Rural Tourism and New Township Development: A Study of Jiuzhou, Guizhou Province, China

Abstract

Peasantry is symbolic of China’s rural poverty, especially in mountainous provinces such as Guizhou. Recent public campaigns in China to modernize rural regions have much focused on organizing peasants to be urbanized, and engaged in higher value services, one of which is tourism. The paper has used Jiuzhou, a small township in Guizhou to examine its rural urbanization process through land value enhancement and human resource redeployment of local workforce. Jiuzhou’s proximity to the famous tourist site, Huangguoshu, and its easy access to a trans-province highway and its own heritage attractions have been an enabling power to raise its economic status. The study has found a close relationship between the urban-based tourism development and the pace of urbanization, and local tourism development has held back local residents to some extent from migrating out. Growth has generated greater demand for goods and services which in turn has stimulated higher levels of consumption pattern. Nevertheless, many state-run travel agencies were reported to be more dedicated to “image engineering” than market competition, and environmental conservation, the key for eco-tourism, has been somehow overlooked.