Search Results (41)

The ethnic villages in karst regions, where the ecosystem and social systems are intricately linked, face the dual challenges of poverty and ecological sustainability. Tourism, as an emerging strategy adopted for poverty alleviation, has inevitably posed complex impacts on social–ecological systems (SES). However, due to the particularity of the SES in this region, the mechanisms through which tourism influences social–ecological systems remain unclear, hindering the achievement of eco-friendly economic growth. In this study, we first applied the vulnerability spectrum diagram (VSD) model assessment framework to various remotely sensed and socially sensed data to evaluate ecological and social vulnerability, taking Leishan County, a typical karst region in Guizhou, southwest China as a case study. Then, advanced geospatial analysis methods were adopted to investigate the spatial characteristics of the vulnerability index. Finally, we utilized the geographical detector to identify influencing factors and investigated their synergistic effects. Our results reveal that, within the studied area, social vulnerability is generally lower in the north than the south, while ecological vulnerability shows the other way around. Social vulnerability is significantly influenced by several tourism-related factors, such as transportation convenience and the preservation of traditional dwellings. These factors collectively exert a pronounced effect on social vulnerability mitigation. Moreover, ecological vulnerability, with the exception of rocky desertification, shows significant co-directional changes with social vulnerability, reflecting the fact that tourism factors indirectly shape the ecosystem. The development of ethnic village tourism in villages with better socio-economic conditions tends to effectively improve the quality of the ecological environment, whereas those with poorer conditions tend to exacerbate ecological damage. The findings drawn from this study convey important practical implications that assist in identifying key vulnerable areas in karst ethnic villages and support their sustainable development goals. Full article

Rural tourism has become a key driver of rural revitalization in China, contributing to poverty alleviation while also irreversibly altering the spatial evolution of rural settlements. In the ecologically fragile regions of northwest China, the rapid expansion of rural tourism destinations has raised ecological concerns, particularly regarding land resource utilization. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the phenomenon of industrial agglomeration in the evolution of rural tourism within the context of tourism-driven poverty alleviation. This study uses Lanzhou City as a case study and employs nearest neighbor analysis and kernel density estimation to analyze the spatial agglomeration patterns of rural tourism destinations, focusing on agglomeration forms, scales, and patterns. Additionally, it explores the spatial coupling distribution between agglomeration levels and influencing factors. The results show that from 1987 to 2022, the development of rural tourism destinations in Lanzhou City has progressed through several stages, from initial emergence to rapid growth. The form of industrial agglomeration has shifted from a dispersed to a clustered distribution, gradually expanding from urban centers to peripheral areas. The spatial agglomeration follows a multi-core hierarchical point-axial diffusion model, forming multiple core and sub-core agglomeration zones of varying scales. This transformation is primarily driven by geographical factors, transportation accessibility, and the presence of high-quality tourist attractions. However, a comparison of land use changes and ecological vulnerability indices over multiple periods indicates that the industrial agglomeration of rural tourism has led to irregular land use patterns and ecosystem instability. Finally, based on the complex relationship between rural tourism development, industrial agglomeration, and ecological sustainability, this study proposes strategies for the development of rural tourism in Lanzhou City, with the aim of providing valuable insights for the development of rural tourism in ecologically fragile regions of China. Full article

Community-based tourism (CBT) is an innovative and participatory approach that places local communities at the center of tourism development. This model aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Through a synthesis of global case studies from regions such as Nepal, Kenya, Costa Rica, South Korea, and Zimbabwe, this paper examines the transformative potential of CBT in fostering inclusive economic growth, empowering marginalized communities, and promoting cultural and environmental sustainability. Content and comparative analyses reveal how CBT generates sustainable livelihoods, preserves cultural heritage, and addresses governance and dependency challenges. The study highlights interlinkages between SDGs 1 and 8 and provides actionable strategies for stakeholders, including policymakers, residents, tourists, and academics. Recommendations for addressing implementation barriers and future research directions underscore the need for innovative solutions, technological integration, and long-term community resilience planning. This paper affirms CBT’s role as a global model for sustainable tourism and equitable development. Full article

