Study On The Sustainable Development Of Xitang Tourism

With the development of economy and the improvement of livingstandard, demands of tourism consumption grow rapidly, tourism isunceasingly rich, and market activity is also continuously promotedtourism has become the first largest industry of the world as well as thestrategic pillar industry in China To tourism, the ancient town tourism isan important component. It has become one of the fastest developing andmost popular traveling spot in recent years.Xitang is the one of sixancient towns in South of China, called the living ancient town, which isfamous for the groups of simple old architecture, the strong wateryatmosphere, the well-preserved original shape, and the unchanged traditional custom of local habitants so that it has become a well-knowntourism destination.However, with the rapid development of tourismindustry, Xitang is confronted with severe realistic impacts andchallenges, such as the over number of tourists, the atmosphere of overbusiness, the deterioration of environment and so on, which graduallymakes the quiet, simple and elegant ancient town lose its orginal nature.Furthermore, the sustainable development of Xitang is faced with theunprecedented challenges.The text reviewed and summarized thedevelopmental process of Xitang’s history, the brief introduction to themain tourism resources, the road of protection and discovery since1990s,the significance of tourism to the Xitang’s development. By two researchmeans of questionnaire and personal interview, it makes depth of exampleanalysis of Xitang’s tourism and points out the existed issues ofprotection and discovery of Xitang tourism, which the text combine withXitang situation to put forward the strategic advice of the sustainabledevelopment of Xitang tourism so that the expected mode of sustainabledevelopment of ancient town tourism, especially one in the south ofChina, can be possible.The article consists of five parts. The first chapter, the introduction,introduces research background and significance of the article, the statusof researches on ancient town tourism both at home and abroad as well asthe research contents and methods. The second part defines ancient towns and illustrates the theory of sustainable development and relatedsupporting theories. The third part, adopting the method of logisticregression and descriptive statistical method, focuses on the sustainabledevelopment of Xitang adopting empirical analysis based on a look intothe developing process of Xitang’s history, brief introduction to tourismresources, and the road of protection and discovery as well. The part alsoinvolves questionnaire survey on tourists’ satisfaction to seek the relatedsignificant factors, and covers the personal interviews. The fourth partanalyses some examples of Xitang tourism pointing out its existing issuesand making the SWOT analysis of its advantages and disadvantages,opportunities and challenges. The fifth part combines the developmentalsituation of Xitang tourism with the previous analysis putting forward thestrategic advice of the sustainable development of Xitang tourism.