Cultural conservation and residents’ attitudes about ethnic minority tourism

Abstract

Tourism to areas traditionally inhabited by ethnic minorities has become an important topic in China during recent years, but the attendant issue of ethnic cultural conservation has become an increasing problem. This study investigates residents’ attitudes toward cultural conservation and their perception of the impact of tourism. The study site is the ancient city of Fenghuang in Hunan province, China. The study’s results show that residents in Fenghuang agree with the cultural conservation, and that their positive perceptions of the impact of tourism are influenced by their attitudes toward cultural conservation. This result means that there is the positive relationships between tourism development and cultural conservation in ethnic minority area. All results reflect the importance of residents’ attitudes toward cultural conservation in the development of tourism, so the study may be useful for both tourism developers and cultural managers.