Ethnic minority tourism in China – Han perspectives of Tuva figures in a landscape
Highlights
► A study of Han tourist perspectives on ethnic minority based tourism in China. ► Empirical evidence derived from 650 respondents. ► Includes psychographic profiles based on cluster analysis. ► Locates the nature of the gazed upon with a Chinese landscape. ► Notes Chinese understandings of landscape.
Introduction
A significant literature exists about tourism centred on the culture of ethnic minority peoples (e.g. Butler & Hinch, 2007; Robinson & Boniface, 1999; Ryan & Aicken, 2005; Zeppel, 2006) and a number of themes have been identified. Tourism has both been seen as a source of cultural commodification, and as an agent of modernisation as minorities grapple with denying, selecting or succumbing to different value systems dominated by western cultures based on market practices. Tourists interested in indigenous peoples' cultures have also been identified by socio-demographics (Chang, 2006), levels of interest (McKercher & du Cros, 2002; Moscardo & Pearce, 1998) and benefits sought (Yang, Wall, & Smith, 2006). Economic benefits have been noted (Scheyvens, 1999) and tourism has been credited with the rediscovery of cultural practices (Craik, 1995; Dyer, Aberdeen, & Schuler, 2003). The political consequences of indigenous tourism have also been commented upon by writers such as Ryan, Chang, and Huan (2007), who argue that it permits minority peoples to enter the mainstream of economic and political life within a country.
With reference to research on indigenous tourism, the literature has tended to be dominated by two features. The first is that a significant proportion of it has been quantitative in nature, based often on questionnaires self-completed by visitors. Second, in much of this literature the position that has been described has been one where tourists from a predominantly western culture have gazed upon peoples described as an ‘exotic other’ (Yang, 2011) – a gaze informed by the tourists' own cultural traditions which have included those of the ‘noble savage’ and possibly a feeling that societies based in pre-industrial patterns of life have retained values lost to their modern and post-modern contemporaries (Robinson & Boniface, 1999). There is, in the English language literature, less written about how the newly enriched Han tourists of China regard tourism product based upon Chinese ethnic minorities, or how those minorities respond. This study presents findings from an empirical study of Han visitors to the Kanas Scenic Area of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It provides evidence to support the contention of McKercher and du Cros (2002) that few tourists are purposefully seeking a cultural experience, but does so in a very different context and form of data set. McKercher and du Cros (2002) were studying visitors to Hong Kong and used data derived from a sample of 2066 international tourists departing from Hong Kong International Airport. This study is based upon a rural setting far from significant urban centres of population. The nature of tourism in the villages of the Kanas has been described by Wang, Yang, Chen, Yang, and Li (2010). The tourists are primarily accommodated in hotel resort complexes from which a series of day trip activities are organised, primarily to scenic areas, but also to small villages occupied by Tuva and Kazakh peoples. These day trips are thus dominated by package tours, but free independent travellers are also present as revealed by observation and survey data. The data were collected by the first author during the summer tourist season of May to September while she was living throughout the year for her PhD study. The total sample shown in Table 1 comprised of 650 useable responses representing 93 per cent of those approached.
The research questions are:
- a)
To what extent is the culture of local minority people important as a motive for Han tourists visiting Kanas Scenic Area?
- b)
To what extent is there an interaction between visitors and local minority peoples in Kanas Scenic Area?
- c)
To what extent does that interaction contribute to the visitor evaluation of their visit to Kanas Scenic Area?
- d)
What conclusions may be drawn from this example of the nature of tourism based on the culture of minority peoples in China?
Section snippets
Literature review
According to Yang (2007), with the growth of ethnic tourism in recent years, the category of tourists to pertinent sites has expanded from a limited number of visitors motivated by curiosity and elite peer approval (Smith, 1977) to become a highly complex classification within tourism studies. She observes that they are no longer solely a tourist who travels to observe the exotic cultural expressions and life-styles of ethnic peoples in remote villages, but the categorisation of ethnic tourism
The research location
As described in the next section of this paper, the research questions and conceptualisation previously referred to and stated below emanated from not only from the literature but also observations and experiences gained by the first researcher as she conducted her ethnographic study by living in the region. In that sense, as in any study requiring immersion in a place, the researcher's ‘lived in’ experience both informs and limits a study – it informs by providing rich data and insight even
Research method
While there are a number of studies of tourism destination attractiveness, including those relating to China such as Yan and Bramwell's (2008), many relate to physical and human attributes that are general in nature (e.g. Ritchie & Crouch, 2000, 2003; Song, 2008; Zhang, 2003). In this instance the focus of the study lay with the role of cultural tourism with reference to minority peoples in a specific location, and thus the attributes of Kanas were of prime importance. Consequently in designing
Findings
The sample comprised 650 respondents of whom 46.6% self-described themselves as independent tourists while the remainder were part of tour groups. With respect to gender 57% were male and the remainder female. The sample characteristics are shown in Table 2.
The respondents were also asked to describe their holiday in their own words, and of those responding 200 stated they wished to relax, to enjoy their leisure and simply have a holiday while 229 stated they wished to go sightseeing, while a
Discussion
The purpose of this paper was to assess the importance of the minority peoples of the Kanas Regions as both a source of attractiveness to tourists and as a contributory factor to the satisfaction derived from holidays. One obvious finding is that while the destination is in part marketed to the Han market on the basis of the minority peoples and their culture, that culture is not a primary motive for holidaying in Kanas for the majority of the respondents. Indeed, given that the major image
Conclusions
It is evident that in the Kanas Scenic Area the major attraction remains the aesthetic and landscape values of the region in spite of area being the home to a specific minority people that are referred to in the marketing and promotion of tourism, and who are seen as a potential set of beneficiaries as a result of the economic impacts of tourism. These tourist attractions are supported by a good grade of accommodation, the infrastructure of tour operators and tour guides, and a range of
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant titled 2010 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad from China Scholarship Council (to Yang Jingjing) (No. 2010-409).
Thanks go to Lecturer Yao Juan and her several students from Xinjiang Agricultural University for their help on questionnaire distribution.
Dr Jingjing Yang lectures at School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the University of Surrey (UK), having completed degrees at Beijing International Studies University (China) and University of Waikato (New Zealand). She previously worked in China CYTS Tours Holding Co., Ltd. from 2006 to 2009. She then returned back to academia and was an award winner from the Chinese Scholarship Council while undertaking her doctoral studies.
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Dr Jingjing Yang lectures at School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the University of Surrey (UK), having completed degrees at Beijing International Studies University (China) and University of Waikato (New Zealand). She previously worked in China CYTS Tours Holding Co., Ltd. from 2006 to 2009. She then returned back to academia and was an award winner from the Chinese Scholarship Council while undertaking her doctoral studies.
Professor Chris Ryan lectures at the University of Waikato, having completed his degrees at the University of London, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham University and the Aston School of Business at Aston University in Birmingham. He is an elected Fellow of the International Academy of Tourism.
Professor Lingyun Zhang is Executive Chief Editor of Tourism Tribune, the top academic journal in tourism in Chinese language. He currently serves as the Executive Deputy Dean of Tourism Institute, Beijing Union University. His former position was Dean of the Research Institute of Tourism Development, Beijing International Studies University, China.