The Research on Peasant Sustainable Livelihood Models in Rural Tourism Areas Under Urbanization — A Case from Jixian, Tianjin

Livelihood is fundamental for rural families. A good livelihood model can help to increase the happiness of peasants and promote local harmonious development. During the process of urbanization, peasant livelihood is changing constantly. In rural tourism areas, tourism is a strong force for the development of urbanization, and the research of peasant livelihood is especially important. Based on the basic sustainable livelihood theoretical framework, this paper classifies the peasants in Jixian (a county in Tianjin) tourism areas into four types, including working household, tourism household, part-time tourism household, and part-time non-tourism household, to conduct a comprehensive analysis on livelihood capital, livelihood strategy and livelihood outcome by integrating the questionnaire, interview, observation statistical analysis, GIS and data analysis. We draw the following conclusions. First, during the development of rural tourism, there are hierarchy differences in the livelihood capital among different types of peasant households, and the disparity is increasing. The tourism household shows evidence of the best livelihood capital followed by the part-time tourism household, the part-time non-tourism household, and finally the employee household respectively. Second, the livelihood strategy of Jixian households shows a diversity which is dominated by tourism livelihood. However, because the tourism household and part-time tourism households show outstanding advantage in their livelihood strategy that will be constantly imitated by other peasants, which will lead to an increasing professionalization and specialization in rural tourism. Third, according to the comparative analysis, tourism household and part-time tourism household show a livelihood outcome which is wealthier, provides leisure, and of high-quality living standards. Therefore, the livelihood outcome can be improved obviously by following the professional tourism livelihood model through relying on the local tourism resources rather than following the external diverse livelihood model.