Analysis on the Subjective Willingness of Public Participation in the Scenic Villages’ Construction and Its Related Factors

Abstract

The construction of scenic villages can not be done without the active participation of the local residents and it is of great significance to analyse the residents’ participation willingness and its related factors. On the basis of drawing experience from the present research results, we, through house-to-house questionnaire surveys and sampling interviews, survey residents in five villages of Hangzhou city about their willingness to participate in the construction of scenic villages themselves, participation paths and their attitudes toward external participation, and adopt the methods, such as exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA), to verify three hypotheses(H1, H2, H3). The study finds that: (1) the general participation willingness of village residents is comparatively high, but the participation willingness degrees of different village groups are quite different. According to the degree of participation willingness, the sequence from high to low is: village cadres > farmhouse and rural lodging operators > college village officials > staffs employed in the village enterprises > ordinary villagers > resident cadres. (2) There are relatively big differences among the villagers’ recognition degrees of different participation routes in the construction of scenic villages. The highest difference significance of the correlation is the multi-family joint loans (1.160). The lowest is to publicize, encourage and actively promote the construction of scenic villages (0.936). (3) The verification results are in favor of three hypotheses that the resident identity of the villagers has a significant impact on their willingness to participate, the path of participation, and their attitudes towards the external participation. According to the research results, the following suggestions are made: improve the awareness of the related subjects, especially the villagers by increasing the publicity; take measures to attract the active participation of the new business entities; open up the input channels to motivate the villagers; improve the public participation degree of the scenic villages’ construction by coordinating the relation among investment subjects and guaranteeing the villager’ interests etc.