Partnerships for rural revitalisation through tourism in China
In the context of rural revitalisation in the global south, a dilemma facing the international community is finding pathways or mechanisms for multiple stakeholders working together to initiate and sustain intrinsic dynamics within rural communities there.
External participation and initiative are event more important in its marginal areas (e.g. poor, remote, mountainous and ecological fragile zones). Based upon rich information and good practices in rural tourism during the period of targeted poverty alleviation (2015-20) across China, this project attempts to develop and test a framework for multiple stakeholders’ participation and collaboration through a lens of social innovation. It aims to address following questions:
- How can mutual trust be built up between multiple stakeholders and local communities to initiate a tourism development in marginal areas?
- By what conditions or mechanisms can intrinsic dynamics can be identified, released and enhanced, leading to a sustainable tourism development in those regions?
- What are variations in terms of structure and function of partnerships between external and internal forces to reflect different ecosystems for tourism entrepreneurship and to ensure interfaces between top-down intervention and bottom-up development?
The above questions will be addressed based upon the established partnerships between UoN, CAU, UNNC, SAU, China CSA, and others in the past. Multiple cases will be undertaken and compared in more than 10 sites across the country in initial stage to develop a number of theoretic models or hypotheses for further researches.
ECRs: F.M.S. Azam, Yan Jin (Yunnan Agricultural University), Baojiang Geng (SAU), Jin Xu (CAU)
Mentors: Gubo Qi (CAU), Yi Wang (UNNC), Hui Lin (Youcheng Foundation), Scott McCabe (NUBS), Bin Wu (Acting Director of CFRS)
Contacts: F.M.S Azam, Dr Geng