This study investigates the impact of tourism development on the well-being of impoverished residents in the urban area of La Candelaria, Bogotá, and the rural area of La Macarena, Meta. The participants were recruited using Colombia’s SISBÉN classification system by approaching individuals in public spaces such as bakeries, markets, and restaurants. After confirming their residency, only those classified in categories A (extreme poverty), B (moderate poverty), or C (vulnerable population) were included in the study. Data collection took place in May 2017, resulting in 307 surveys from the participants across both locations. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the findings reveal that economic benefits are the most influential factor, significantly enhancing happiness and life satisfaction. While cultural and environmental benefits are acknowledged, they are less directly linked to personal well-being. The study highlights tourism’s complex role in promoting economic growth and shaping the social, cultural, and environmental aspects of community life. However, it also identifies potential risks, such as environmental degradation and social disruption, particularly in different spatial contexts. The research underscores the need for tourism development to provide tangible, personal benefits that align with residents’ economic and emotional priorities, ensuring sustainable and equitable outcomes, especially considering the spatial disparities between urban and rural areas that influence tourism’s effectiveness in improving well-being and alleviating poverty. Full article

Tourism-based poverty alleviation strategies have played an important role in China’s efforts to eliminate poverty. In the post-poverty-alleviation era, the mechanism by which the government, market and society jointly promote the sustainable development of the tourism-based poverty alleviation industry requires further research. Based on data from 33 tourism-based poverty alleviation demonstration counties in China, this paper uses the fsQCA method to explore the role positioning and function of the three major entities of government, market and society. The results show that no single condition can promote the long-term development of tourism-based poverty alleviation. Four modes are proposed: government financial support, resource endowment, ecosystem tourism and multisubject coordination. The government provides a diverse and sustainable “haematopoietic” mechanism by focusing on different elements in each path. In addition, public tourism services are crucial to the long-term mechanism of tourism-based poverty alleviation. Full article

The analysis of the realization path of the value of ecotourism products in agro-cultural heritage sites from the perspective of farmers’ behaviors can not only provide decision-making references for improving the well-being of farmers and alleviating poverty but also help to provide a scientific basis for the sustainable development of ecosystems in agro-cultural heritage sites. Based on the field research data of the Qitai dry farming system in Xinjiang in 2023, this study establishes an evaluation index system for livelihood capital transformed by tourism value, and it analyzes whether there is a significant difference between the livelihood capital held by different types of farmers by using the entropy method and non-parametric tests. This study found that (1) farmers who participated in tourism in alpine grassland pastoral areas possessed advantageous financial, social and cultural capital; those who participated in tourism in rain-fed agricultural areas possessed advantageous human capital; and those who participated in tourism in irrigated agricultural areas possessed advantageous financial and human capital. (2) There are significant differences in the natural, physical and financial capital between farmers in alpine grassland pastoral, rain-fed and irrigated agricultural areas. (3) The different types of farm households are categorized into three representative livelihood types in dryland agricultural and cultural heritage sites: strong financial capital-strong, socio-cultural capital sites, strong human capital-weak natural capital sites, and strong human capital-weak physical capital sites. Depending on the composition of the livelihood capital, different types of farmers in heritage sites can realize the tourism value of ecological products, thus helping them to ameliorate their combined benefits. Full article

The Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou rocky desertification area is characterized by a fragile ecological environment, along with the inhabitation of many ethnic minorities, making it the region with the most poverty-alleviation targets among the 14 concentrated poverty-stricken areas in China. However, this area has obvious cultural resources, but it lacks systematic study. Therefore, integral investigation and research which can promote the sustainable development with abundant culture resource should pay more attention to it. This study, with 1113 national and provincial intangible cultural heritage projects in this area as research objects, used ArcGIS to visualize their geographic data for research. Geodetector was used to quantify the influence of relevant factors and analyze the distribution characteristics and influencing factors of intangible cultural heritage in this region. By providing a correlative strategy, the aim is to promote the coordinated development of the regional cultural economy. The results are as follows: (1) Guizhou exhibits the highest distribution of intangible cultural heritage projects, followed by Guangxi and Yunnan, indicating an uneven number of intangible cultural heritage projects. (2) A spatial analysis shows the clustered spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage projects in this area, forming a high-density core area and multiple sub high-density areas with high spatial autocorrelation. (3) The spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage in the rocky desertification areas of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou is generally correlated with survival orientation and natural environmental factors and positively correlated with development orientation and social, economic, ethnic, and cultural factors. Among many factors, cultural environment quantity exhibits the strongest correlation with the spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage. (4) Based on the degree of correlation with different influencing factors, four development strategies are proposed: digitization of intangible cultural heritage inheritance and development, multi-media intangible cultural heritage creation and dissemination, innovative construction of intangible cultural heritage exhibitions, and tourism-driven dynamic inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. Full article

