Reflections on the Connotations of Ecotourism

As the most desirable option for sustainable development of tourism industry, ecotourism still suffers from lack of a clear-cut and widely accepted definition, posing many risks and threats in its practices. Based on collection and collation of various concepts and explanations of ecotourism both at home and abroad, this paper reflects on the current connotations of ecotourism in terms of four aspects, namely, objects of ecotourism, ecotourists, nature of ecotourism as well as the relationship between ecotourism and communities. In-depth analysis was performed in an effort to revise the misinterpretation of ecotourism and provide implications for ecotourism initiatives. The main conclusions and fruits of this article include： 1） The objects of eeotourism should go beyond natural, pristine, or even only primitive natural areas to including cultural resources together with their natural context which also deserve preservation. 2） Tourism operators, compared to tourists, have more leverage and hence should shoulder more responsibilities for conservation. 3） Ecotourism should serve as a principle to guide tourism initiatives towards sustainability, rather than merely a special tour package. 4） The theoretic foundation was laid for community participation in ecotourism.     

Nature Reserve and Ecotourism Development in China＇s Wuzhishan Mountain Region

As the protected areas of land and coastal environment, nature reserves are designed to address how to reconcile the conservation of biodiversity, the quest for economic and social development and the maintenance of cultural values. This paper establishes a framework for nature reserve development that seeks to incorporate ecotourism into its strategies. The overall purpose was to identify the information needs required for a comprehensive nature reserve that incorporates ecotourism related values. It also illustrates the utility of this framework in the context of the Wuzhishan Mountain Region of China. A literature review, the first phase of a visionary strategy and a subsequent gap analysis for available management information were undertaken in order to achieve this paper＇s purpose. Finally, recommendations axe pre-sented for integrating ecotourism into nature reserve development in the Wuzhishan Mountain Region.     

Evaluation of ecotourism development in rural regions of China

The current status of ecotourism in rural China was analyzed in this paper.Empirical surveys covering the whole country indicate that ecotourism in rural China has attracted a large number of tourists who,however,didn’t generate revenues that can match the number.Although the environmental quality of those rural ecotourism destinations is high with little negative impacts,several problems have already appeared,suggesting a need to monitor those areas.The current practice of interpretation in most rural ecotourism destinations did not provide environmental education opportunities to the tourists.And local communities need more effective ways to decide on the prospects of local ecotourism development by themselves.Finally,a few recommendations for improving the sustainability of ecotourism destinations were provided.     

Nature Reserve and Ecotourism Development in China’s Wuzhishan Mountain Region

As the protected areas of land and coastal environment, nature reserves are designed to address how to reconcile the con- servation of biodiversity, the quest for economic and social de- velopment and the maintenance of cultural values. This paper establishes a framework for nature reserve development that seeks to incorporate ecotourism into its strategies. The overall purpose was to identify the information needs required for a comprehen- sive nature reserve that incorporates ecotourism related values. It also illustrates the utility of this framework in the context of the Wuzhishan Mountain Region of China. A literature review, the first phase of a visionary strategy and a subsequent gap analysis for available management information were undertaken in order to achieve this paper’s purpose. Finally, recommendations are pre- sented for integrating ecotourism into nature reserve development in the Wuzhishan Mountain Region     

Progress in Enclave Tourism Study of Overseas： A Literature Review

In response to the ＂isolated island＂ phenomenon emerging from the development of tourist resorts in China, this paper reviews the study of enclave tourism overseas, which has similar features to the resort ＂island＂. Based on the literatures related to enclave tourism from Tourism Management and Annals of Tourism Research, this paper reviews the study of enclave tourism from the following aspects： definition discussion, theories used, causation of enclaves, characteristics and impacts of enclave tourism. The understanding of the overseas researches on enclave tourism would provide instructions for the study on the problems of Chinese resorts, such as enclavity and ＂island effects＂, and suggest measures for the sustainable development of resorts in China. This paper is divided into three sections. Section 1 briefly introduces the development of enclave tourism in developing countries and the outline of enclave tourism study. Section 2 elaborates on the contents of enclave tourism research and gives deep insights into the study on concepts, characteristics, causations and effects respectively, which is the key part of this paper; Section 3 concludes the review and proposes suggestions for the enclave tourism study in China.     

