Tourism, development and poverty reduction in Guizhou and Yunnan

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 190, 2007, Pages 333-351

  Donaldson, John A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; ECONOMIC GROWTH; POVERTY ALLEVIATION; TOURISM;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; GUIZHOU; YUNNAN;

EID: 34547850490     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741007001221     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. This quotation's source, referenced without attribution in numerous sources such as World Tourism Organization, Tourism and Poverty Alleviation (World Tourism Organization, 2002), p. 22, is obscure.
2. In 1987, 122 million Chinese lived under China's low poverty line. World Bank, China: Overcoming Rural Poverty (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001).
3. This company is owned by Li Xiaopeng, son of former premier Li Peng, who took advantage of the privatization of ticket collection at the site. Locals, who argue that they maintained and improved the Upper Road themselves without any significant government or outside contribution, complain of not benefiting from ticket sales.
4. Local interviews. These observations might become irrelevant in a few years if Li Xiaopeng, owner of Huaneng Power, builds the hydroelectric dam planned for this area, which would flood the entire Tiger Leaping Gorge region, forcing the removal and repatriation of tens of thousands of local residents.
5. WTO, Tourism and Poverty Alleviation, p. 10.
6. Ibid. p. 12.
7. See M.T. Sinclair, "The tourism industry and foreign exchange leakages in a developing country: The distribution of earnings from safari and beach tourism in Kenya," in T. Sinclair and M. Stables (eds.), The Tourism Industry An International Analysis (1991)
8. C. Tisdell and K. Roy, Tourism and Development: Economic, Social, Political, and Environmental Issues (Commack, NY: Nova Science, 1998).
9. See Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt, Tourism and Sustainability: Development and New Tourism in the Third World (New York: Roudedge, 2nd ed., 2003)
10. Clement Allan Tisdell (ed.), Tourism Economics, the Environment and Development: Analysis and Policy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2001).
11. For summary of the development of China's tourism industry, see Tim Oakes, Tourism and Modernity in China (London: Routledge, 1998), esp. pp. 47-57
12. Julie Be Wen and Clement Allan Tisdell, Tourism and China's Development: Policies, Regional Economic Growth and Ecotourism (Singapore and River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 2001).
13. Wen and Tisdell, Tourism and China's Development.
14. According to the World Bank, Guizhou in 1991 performed poorly as measured both by its GNP/capita and by percentage of the population living below the international poverty line (59%, ranking 28th of 30). Moreover, between 1991 and 1996, its economy grow sluggishly, ranking 29th for growth between 1991 and 1996. However, Guizhou stood among the leaders (3rd of 30) in poverty reduction, its poverty rate dropping 31 percentage points, from 59% to 28%. By contrast, Yunnan ranked in 1991 25th of 30 in per capita GDP and 23rd in the proportion of the population below the international poverty line (44%). Although Yunnan's GDP growth rate ranked 13 between 1991 and 1996 - excellent for a southwestern province - the province ranked 29th in overall poverty change. World Bank, China. Overcoming Rural Poverty and Chinese statistics. Chinese official data taken in separate surveys support this observation. In 1992, average per capita net rural incomes of the poor counties of Yunnan and Guizhou were nearly identical. However, by 1995, the average annual per capita net rural income for Guizhou's poor counties exceeded that of Yunnan's, despite Yunnan's much higher overall growth rate.
15. Chinese tourists are difficult to count compared to overseas tourists, who are almost invariably asked for passports to register and until the mid-1990s used foreign exchange certificates instead of renminbi. That the statistics seem extraordinarily high reflects the fact that, especially before 1993, China's domestic tourism statistics included day visitors, even local families visiting a local site for the afternoon.
16. Yunnan Statistical Yearbook, various years.
17. Li Guoshe, Luyou yu jingji (Tourism and Economics) (Guiyang: Guizhou minzu chubanshe, 2001), p. 213.
18. Yunnan nianjian (Yunnan Yearbook), 1990, p. 364.
19. Yunnan Yearbook, 1993, p. 115.
20. Yunnan Yearbook, 1996, p. 255.
21. Ibid. pp. 16-18.
22. However, the Longgong caves, Guizhou's second most famous scenic spot, borders on a poor county.
