Socio-Spatial Differentiation of Tourist Towns: A Case Study of Huangshui Town, Chongqing

Tourism urbanization is one of the important patterns of China’s new-type urbanization. Combining Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), ArcGIS spatial analysis and high-resolution remote sensing images, the paper takes a case study of Huangshui Town in Chongqing and explores the socio-spatial features such as the spatial functions, spatial culture and social relations of tourist towns. The research results are as follows: (i) From 2007 to 2017, the number of people permanently living in Huangshui Town over the last 10 years increased from 5,923 to 12,699, up by 2.14 times; the urban construction area expanded from 0.15km2 to 1.65km2, increased by 11 times. (ii) The space of tourist towns has gradually changed from a homogeneous traditional community tied by blood to a heterogeneous social space containing multiple components and dominated by functions such as residence, business, trade and tourism. (iii) This development pattern is centered at indigenous community-based towns, supplemented by second homes of tourism real estate and extended by tourism clusters featuring pan-leisure services. It is of great practical and theoretical value to the full participation of local indigenous people and the transformation of community functions towards tourism. This pattern prevents the current problem of isolating tourist resorts from local communities, and provides a sustainable development path for the resorts. Besides, this tourism urbanization pattern based on indigenous communities also serves as a correction to the existing creative destruction model, and a boost to the protection and inheritance of culture and ecology and sustainable development of tourist towns.