Cultivation and Composition of Commercial Tourism Zones in Yunnan, China

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/rn301205b

Abstract

This thesis examines the composition and cultivation of commercial tourism zones in Yunnan, China. I identify expectations tourists bring to their travels, and how receiving communities meet and transform those expectations, based on fieldwork in five receiving communities. I argue tourists have three primary motivations in touring to Yunnan: pursuit of the exotic, the natural world, and personal freedom. I situate this argument within three academic literatures: the scholarship on tourism in China, Chinese ethnic minorities, and the anthropology of tourism. I break the actors in Yunnan’s commercial tourism zones into four artificial categories of on-location actors: local residents, Han or ethnic minority migrants, foreign expatriates, and tourists. Commercial tourism zones such as Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La, Shaxi and Xizhou form not only as a response to tourists’ desires but also as a result of municipal policies, and individual cultivation of tourism. I conclude by suggesting analysts can and should consider local resident participation in tourism cultivation when assessing the efficacy of tourism in poor regions as a tool for poverty alleviation.

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