Title: Tourism development in China since 1949: a regime perspective

Authors: Lingling Bi; Dominique Vanneste; Jan Van Der Borg

Addresses: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E Box 2409, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; School of Tourism and Research Institute of Human Geography, Xi'an International Studies University, No. 1 South Wenyuan Road Box 75, 710128 Xi'an, China ' Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E Box 2409, 3000 Leuven, Belgium ' Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E Box 2409, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Economics, University of Venice, San Giobbe 873, 20123 Venice, Italy

Abstract: The People's Republic of China has experienced great economic, political and socio-cultural changes since its founding in 1949, which in turn have considerably impacted every aspect of the Chinese society. Adopting a regime perspective, the paper discusses China's tourism development against these backdrops, with an aim to disentangle the relation between tourism development and the broader context. In the light of the heritage-tourism-urban development strategy today, a special attention is given to tourism's (non)interaction with heritage and urban development, to examine the impact of the (lack of) internal dynamics on their development paths. In its attempt to answer the questions of 'why' and 'what' in China's tourism development, the paper aims to provide a panoramic view of the topic and the unique dialogism among tourism development, heritage conservation and urban development that underlines the appropriation and practice of tourism and heritage in contemporary China.

Keywords: tourism development; China; regimes; heritage conservation; urban development; transformation; governance; tourism policy; socialist market economy; economic development; harmonious society; cultural heritage; political economy; politics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTP.2016.081529

International Journal of Tourism Policy, 2016 Vol.6 No.3/4, pp.321 - 340

Received: 03 Nov 2015
Accepted: 11 Jun 2016
Published online: 11 Jan 2017 *

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