The Impacts of Tourism on Traditional Villages: A Case Study of Mt.Qiyun,Anhui Province

This paper was conducted in Qiyun Mountain,Xiuning County,Anhui Province,during October 2010.The study represents an intermediate stage of a five-year project.Mt.Qiyun is a religious Taoism site for the faithful,a heritage site for those interested in Chinese heritage and a tourist site for the simply curious.This paper attempts to examine tourism impacts from residents' perceptions in Mt.Qiyun area,especially for social-cultural impacts of tourism.It also investigates the residents' attitudes toward Qiyun tourism and local tourism authority.The researchers found that there was very little information and research into the subject of residents' perceptions and attitudes toward local tourism destinations in China,especially,in remote areas and places which are still at the initial stage of tourism life cycle.A lot of the prior studies focused on Western societies.Thus,the authors want to conduct this study in Mt.Qiyun to better understand residents' perceptions of tourism impacts,as well as their attitudes toward tourism development in the study area.This paper adopts mixed methods to collect data,mainly including participant observation,photography,in-depth semi-structure interviews,and questionnaire surveys with local residents.Other secondary data were collected by evaluating official documents,printed tourism promotional materials,and past research results on Mt.Qiyun.Analysis of the interviews was based on thematic analysis method and Cat-Pac method,while analysis of survey questionnaires was aided by SPSS 17.0. Form a theoretical perceptive,this thesis contributes to the body of literature on tourism impacts in a community.It provides some evidence that it is possible to find that tourism can generate income for local residents by creating employment opportunities,diversifying sources of family income,and then improving the quality of life.Finally this study contributes to the area of tourism literature in relation to social-cultural impacts.It shows that tourism is likely to bring significant social-cultural impacts to local villagers such as seeing different people from all over the world,knowing new things,affecting residents' values in daily life,cultural exchange,improving basic facilities in a village,and improving the social status of women.