It is a decade since mass tourism arrived in the picturesque northwest Yunnan towns of Dali, Lijiang and Zhongdian. But what of the villages and townships that some more adventurous tourists are beginning to visit? Julie Perng visits four communities that hope to embrace tourists without being overwhelmed by them.
In 2006, total receipts from tourism in Yunnan Province reached CNY 49.97 billion (USD 6.2 billion), almost 90% of which came from Chinese tourists. Receipts were up 16.7% on the previous year, and accounted for 12.5% of the provincial GDP. The tourism industry is clearly flourishing in one of China’s most ethnically, geographically, and biologically diverse provinces.
The industry in Yunnan has until now been dominated by a mix of government entities and business investors from outside the most visited areas. However, there is now growing interest in using eco-tourism (shengtai luyou, 生态旅游) to stimulate local, rural economies.
Eco-tourism is a grand term, often misused and misunderstood. Although there is no fixed definition, most scholars and practitioners agree on a few broad guidelines. Eco-tourism should be community based, allowing local people to take responsibility for local developments, gaining the benefits of tourism while protecting their culture and environment. Because the community takes the lead in planning and management, it can use its own resources and set its own regulations. It is often argued that in the long-term eco-tourism can help the community’s sustainable development.
When considering the development of rural eco-tourism, many Yunnan people feel that maintaining culture is at least as important as maintaining the environment. Tiger Xia (夏山虎), manager of the Shangrila Deqing Holyland Travel Service Adventure Tour Centre, enjoys taking tourists to remote areas that offer cultural interaction. Currently, only ten percent of his customers request eco-tourist sites, and the Centre provides around eight loosely-defined eco-tourist options, all located in Diqing (迪庆) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
In Xia’s opinion, too much tourist development in a village, even in the name of eco-tourism, crowds out local culture, making it less accessible even to well-meaning visitors. He also points to a triangular conflict between local development, tourism and cultural preservation: as villagers grow richer they start building non-traditional houses, dressing in less traditional ways, etc, and this tends to push tourists further afield, looking for more “primitive” destinations.
Lu Yuan (路元), co-director of a recently-formed NGO, the Yunnan Centre for Cultural Learning and Development (云南三元文化传承发展中心), is keen to promote greater understanding of Yunnan’s diverse cultures. “Eco-tourism should not just protect the environment better, but should also improve the connections between city and rural people,” she says.
Yet she warns that rural villages should not follow in the path of major tourists spots in northwest Yunnan, such as the Old Town of Lijiang (丽江), located in the prefecture of the same name. In the past ten years, the number of tourists to this UNESCO World Heritage Site has exploded, and few businesses are run by locals, according to Keith Lyons, who trains Naxi tour guides. He estimates that forty to sixty percent of original residents have already moved out.
This report briefly investigates four sites in northwest Yunnan, chosen for their diversity in terms of livelihoods, local cultures, numbers of tourists and differing experience of eco-toursim.
There are some clear patterns. For example, during the three national holidays—October 1 (National Day), Chinese New Year and May 1 (Labour Day)—the sites are essentially overwhelmed, sometimes causing too much pressure not only on tourist services, but also on water, electricity, and gas. None of the sites has seen much government investment in eco-tourism, nor do they have much control over their own land or landmarks. Local governments are certainly keen to promote economic development and they do offer support in areas such as tourism project management. But they also place a strong emphasis on profitability and prefer schemes with a high rate of return. As a result of government interventions and the drive to maximise profits, the villages described here may never be able to sustain a true “eco-tourist” label. Nevertheless, individuals and groups in all of these sites are working to realise their own notion of eco-tourism.
Shaxi
Shaxi Township, Jianchuan County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture (大理白族自治州剑川县沙溪镇)
Beginning in the Tang Dynasty the Southwest China Silk Road, also known as the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Trail (茶马古道), wound through Yunnan and Sichuan to Tibet and India. Different ethnic groups, among them Tibetan, Bai, and Hui, traded goods such as tea, horses, and salt. One of the major stop-off points along this route was located within Shaxi Township.
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