In China, tourism development is a crucial approach to poverty alleviation. With the consolidation of poverty alleviation achievements and the promotion of rural revitalization, it is of great significance to explore the relationship between tourism development and poverty alleviation from the perspective of multidimensional poverty. Therefore, this study took 28 key assistance counties for rural revitalization in the Sichuan–Chongqing region (hereinafter referred to as “key counties”) as the research objects, introduced NPP-VIIRS nighttime light (NTL) data, and a coupling coordination degree (CCD) model to explore the coordination relationship and mechanism between them. The results showed that from 2015 to 2020, the tourism development index (TDI) and estimated comprehensive development index (ECDI) of the key counties increased by 112.57% and 115.12%, respectively. In addition, the spatial differences in tourism development and multidimensional poverty both showed a narrowing trend. According to the results of the CCD model, the key counties basically faced coordination obstacles in the early stage, which were mainly transformed into reluctant coordination and moderate coordination in the later stage. This indicated that tourism poverty alleviation showed a coordinated development trend overall. However, the study also found that there may not be synchronicity between tourism development and poverty alleviation and analyzed the mechanism of their interaction. Overall, the study confirmed the positive impact of tourism development on alleviating multidimensional poverty. In addition, the study found that measuring multidimensional poverty based on NTL data has a high accuracy and can provide support for poverty research. These research results have an important reference value for China to carry out sustainable tourism poverty alleviation and comprehensively promote rural revitalization. Full article

For a long time, the decline in agricultural comparative returns and the urban–rural development gap in China have prompted the outflow of rural labor. Land transfer policies, which allow farmers to retain their land contracting rights while transferring their management rights, were instituted to mitigate the impact of labor outflow on land use and agricultural production. In recent years, tourism has contributed to the diversification of the rural economy and has had an essential impact on the urban–rural allocation of elements such as labor. In this paper, we adopt a probit model to investigate the impact of tourism development on rural land transfer-out by using data from the China Family Panel Studies. The results show that the marginal effect of tourism development is significantly negative, indicating that the probability of rural land transfer-out was significantly reduced with tourism development. The results are still valid after a series of robustness tests. A mechanism analysis indicates that tourism development inhibits land transfer by enhancing local vitality, such as increasing the local employment of rural labor and promoting participation in agricultural production. Moreover, from the perspective of rural welfare and asset prices, further research finds that tourism development contributes to poverty alleviation and increases land value. These results suggest that tourism development inhibits land transfer while promoting rural sustainable development, helping to understand the impact of tourism on rural land use and household asset allocation from a more comprehensive perspective. Full article

Educational tourism in rural areas promotes local employment, economic development, and poverty alleviation. Given that there is a lack of research on emerging and developing nations, this study adopted the viewpoint of an emerging country and empirically demonstrates the relationships of consumer behavior with education tourism in rural areas. In particular, the study focused on push-pull motivation factors and loyalty. The mediating role of overall satisfaction on the relationship between push-pull motivation and loyalty was also investigated. The study extracted questions from a sample of 234 students in China and quantitatively analyzed the data using a structural equation model (SEM). The results show that pull motivation factors contribute directly to loyalty, and push motivation was the strongest construct influencing loyalty through overall satisfaction. The results show that in this field, managers need to pay more attention to push and pull motivation at different marketing stages. Full article

This study explores the spatiotemporal characteristics and driving factors of land use for rural tourism in areas that eliminated poverty from 2009 to 2021. It puts forward targeted governance measures to promote the high-quality development of rural tourism, poverty alleviation, and rural revitalization. The analysis is based on exploratory spatial analysis methods and geographical detectors. The results show that (1) the overall level of land use for rural tourism was low but grew very quickly with large regional differences. (2) There was a significant spatial agglomeration in land use for rural tourism land. The spatial distribution of land use for rural tourism landscapes was characterized by two cores and four clusters, while spatial distribution of rural tourism facilities was characterized by one cluster with multiple branches. (3) The driving factors of spatial variations in land use for rural tourism were diverse and dynamic. Dominant factors shifted from natural conditions and geographical location to socioeconomic and tourism resources and regional policy dimensions. Policy should emphasize the development of the rural tourism industry, innovate the diversified “tourism + development” model, enhance the level of land use for rural tourism, broaden avenues for farmers to increase their income, and strengthen residents’ motivation for development. Full article