23. Tourism at Fanjing mountain brought revenues of RMB 45.7 million to the poor county of Yinjiang within five years after it had been developed in 1990, amounting to 17% of the county's total production value, while sales of tourism commodities brought profits of RMB 620,000. Wang Shijie and Zhang Duanfa, Guizhou fanpinkun xitong gongcheng (Guizhou's Anti-Poverty System Project) (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 2003), p. 588.
24. Oakes, Tourism and Modernity, p. 177.
25. Ibid. pp. 159-66.
26. Wen and Tisdell, Touirism and China's Development, p. 246.
27. The number of tourist hotels in Yunnan increased from 47 (10 star-rated) in 1991 to 168 (82 star-rated, including six three-star and four four-star hotels). Moreover, between 1995 and 2000, Yunnan planned a three-star hotel for every prefecture capital, and starred hotels for each of its 128 counties.
28. Cited in Daniel Wright, The Promise of the Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), p. 139.
29. Zhongguo luyou nianjian bianjibu (ed.), Zhongguo luyou nianjian (China Tourism Yearbook) (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1996), p. 186.
30. Oakes for instance notes, "the majority of production occurs within village households on a contractual basis," and cites managers' estimates of 65-70% of production from contract producers (p. 153).
31. Guizhou's government did construct a 137-km highway to link Guiyang with Huangguoshu - its most significant highway project for tourism. By contrast, most of Yunnan's 3,458 km of high-grade highway links Kunming with the province's major tourism sites. In 1996, Guizhou's 12,948 km of graded highway was dwarfed by Yunnan's 62,936 km.
32. For more information on the tribulations experienced by China's rural migrants see Dorothy J. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban Chbw Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). In Shangri-la, for instance, one hostel owner, a young investor from Beijing, delayed paying her three migrant workers their monthly salary of RMB 300 for several weeks, while she gambled nightly with the adult children of local officials.
33. Oakes, Tourism and Modernity.
34. Guizhou nianjian bianjibu (ed.), Guizhou nianjian (Guizhou Yearbook (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1997), p. 589.
35. Oakes, Tourism and Modernity, pp. 126, 181.
36. Wang and Zhang, Guizhou's Anti-Poverty System Project.
37. The NRI of both types of counties increased much faster than that of Guizhou's average poor county (268%).
38. The earthquake, rating 7.0 on the Richter scale, killed 309 people, causing an estimated RMB 2.5 million in damage. The ancient buildings in the old city, built with traditional techniques, largely survived, unlike those in the newer areas of the city. Yunnan nianjian nianjibu (ed.), Yunnan nianjian (Yunnan Yearbook) (Beijing: China Statistics Press, various years).
39. UNESCO website: http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=811 (link valid as of January 2006).
40. Interviews with the officials from the Lijiang Old Town Protection Committee, local residents and people from the countryside surrounding Lijiang.
41. Lugu lake in Ninglang county, several hours drive north-east, is an exception.
42. Local interviews. For instance, one village in Heqing county in Dali prefecture to Lijiang's south makes most of the silver handicrafts found in Lijiang, as well as many of the silver handicrafts found in many minority areas throughout south-west China.
43. Ben Hillman, "Paradise under construction: Minorities, myths and modernity in northwest Yunnan," Asian Ethnicity, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2003), pp. 175-88.
44. Generally, it is more difficult for poor people to sell factory-produced goods from stalls, which require capital and know-how to manage, compared to making traditional handicrafts at home and selling them either to tourists directly or on contract to distributors, as they often are in Guizhou.
45. Yunnan Statistical Yearbook, 2002; local interviews.
46. Local interviews.
47. Oakes, Tourism and Modernity, especially pp. 193-206.
48. Ibid. especially p. 180.
49. According to Oakes, CITS initially paid RMB 40-50 per group, which soon increased to RMB 150, before reaching RMB 320 by 1994. He also notes that by 1993, two-thirds of household incomes in the village came from tourism. This is also consistent with another estimate of RMB 300 per capita income from tourism in 1996. See also Wang and Zhang, Guizhou's Anti-Poverty System Project.
50. Local interviews. One mu = 0.16 acre.
51. Among the poorest counties in Guizhou, Weining ranks 63 of 87 counties for not rural income in 1995. Information in this section comes from local interviews, unless otherwise specified.
52. Melinda Heffold-Menzies, "Caohai nature reserve and infrastructure development: Why the impacts of a nature reserves infrastructure projects apparently outweigh those of China's western development project," paper presented at International Studies Association, Honolulu, 2005.