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Drivers and Socioeconomic Impacts of Tourism Participation in Protected Areas

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  • Wei Liu
  • Christine A Vogt
  • Junyan Luo
  • Guangming He
  • Kenneth A Frank
  • Jianguo Liu

Abstract

Nature-based tourism has the potential to enhance global biodiversity conservation by providing alternative livelihood strategies for local people, which may alleviate poverty in and around protected areas. Despite the popularity of the concept of nature-based tourism as an integrated conservation and development tool, empirical research on its actual socioeconomic benefits, on the distributional pattern of these benefits, and on its direct driving factors is lacking, because relevant long-term data are rarely available. In a multi-year study in Wolong Nature Reserve, China, we followed a representative sample of 220 local households from 1999 to 2007 to investigate the diverse benefits that these households received from recent development of nature-based tourism in the area. Within eight years, the number of households directly participating in tourism activities increased from nine to sixty. In addition, about two-thirds of the other households received indirect financial benefits from tourism. We constructed an empirical household economic model to identify the factors that led to household-level participation in tourism. The results reveal the effects of local households' livelihood assets (i.e., financial, human, natural, physical, and social capitals) on the likelihood to participate directly in tourism. In general, households with greater financial (e.g., income), physical (e.g., access to key tourism sites), human (e.g., education), and social (e.g., kinship with local government officials) capitals and less natural capital (e.g., cropland) were more likely to participate in tourism activities. We found that residents in households participating in tourism tended to perceive more non-financial benefits in addition to more negative environmental impacts of tourism compared with households not participating in tourism. These findings suggest that socioeconomic impact analysis and change monitoring should be included in nature-based tourism management systems for long-term sustainability of protected areas.

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  • Wei Liu & Christine A Vogt & Junyan Luo & Guangming He & Kenneth A Frank & Jianguo Liu, 2012. "Drivers and Socioeconomic Impacts of Tourism Participation in Protected Areas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0035420
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035420
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    4. Parvaneh Sobhani & Hassan Esmaeilzadeh & Seyed Mohammad Moein Sadeghi & Marina Viorela Marcu, 2022. "Estimation of Ecotourism Carrying Capacity for Sustainable Development of Protected Areas in Iran," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-19, January.
    5. Peiying Dang & Linjing Ren & Jie Li, 2024. "Does rural tourism reduce relative poverty? Evidence from household surveys in western China," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(2), pages 498-521, March.
    6. Sheng, Jichuan & Qiu, Hong & Zhang, Sanfeng, 2019. "Opportunity cost, income structure, and energy structure for landholders participating in payments for ecosystem services: Evidence from Wolong National Nature Reserve, China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 230-238.
    7. Wei Shui & Yiyi Zhang & Xinggui Wang & Yuanmeng Liu & Qianfeng Wang & Fei Duan & Chaowei Wu & Wanyu Shui, 2022. "Does Tibetan Household Livelihood Capital Enhance Tourism Participation Sustainability? Evidence from China’s Jiaju Tibetan Village," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-15, July.
    8. Azzurra Rinaldi & Irene Salerno, 2020. "The tourism gender gap and its potential impact on the development of the emerging countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(5), pages 1465-1477, December.
    9. Heloise Michelle Nunes Medeiros & Quêzia Leandro de Moura Guerreiro & Thiago Almeida Vieira & Sandra Maria Sousa da Silva & Ana Isabel da Silva Aço Renda & José Max Barbosa Oliveira-Junior, 2021. "Alternative Tourism and Environmental Impacts: Perception of Residents of an Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazonia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-29, February.
    10. Chung, Min Gon & Dietz, Thomas & Liu, Jianguo, 2018. "Global relationships between biodiversity and nature-based tourism in protected areas," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(PA), pages 11-23.
    11. Sheng, Jichuan & Wang, Hui, 2022. "Participation, income growth and poverty alleviation in payments for ecosystem services: The case of China's Wolong Nature Reserve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    12. Bing Yu & Linan Chen, 2020. "Interventional Impacts of Watershed Ecological Compensation on Regional Economic Differences: Evidence from Xin’an River, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-13, September.
    13. Mulia, Edison & Meng, Ting & Florkowski, Wojciech J., 2022. "Ecotourism Service Provision And Incomes Of Rural Households: The Case Of Beijing In China," Roczniki (Annals), Polish Association of Agricultural Economists and Agribusiness - Stowarzyszenie Ekonomistow Rolnictwa e Agrobiznesu (SERiA), vol. 2022(3).
    14. Antonio Luis Díaz-Aguilar & Javier Escalera-Reyes, 2020. "Family Relations and Socio-Ecological Resilience within Locally-Based Tourism: The Case of El Castillo (Nicaragua)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-26, July.
    15. Peiying Dang & Linjing Ren & Jie Li, 2022. "Livelihood Resilience or Policy Attraction? Factors Determining Households’ Willingness to Participate in Rural Tourism in Western China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Min Gon Chung & Tao Pan & Xintong Zou & Jianguo Liu, 2018. "Complex Interrelationships between Ecosystem Services Supply and Tourism Demand: General Framework and Evidence from the Origin of Three Asian Rivers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Jakaria Dasan & Fatimah Ahmedy & Shamezah Shamsul & Elia Godoong & Coswald Stephen Sipaut & Mohammad Saffree Jeffree, 2022. "Post-COVID-19 Challenges for a Sustainable Community-Based Ecotourism: A Case Study of Rural Community in Sabah, North of Borneo," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    18. Yang, Hongbo & Dietz, Thomas & Yang, Wu & Zhang, Jindong & Liu, Jianguo, 2018. "Changes in Human Well-being and Rural Livelihoods Under Natural Disasters," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 184-194.
    19. Ding, Qian & Lu, Qiaoling & Wu, Jing & Zhou, Ting & Deng, Jinsong & Kong, Lingqiao & Yang, Wu, 2022. "Integrated assessment of a payment for ecosystem services program in China from the effectiveness, efficiency and equity perspective," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    20. Yue Dou & Ramon Felipe Bicudo da Silva & Paul McCord & Julie G. Zaehringer & Hongbo Yang & Paul R. Furumo & Jian Zhang & J. Cristóbal Pizarro & Jianguo Liu, 2020. "Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.
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