Comparative Study on the Sustainable Livelihood of Ethnic Tourism Villages in China

Abstract

The China tourism development in ethnic villages has promoted the transition of family livelihood models to tourism business activities, and different governance models at destinations have different impacts on livelihood transformation, which has raised concerns about how to achieve sustainable livelihood issues. From the perspective of governance model, this research focuses on the two models of "Government-oriented" and "Enterprise-oriented" in the development of ethnic village tourism, compares the outcomes of sustainable livelihoods under different governance models based on two ethnic villages cases. The paper explained the specific process of governance modes acting on livelihood changes, refined the internal impact of governance models on sustainable livelihoods, and to further understand the relationship between tourism development and sustainable livelihoods. The research results show that: Firstly, from the results of the sustainable livelihood analysis of the cases, the performance of the Jinglai 'Enterprise-oriented' governance model is better than the Hansha 'Government-oriented'. Secondly, different elements arrangement of the tourism governance models could result in different sustainable livelihood outcomes. Thirdly, the governance models influence livelihood sustainable outcomes through internal mechanisms such as market economic effects, government policy support, and land use patterns.