Lifestyle, profit, and the selling of home to tourists in Lijiang, China

Abstract

Home, as a site of daily dwelling and a set of meanings, offers a way into studying the relationship between lifestyle and profit in tourist destinations. Situated in the context of lifestyle entrepreneurship, we explore the synergy of lifestyle and profit within the space of tourism production. Using Lijiang Old Town, China, as a study case, we have two objectives. First, we examine how lifestyle entrepreneurs make lifestyles for themselves as well as for their tourist customers in Lijiang. Second, we analyze the strategies by lifestyle entrepreneurs to achieve the balance between lifestyle and profit. We find that the selling of home to tourists in guesthouses facilitates the process of capital accumulation, a process that sustains entrepreneurs’ pursuit of lifestyle and production of experience economy in Lijiang. We argue that the synergy of profit and lifestyle shapes the role of hospitality from basic supply of temporary residence to meaningful zones of sentimental care, defining and installing home-related elements into the space of tourism consumption. It also means connecting these elements to the commodification of home, as a sense of home becomes a selling point in the tourism market and facilitates the logic of profit making.