Research on the Mechanism and Evolving Path of Community Empowerment in Cultural Heritage Sites

Abstract

Under government-led tourism development model, the traditional cultural communities have problems of inadequate and uneven development of tourism empowerment. Based on the theories of four-type power and the core-periphery tourism destination theory six tourism communities of a mature cultural tourist destination - Wudang Mountain - were investigated to explore the development status of empowerment problems. To explore the mechanism and evolution path of community tourism empowerment in mature cultural heritage sites as well as figure out the roles played by local government, tourism enterprises, local elites and tourists. This paper proposes an improvement strategy for the empowerment promotion of cultural heritage sites. Research indicates that: (1) In terms of community disempowerment dimension, the government is the highlight stakeholder of influence and the local elite is the second remarkable stakeholder of it. (2) Regarding the passive community empowerment, government is the most remarkable stakeholder. (3) In terms of community self-empowerment and psychological dimension, there is a significant difference in community location; the empowerment development in peripheral areas is more significant than in core and transition areas. (4) In the aspect of the residents' overall tourism satisfaction, the transition area has the lowest satisfaction level and the highest level of tourism-support. The core and peripheral areas show opposite results. (5) Among four dimensions of community tourism empowerment, the passive empowerment has the most significant impact on the residents. The conclusion of the study is that the development path of empowerment in China's cultural heritage sites should be based on the government-led background, focusing on the community’s development of self-enhancement, differentiation of community space and groups as well as proposing targeted enhancement strategies based on their own character.