Study on the Comprehensive Tourism Development Pattern in Periphery Minority Area： A Case Study of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province, China

The paper took the human-land relations as a basic point, and the theories of tourism industry system and sustainable development as the guidance, with Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture （Gannan） as the case study area. From microcosmic and macroscopic viewpoints, the author carded out function orientation and evaluation to the tourism industry development, and research on the comprehensive tourism industry development pattern of Gannan. Results show that the fragile ecological environment and the traditional economic growth pattern have restricted regional sustainable development, and made Gannan to become a representative of the periphery minority areas in Northwest China. Tourism development of Gannan is at the primary phase, with the characteristics of short industry chain and low economic efficiency. It is an inevitable choice to transform the way of regional economic growth and the development pattern of tourism industry from the traditional pattern to the pattern of sustainable development. Simultaneously, Gannan＇s natural, national and religious culture makes Gannan a broad prospect on the comprehensive tourism development. Gannan should choose the comprehensive tourism industry as its scientific pattern to realize sustainable development, promote harmonious social, economic and ecological development, alleviate the human-land contradictory, and realize dual goals in terms of ecology construction and economical development. For Gannan and the similar areas in China, studies on the sustainable development pattern of tourism have extremely important strategic sense with respect to tourism development and the sustainable development of regional economy.     

Sustainable Tourism Development Management of Local Cultural Landscapes

Nowa days, ecological and cultural tourism, especially those ancient villages and towns in China, have attracted an increasing number of tourists because of their unique cultural features. However, rapid development of tourism brings economic benefits, but results in a series of problems that threaten further tourism development and protection of ancient towns, such as over-commercialization and tourism urbanization. Taking Longmen ancient town as an example, this paper presented a sustainable way of preserving and developing resources of ancient villages and towns. First, identify cultural features and the extent of ancient villages and towns, and find the approach through which a cultural landscape zoning can be applied. Second, define a cooperative function area to release the pressure on core areas and protect their authentic cultures by extending tourism space. Third, balance tourism development with traditional industries to enhance the sustainability of community economies.     

Dynamic Evaluation on Regional Tourism Competitiveness： Urban Agglomeration of Shandong Peninsula, Eastern China

The article establishes the appraisal index system for entire urban agglomeration and its interior cities individually, concretely including five aspects： driving forces for tourism development, the level of tourism development, tourism impacts, tourism economic connection and tourism contributions of different cities to the whole urban agglomeration. As tourism competitiveness has the characteristics of comprehensiveness, systematicness and dynamicness, the article attempts to apply the structural prediction means of system dynamics to evaluating tourism competitiveness, aiming to provide some research methods and analysis ideas for tourism competitiveness measurement and trends analysis in urban agglomeration. Taking Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration as the study area, the article simulates and analyzes the tourism competitiveness trend of the whole region and its interior cities from 2005 to 2020, and the result reflects that integrated development and regional combination of tourism are important means to upgrade tourism competitiveness in this region.     

Residents＇ Attitudes Towards Tourism in a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Pilot Site： a Case Study in China

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems （GIAHS） is a wide program to promote the conservation and adaptive management of such systems and their associated landscapes, biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures. Rice-Fish Systems （RFS） in Longxian village of China, as a traditional agricultural system, was selected as one of the five pilot sites of GIAHS in 2005. Researchers have paid more attention to the dynamic conservation and adaptive management of RFS because it is under severe threats from global development challenges. Tourism is suggested to be brought into the RFS conservation program as an alternative industry. This paper presents a comparative study of residents in three types of farm household in Longxian, seeking attitudes to the RFS conservation and tourism development and ways in which such information may guide future strategies. Results show residents, belonging to the household type in which most family members are abroad, have the most positive attitudes to RFS conservation and tourism development; while residents, as other household type in which less than 50% of family members are abroad, are the least sensitive group in these three household types, due to the motivation of moving abroad weakening their enthusiasm to participate in the local activities. Implications are discussed in the context of how resident attitudes will affect the future management of GIAHS conservation and tourism development, and then measures are put forward to foster tourism cooperation and multistakeholders process establishment.     

