A Study On Driving Mechanism Of Rural Tourism From The Perspective Of Adaptive Agents

Rural tourism is a new way of tourism for urban residents to escape the pressure of living and seek the healing of mind. It has its own advantages, such as short traffic distance, less time-consuming and low cost, and also has social functions to promote the rural economic development, narrow the gap between urban and rural area. There is a total of 440 rural tourism resource places in Hainan, which is in a advantageous location and in a distinctive aspect of tropical seaside scenery. With support from the Government, the development of rural tourism has become an important measure of the construction of the International Tourism Island. On the other hand, in the process of rapid development of rural tourism, it is also facing the problem of weak foundation, low planning level, and lacking of subsequently power. To clarify the fundamental driving force and its operation rules of rural tourism development, the driving mechanism of rural tourism should be researched, and suggestions to promote the sustainable development of rural tourism in Hainan would be made.Academic study of rural tourism mainly focuses on planning and development, marketing and management, sustainable development, there is a few research findings about driving mechanism of rural tourism. Moreover, most of them have been repeating on the same perspective such as system driving mechanism and push-pull driving mechanism. Based on a review of related literature and relevant theory, the adaptive agents of rural tourism which is a complex adaptive system are determined to be the new entry point.According to the Complex Adaptive System Theory, the basic reason of system’s evolution and development is the initiative of the members of the system; the law of the unity of opposites points out that the inner contradiction of things is the fundamental cause of their development. Through system analysis, a conclusion can be drawn that the radical driving force of rural tourism system comes from the system’s members-the initiative of adaptive agents, which include rural tourists, rural tourism industry, residents in the rural community and rural tourism destination government. Using the method of contradiction analysis, the elementary cause of the development of adaptive agents is the basic contradictions of its own internal. Therefore, the basic contradictions in the activities of rural tourists, rural tourism industry, rural community residents and rural tourism destination governments are the essential driving force for rural tourism development. According to the structural relationships between the basic contradiction of these adaptive agents, the driving mechanism of rural tourism could be built with the integrated cooperative operation process and the hierarchical ascended operation process.After reviewing the literature and combining with the actual development situation of rural tourism in Hainan, the evaluation index system of Hainan rural tourism driven mechanism has been established with the four main adaptive agents of rural tourism system as the factor layer which includes 18 indicators. Getting data about the development of rural tourism in 10 cities and counties of Hainan in 2013 from Hainan statistical yearbook. Application the theorem of factor analysis and cluster analysis in SPSS 20.0, results show that the four main driving factors are the scale of rural areas, the economic foundation, the tourism development and the investment of government; in accordance with the scores of driving force from high to low, the order of rural tourism in 10 cities and counties in Hainan is Haikou, Qionghai, Chengmai, Wanning, Dongfang, Sanya, Changjiang, Lingshui, Qiongzhong, Wuzhishan; the main driving modes are the economic foundation driven mode in Haikou, the tourism development driven mode in Sanya, the country scale driven mode taking Qionghai as a typical and the combined driven mode with the four main factors.Optimization recommendations have been proposed to improve the driving mechanism of Hainan rural tourism according to the different types of driving mode. The long-term development of rural tourism need to rely on the comprehensive force of local government, community residents, rural tourists and tourism industry. The various adaptive agents of Hainan rural tourism should give full play to its adaptability, resolve their inner contradictions, promote the sustainable development of Hainan rural tourism.