Community, governments and external capitals in China's rural cultural tourism: A comparative study of two adjacent villages

Using qualitative methods, this paper compares the experiences of tourism development in two of China's most famous rural cultural tourism destinations (Xidi and Hongcun). Although high-leveled similarities in tourism settings are shared between these two adjacent destinations, dramatic differences have also been found in their outcomes of tourism developments. Based on two case studies, a new communal approach for tourism development, which is prevailing in rural China, is summarized and its influences on community participation in tourism are then discussed. By examining the contesting process for the exclusive right for tourism development and operation deriving from the communal approach, the paper analyses the power relations among the stakeholders of the tourism developments in the two cases, and argues that a definite legal description of such kind of developmental right is a premise to desirable interrelations among tourism stakeholders, and will be conducive to a more participatory community in China's current rural cultural tourism developments. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.