Research On The Impact Of Government-led Poverty Alleviation Model On Rural Tourism Development

Poverty issue is a social and economic phenomena prevalent in all countries,which has posed a major threat to the ordinary life of impoverished people.Economic relief and preferential policy can only tide them over the economic straits in the short term instead of resolving the poverty issue at the source.As early as 1960s and 1970s,foreign scholars began to combine tourism and anti-poverty,which blazed a new trail of "eliminating(reducing)poverty via developing tourism".They also made a study of the series effect of tourism on regional economy,environment and culture.So far,the new trail has yielded more effective results than we expect either from the de facto effect of poverty alleviation in poor areas or from the overall impact in the process.Therefore,Tourism-based poverty alleviation has been considered by insiders as an effective way to enhance the ability of impoverished people and help them to shake off poverty to set on a road to prosperity.At present,the development of tourism-based poverty alleviation is in embryo and there is a long way to go before the ultimate goal come true.Under such circumstances,government’s participation,guidance and coordinated regulation are indispensable.Moreover,market economy itself,short of regulatory mechanism,needs to be regulated and intervened by the government.In developing tourism industry,the government should highlight key areas and guide category by category after an overall planning while taking effective political measures to establish operational mechanism compatible with market competition so that tourism industry will move forward in an in-depth and all-dimensional manner.In China’s southwest,remote mountainous region and border areas best represented by Yunnan province are home to abundant resources,varieties of ethnic culture,and geographically favorable natural landscape and stunning scenery.Developing tourism in those impoverished areas can give a full display of their resources and put them to the best use.Getting local residents involved in tourist services and turning them into the major players of the market and speeding up the development of tourist resources in those areas have not only met the needs of tourism development of Yunnan province but also been an important way to realize poverty alleviation.Taking three ethnic villages in Yunnan province as examples,the thesis explores the impact of government-oriented poverty alleviation on countryside tourism development.It turns out that government’s participation in tourism-based poverty alleviation has a remarkable influence on the four major factors of regional economy,society,environment and quality of the local residents.Meanwhile,the four major factors correspondingly impact the region’s infrastructure,industrial development,employment,economic income,reputation,community exchange,ethnic culture,noise disturbance,traffic congestion,life skills,environmental awareness,cultural relic preservation,ethnic solidarity and residents’ perception and living quality to a varying degree.Based on the findings,the thesis at last offers four proposals:increase input in tourism infrastructure to improve the environmental quality that local residents live in;intensify publicity and develop high-quality tourism products to highlight humanistic and cultural tourism resources;keep the core competitiveness and carry forward our national culture;preserve ecological environment and tourism resources.All these are aimed at providing new ideas for tourism-based poverty alleviation in countryside and providing a rudimentary theory for scholars in this aspect.