With the rapid development of tourism, the possibility of habitability and traditional culture and life of most traditional villages in China are rapidly disappearing. In this paper, we selected 11 villages located in Guanzhong Area of Shaanxi Province as research subjects, which had been registered into “Chinese Traditional villages” list until 2015. These villages have a long history and are developing into tourism destination recently. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the sustainable way of preservation by comparing the characteristics and issues between Present Situation and Future Plan/Concept of each village.
In the Chapter two, we classified the village into four types as I [Living-oriented], II [Living (main) & tourism], III [Tourism (main) & living] and IV [Excessive tourism] based on classification variables(Actual Situation) which are 1) the relationship between the old village and the new village, 2) the number of yearly tourists, 3) the occupation involvement, 4) the time/distance to the city, 5) the value of cultural heritage of village. After the classification, they are figured out based on the characteristics and issues of each type. We found that nine villages developed the old village based on tourism function except for two villages of type I, and the present situation of tourism development was influenced greatly by the time/distance to the city and the value of cultural heritage of the village.
In the Chapter three, we classified four types as I.' [Living-oriented], II.' [Living (main) & tourism], III.' [Tourism (main) & living] and IV.' [Excessive tourism] based on classification variables (Future Plan/Concept), and analyzed the transition types from <Present situation> to <future plan>, then figured out characteristics and issues of each type. Regarding the habitation in the future plan, it can be seen that these villages not only have the advantage on the convenience of commuting to school and city but also reconstruct traditional industry and create employment opportunities by attracting companies. On the other hand, regarding the tourism in the future plan, there are many specific contents about the relationship between the old village and the new village which are the migration plan from the old village to the new village, and development of lodging facilities both in old village and new village.
In addition, we found that there are three villages that kept the present type, seven villages had trend to develop tourism-oriented, and one village returned to the main habitability from the tourism-oriented. Villages which focus on strengthening tourism, the tourism development consciousness of acceptance for administrative and local residents are strong, but it does mean that these villages have a high value of cultural heritage. Moreover, the villages which focused on sustainable habitation for the future plan have definitely taken into consideration the convenience of commuting to school and city, the individual system of repairing and landscaping historic buildings, and investment promotion and job creation. It indicates that these villages have characteristics of high self-governing capabilities compared with other villages which are led relatively by the local government.
