Regional-scale analysis on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in sustainable development of Shangri-La County

Abstract

Shangri-La County is one of the three counties in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (DTAP), Yunnan Province, China, where rich natural resources intersect with tremendous ethnic, cultural, religious, and lingual diversities. Its sustainable development depends on the sustainability of the entire DTAP. Therefore, it is important to analyze the factors that influence DTAP’s sustainable development. In this paper, we evaluated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in the sustainable development of DTAP. The results show that economic development of Shangri-La County is determined mainly with comprehensive development of tourism, and beautiful natural scenery and rich ethnic cultures are the critical drivers of tourism development in the county. Vigorously, development that integrates tourism and combines with concerns over sustainability and conservation of ethnic cultures is the best approach to sustainable development of Shangri-La County. To assure the success of this approach, we proposed a number of strategic measures, such as promoting the development of ecotourism and protection of ethnic culture.