Study On Communities Empowerment In Island Tourism Development

With the new boom of marine tourism, many islands of China start to developisland tourism. Since the ecosystem of island is very unique, the sustainabledevelopment issue becomes more important and community residents cannot beignored in tourism development. However, most islands of China are in the low levelof community participation. The community residents are at a disadvantage. One ofthe main reasons is that they don’t have enough power. It is necessary to empowercommunity residents. Therefore, from the perspective of empowerment theory, thisstudy explores issues of community participation in island tourism development.First of all, the author reviews and summarizes the past literature, in order to get thecommon characteristics and research inspiration. Secondly, the paper studies aboutcommunity participation and community empowerment in Techeng Island ofZhanjinag, Guangdong Province. The empirical analysis indicates that it provides anexample of economic empowerment, social empowerment and psychologicalempowerment. Then, from the perspective of stakeholders and the macro-factors,explores the path of community empowerment in island tourism development. Finally,the paper builds a community empowerment model for island tourism development.This study is significant in theory and in practice.