As the world’s population structure is aging and China is at a critical stage in consolidating the results of poverty alleviation, this study intends to explore the pathways of the elderly group, which is very vulnerable to falling back into poverty, to prevent or slow down the possibility of this group falling back into poverty. In this study, 79 elderly farmers’ data were collected by household interviews as research samples, and the Vulnerability as Expected Poverty index was selected to measure the dynamic changes of poverty in aging farmers in Donglu Island Village. The correlation between the participation of aging farmers in the tourism industry and their own poverty vulnerability was analyzed through multiple linear regression. It is found that whether aging farmers participate in tourism is not correlated with their absolute poverty vulnerability. Whether aging farmers participate in tourism is significantly negatively correlated with their relative poverty vulnerability, and developing rural tourism and increasing the participation of aging farmers can alleviate the poverty vulnerability of aging farmers. Finally, with the mindset of “teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, the development of rural tourism suitable for aging farmers is proposed. Full article

Many poverty−alleviation−relocation projects in China resort to tourism to sustain immigrants’ livelihood in new communities. However, how tourism contributes to poverty elimination and maintaining gains is yet to be discovered. Based on the sustainable livelihood concept, this study constructs a three-dimensional index system to evaluate livelihood sustainability and identify potential factors in three relocated tourism communities. Results show that most resettled residents have median-level livelihood sustainability. Livelihood capital, strategies, and environment contribute to livelihood sustainability in decreasing order. Regarding livelihood modes, tourism−led livelihood takes the first position in terms of supporting livelihood sustainability, followed by outside−work−led, local−work−led, and government subsidy−led livelihoods. Regarding obstacle factors, annual household income, number of household workers, and education levels are shared by relocated households across different livelihood modes. Aside from policy suggestions on survey sites, this study provides a holistic framework and enlightens the generalizable paradigm to the analysis of sustained livelihood via tourism development in relocated communities. Full article

Both transport development and poverty alleviation are vital for sustainable development. However, due to the lack of long-term, comparable, county-level transport accessibility and poverty incidence data, the spatiotemporal patterns of these factors have rarely been accurately revealed in the poverty-stricken regions of China, causing the impacts of transport accessibility on poverty alleviation to be difficult to quantify. Taking Guizhou Province in China as the study area, this study revealed the spatiotemporal patterns of transport accessibility and poverty alleviation in 88 counties from 2000 to 2018 based on multisource data, including nighttime light data, LandScan population data, and transport network data. It was found that the transport accessibility decreased from 4.9 h to 3.3 h, and the poverty index decreased from 0.75 to 0.29 on average. All these factors exhibited a “core–periphery” spatial pattern. Furthermore, the panel data regression analysis suggested that transport accessibility has played a dominant role in poverty alleviation, with an elasticity coefficient of 0.839. In the future, policies concerned to integrate transport development with rural industries such as agriculture, e-commence, and tourism are recommended for poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, which are especially significant for promoting sustainable development, securing a win–win of economic growth and social equity. Full article

Absolute poverty has historically been solved in China, and the focus on poor areas has shifted to addressing relative poverty. To realize the organic combination of the rural revitalization strategy and relative poverty governance, multi-dimensional relative poverty identification and governance path research at the village scale in an alpine-gorge region is required. For this study, the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture’s research area in a typical alpine-gorge was chosen. This paper constructed an evaluation index system for the rural regional system based on location conditions, ecological environment, productive resources, economic base, and public service, based on the theory of multi-dimensional regional poverty and the human–land relationship. The level of poverty, types of poverty, and spatial distribution characteristics of 255 administrative villages were systematically analyzed, and poverty governance paths were proposed. The results show that: (1) There were 215 multi-dimensional relative poverty villages in Nujiang Prefecture, accounting for 84.31% of the total. The relatively poor villages with poverty grades I and II, which are classified as mild poverty, account for 77.21% of all poor villages; this demonstrated that the relatively poor villages in Nujiang Prefecture had a high potential for poverty alleviation. (2) There are 19 different types of constraints in poor villages. Grades III and IV poor villages were mostly found in high-altitude areas. The economic foundation was very weak, the infrastructure was imperfect, the land use type was relatively single, and traffic conditions were relatively backward. (3) The priority model accounted for 16.67% of relative poverty governance, the steady improvement accounted for 28.79%, and key support accounted for 54.54%. Relative poverty governance paths for various counties have been proposed, including rural revitalization priority demonstration, ecological environment governance, eco-tourism, modern agriculture + mountain agroforestry, and improved people’s livelihood and well-being. The findings provided scientific support and direction for future research on the mode and course of relative poverty governance in poor villages in the alpine-gorge area, as well as the rural revitalization strategy’s implementation. Full article