Rural tourism development perceived by involved local farmers: evidences from Gaochun County of China

ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the rural tourism development perceived by involved local farmers in China with a case study of Gaochun County. A total of 25 local famers were interviewed and 3 interviews were conducted on the employees from a major external tourism developing company. The text data transcribed from interviews were categorized and analyzed within the framework of the adaptive cycle. The findings indicate that becoming a Gaochun town is an external disturbance to the activation of system release and reorganization, and the subsequent support and tourism policies from the local government can be regarded as an improvement force that accelerates the system into the phase of exploitation and then into a new cycle. Secondly, rapid rural tourism development didn’t last for a long time before confronting bottlenecks at the crossing of development. Local farmers prefer to stay in the conservation phase in the form of tourism cooperatives, while the government prefers to push the system into the phase of release and reorganization again by attracting external companies to invest on and manage the tourism development without involving local farmers. Both the advantages and disadvantages of those different approaches, as well as management implications, were discussed.