Community-Based Ecotourism Development And Local Residents' Participation

Based on extensive review and research on relevant theories and case studies, the paper reflects on and explores contemporary literature on ecotourism and community participation, and attempts to differentiate and redefine some easily confused and commonly misunderstood concepts. The paper also does a positivist study of Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET), a model of ecotourism deemed as the best for tourism sustainability, using Hamagu Village located in Shangri-La County, Di Qing Prefecture as the case for study.The paper introduces the contexts and general situation of community-based ecotourism development in Hamagu Village, delineates and discusses local CBET models, and then does a through quantitative and qualitative assessment and analysis of local residents' participation from three primary aspects, i.e., 1) community participation mechanism (including six subcategories of tourism planning, management strategies, environmental conservation, tourism management, income distribution and relevant training/education), 2) attitude of local residents' participation, and 3)factors affecting their participation.