Influence of “Holiday Tourism Circle of Beijing“ on Chengde Tourism Spatial Alteration and Reconstruction

Chengde City, famous for its cultural sightseeing tourism industry, and is located in China‘s “Capital Holiday Tourism Circle“. This location is advantageous, because of the recent boom in China‘s national tourism industry. This industry has gone through several structural and development changes with in the past several years. A result of these restructuring patterns is the great changes concerning competitive and cooperative relations among tourism destinations, which have precipitated the decline of the traditional sightseeing pattern.Northern China‘s “Capital Holiday Tourism Circle“ is one of nine key areas within the Chinese tourism industry under development during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. In the present article the method of “Distance Decline of The Tourist Flow“ was used to define the flow of tourists in the Capital Holiday Tourism Circle and its influence upon Chengde‘s tourism spatial distribution. 3 aspects will be discussed: (1) The transformation from sightseeing to leisure markets makes the change possible in Chengde‘s tourism spatial pattern. (2) The location advantage (adjacent to Beijing and Tianjin) also leads to the change in Chengde tourism spatial pattern. (3) The establishment of freeways also contributes to a great degrees of change.The rapid development of leisure tourism might lead to the change from nucleus model to a diversified one within Chengde‘s tourism. Specifically, Chengde is developing the tourism industry with the central heritage area as the nucleus and the northern forest,pasture,southern mountain, and rivers as its periphery.     

Coincidence and Upgrade: A Typical Case Study of Rural Ecotourism Development

Abstract

At present, internal rural tourism is at the stage of upgrading and renewing, and ecotourism has been considered to be the main direction. This paper discussed the concepts and criteria of rural tourism and ecotourism, analyzed a typical case of Nongke Village of Chengdu City-being considered to be the first rural tourism site in China, went deep into the problems of the contents and criteria of the development of rural ecotourism, and tried to probe into the principles of the development of rural ecotourism both theoretically and practically so as to understand the rules of the development of rural ecotourism.     

生态旅游的可持续性评价模型研究——以九寨沟景区为例

在生态环境脆弱区域开展旅游活动，其发展目标必须是可持续的。而生态旅游可持续性的标准因不同旅游区（点）或处在不同的时间段会产生差异，使用评价指标体系的方法可以反映出并弥补这种差异给可持续性评价带来的影响。以位于岷江上游的世界自然遗产地九寨沟景区为例，使用主观方法分析资源、社区和旅游三大利益相关者在生态旅游可持续性中的关系，建立生态旅游地可持续性评价模型的框架。使用德尔菲法确定相应的评价指标；通过对当地居民和旅游管理部门的访谈和旅游者问卷调查来探察利益相关者间的关系；根据访谈和调查结果对模型评价结果进行验证。研究以九寨沟景区为案例，评价模型的构建为生态旅游地的可持续性管理提供了一种主观与客观相结合的评价工具，并可以推广到其他景区。     

Ecotourism as a development strategy: experiences from Costa Rica

This article reflects on the Costa Rican experiences with ecotourism by assessing the positive and negative environmental, economic and social impacts of ecotourism development at four tourist destinations—Manuel Antonio, Monteverde, Tortuguero and ASCOMAFOR. These destinations represent different stages of tourism development. The assessment shows that the development of ecotourism has a dilemma character. Compared to alternative land-use options, ecotourism remains a promising development strategy. However, it should be embedded in a broader process of capacity building.     

乡村旅游背景下农户生计策略转变意愿研究

近年来在乡村振兴战略实施背景下,乡村旅游在发展农村经济中的作用更加凸显。促进乡村旅游的健康发展和乡村农户生计的持续改善是当前学术界讨论的重要话题。现有研究表明,可持续生计框架中客观环境影响作用是可持续旅游生计研究的热点方向,但可持续生计框架外其他主观因素对生计策略转变影响的动态定量考量却较为空缺。本研究在乡村旅游背景下探讨政府信任度对农户生计策略转变意愿影响机制,引入居民参与度、居民支持度和生活满意度多重链式中介作用,通过结构方程模型对山东省乡村旅游地进行定量分析,并对特定路径间中介作用进行比较。实证研究结果显示:①政府信任度对居民参与度和居民支持度具有正向影响,居民支持度正向影响居民参与度。②居民参与度和居民支持度均正向影响生活满意度。③生活满意度对农户生计策略转变意愿产生正向影响。这表明在居民支持度、居民参与度和生活满意度多重链式中介作用下,政府信任度对生计策略转变意愿具有间接影响。因此,为了助推乡村振兴,实现乡村旅游和农户生计的可持续,应发挥政府作用,从政策实施、旅游市场监控、完善基础设施建设等方面提高政府信任度,培养农户的主人翁意识,引导农户融入乡村旅游发展过程中,提高生活满意度,增强农户生计策略转变意愿。     

