spatial analysis technology, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, a sustainable livelihood framework for ethnic tourism is proposed to explore the evolution of ethnic tourism communities by identifying changes in livelihood assets (natural, financial, social, cultural and human capitals) in the process of tourism development. The results showed that, the building land increased and land use function became complicated in changing from meeting villagers’ living needs to satisfying tourists’ demands; income composition changed. Spatially, tourism income has an unbalanced distribution; traditional social management structure deteriorated, and the neighboring relationship collapsed; ethnic culture turned to excessive commercialized and staged authenticity; and traditional agricultural knowledge vanished gradually, while modern business knowledge and higher education increased. Changes involving livelihood assets from natural, economic, human, social and cultural aspects are interrelated and interactive, which form new evolutive characters of ethnic community. This study reveals the conflicts over livelihood approaches, forming the new vulnerabilities to stifle sustainable transformation of ethnic communities. It provides implications for achieving the sustainable transfer of ethnic communities with the driving force of tourism livelihood.