基于网络信息的江西省乡村旅游地吸引力评价及空间分析

旅游吸引力是目的地旅游发展的动力源泉，基于需求侧的旅游吸引力评价对于乡村旅游地的经营管理和市场营销具有重要的指导意义。以江西省为例，在乡村旅游地类型划分的基础上，构建了基于网络信息的乡村旅游地吸引力评价体系，同时采用空间自相关和核密度分析方法分析了乡村旅游地吸引力的空间分布格局，研究发现：（1）江西省乡村旅游地可以划分为生态观光类、休闲度假类、农事体验类、农业科技类、乡土文化类和特色村镇类六个大类和24个基本类型;（2）江西省乡村旅游地单体吸引力指数相差较大，不同类型乡村旅游地吸引力指数差别显著，生态观光类吸引力指数最高，农业科技类最低;（3）江西省乡村旅游地为旅游者带来了良好的游憩体验，旅游者整体满意度较高，但网络关注度与分享程度相对较低;（4）江西省乡村旅游地吸引力集聚特征显著，且主要集中在“南昌-九江-宜春”、“萍乡-宜春”、“上饶-景德镇”三大片区，各类型乡村旅游地吸引力集聚状况空间差异较大。基于研究结论，文章为江西乡村旅游吸引力的提升及未来乡村旅游的发展提出了针对性的意见与建议。     

生态文明视角下的江苏沿海生态旅游竞合研究

生态旅游是生态文明的重要载体，生态文明理念为生态旅游的健康发展提供了科学的行动指南。江苏沿海包括连云港、盐城和南通三市，生态旅游资源丰富，但三市在生态旅游发展中，竞争有余，合作不足, 致使三市生态旅游资源的整体优势未能得到充分发挥。在分析江苏沿海加强生态旅游竞合的必要性与可行性的基础上，提出了三市应以生态文明为指导，积极开展区域生态旅游竞合，具体措施包括：做好统一规划，打造沿海生态旅游区；创新生态旅游产品，联合开发精品生态旅游线路；加强生态旅游合作营销；改善旅游交通和服务；完善合作的制度化机制，构建“市场主导、政府推动、企业主体、社区参与”多主体共同参与的格局；联合加强生态教育，共同治理和改善生态环境等     

A modeling analysis of the sustainability of ecotourism in Belize

Over the past two decades, ecotourism has emerged as an important conservation strategy, especially in the Tropics where a diversity of species and habitats are threatened by traditional forms of development. However, questions remain about the sustainability of ecotourism in terms of distributions of income to local people and degradation of ecosystems visited by the ecotourists. In this study, a computer simulation model was used to study the possible long-term patterns of ecotourism at the country scale for Belize, Central America. The model includes state variables for natural ecosystems and tourism infrastructure with a submodel for global oil supply. It was simulated over a 100-year period as an EXCEL spreadsheet with a time step of 1?year. In all of the simulations, a decline over time in income from ecotourists was found due to increases in the price of oil and due to environmental impacts by tourism. Conservation efforts can slow the declines, but ultimately, the system is shown to be unsustainable. The results are discussed in the context of long-term conservation potential in Belize.     

景区依托型乡村聚落用地格局与功能演变研究——以黄果树镇石头寨村为例

以毗邻黄果树瀑布风景区旅游村落石头寨村为典型案例,运用空间分析和参与式评估方法,利用聚落用地现状与多时相遥感影像数据,分析了34年来石头寨村聚落用地格局的变化规律。研究发现:(1)石头寨村聚落用地格局演变经历了缓慢起步、加速扩张及扩张回落3个阶段;土地利用实现了从村落中心区到外围区,从平面到立体的空间拓展过程;空间上呈现较为显著的沿河、沿路扩张模式;(2)"旅游化过程"促使石头寨村乡村聚落用地功能的转变,乡村单一的村民居住型用地比例降低,旅游住宿、旅游餐饮、旅游服务等非居住用地比例上升,乡村聚落功能由单一的居住生活功能向居住—休闲旅游复合功能转变;(3)自然地理条件是乡村聚落空间扩展的基础,旅游资源开发是乡村用地扩展的支撑动力,黄果树瀑布景区旅游市场需求快速增长是乡村功能转化的重要推动力,政府调控是乡村用地变化的引导动力,这些因素相互作用,共同驱动景区依托乡村聚落用地格局的变化。当前石头寨村进入以特色旅游发展为导向的转型升级阶段。对其乡村旅游发展而言,原有用地模式具有不可持续性。因此,要促进乡村旅游可持续发展,必须针对旅游型乡村聚落用地特点和要求,充分考虑现有乡村聚落旅游用地需求,加强乡村用地规划设计和建设管理,并完善相配套的制度体系。