Discourse and Power Relations in Community Tourism

Abstract

Adopting a mixed method of ethnographic fieldwork approach and critical discourse analysis, we explored the implicit power relations between a private company and local residents in Chongdu Valley, China. Three themes—destination image, development outcomes, and institutions and regulations—were identified within the discourses of the two groups and then examined for their intertextuality and congruence/incongruence. The findings suggested that in spite of congruence on destination image and overall development outcomes, the two groups held conflicting values, theories, and attitudes, and thus divergent discourses toward a range of tourism development issues. We concluded with a series of suggestions on how the power structure of Chongdu Valley should be changed to mitigate the relationship between the community and the private company, and comments regarding the effectiveness of discourse analysis as a research tool in uncovering implicit power relations at the community level.

Keywords

community development politics rural tourism China

Introduction

While social scientists do not share a conceptual understanding of “community” (Flint, Luloff, and Finley 2008), the construct has been a central focus in tourism studies for decades and has continuously drawn the attention of tourism scholars and practitioners (Salazar 2012). In 2014, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) celebrated World Tourism Day with the theme Tourism and Community Development to advocate for the beneficial intersection of tourism and community. According to the UNWTO (2014, para 3), tourism “can be conducive to advancing sustainable development from the grassroots level” and can serve as “a catalyst of social cohesion, going beyond the immediate impact of job creation and its positive economic consequences and enhances, for instance, local governance capabilities which multiply the tourism impact even further.”

For tourism scholars, community provides a valuable unit of analysis for examining tourism phenomena from a local and/or indigenous point of view (Murphy 2013). Because community can be defined as a group of people tied to a particular place “by their shared values, concerns, interests, and actions” (Flint, Luloff, and Finley 2008, 528), treating community as the unit of analysis helps narrow the focus of study onto a relatively small segment of a population that is most directly impacted by tourism (Williams and Lawson 2001). Further, continuing to conduct research with communities will help tourism practitioners plan and implement better tourism projects to improve residents’ quality of life and well-being (Goodwin and Santilli 2009; Okazaki 2008; Simpson 2008) and advance knowledge in the areas of tourism impact, planning, policy making, and management (Andereck et al. 2005; Bramwell and Sharman 1999; Choi and Murray 2010; Choi and Sirakaya 2006; Jamal and Getz 1995). Of particular interest in this study is the political aspect of community tourism because of the critical role it plays in tourism development and sustainability.

The politics of community tourism directly and indirectly determine the formation of tourism policies and the way in which they get implemented (Vernon et al. 2005); who gets to experience the benefits from tourism and in what proportions (Ying and Zhou 2007); and, eventually, the success and sustainability of community tourism as a whole (Choi and Sirakaya 2006; Kibicho 2008). Despite substantial research on this topic, extant literature has focused mostly on explicit power relations. Researchers have examined noticeable power structures and dynamics through approaches, including stakeholder, institutional, and collaboration analyses, and community participation (Caffyn and Jobbins 2003; Jamal and Getz 1995; Reed and Gill 1997). However, inherent power relations that are beneath the surface of political actions and practices have often been neglected. To fill this gap in the literature, we adopted discourse analysis to examine the implicit power relations between local residents and the private sector in Chongdu Valley, China, a rural community that has been exposed to tourism development over the past 15 years.

Unlike traditional approaches used to study community politics, whereby power relations are examined by looking at apparent power structures and political actions within local political systems (Bramwell and Meyer 2007; Reed 1997), discourse analysis focuses on patterns of linguistic practice that exemplify changes at the social level (Richardson 1996). It provides a unique lens to examine power relations that are associated with congruence/incongruence of values, theories, and attitudes of different social groups (Fairclough 2003).

Fairclough (2003) suggested that discourse should be analyzed with consideration to how it “practically figure(s) in particular areas of social life” and “is best framed within ethnography” (p. 16). Adopting a mixed method of ethnographic fieldwork approach and critical discourse analysis, we compared and contrasted the discourses of local residents and a private company in Chongdu Valley toward a variety of topics related to tourism development. Using this approach and form of data analysis allowed for an examination of discourses within the social context they are embedded, and of how power relations are represented in languages and opinions as they relate to a variety of community issues.

Discourse Analysis on Power Relations

Discourse analysis, employed and popularized by French philosopher Michel Foucault (1972), opened up a new window for social scientists to understand the power dynamics of the world within which humans exist. According to Richardson (1996), power does not only exist in political structures, institutions, and social relations; it also exists in languages and texts that are created by different agencies and are embedded in particular historical contexts. Years of input by philosophers, sociologists, linguists, and political scientists has resulted in a mature research technique with rich theoretical basis and sophisticated analytic instruments (Coulthard and Coulthard 2014; Fairclough 2003; Gee 2014; Van Dijk 1993).

The underlying thesis of discourse analysis is that “power is exercised from innumerable points” (Foucault 1990, 94), and human politics do not only incorporate overt power struggles but also aspects of linguistic practices (Richardson 1996). So, instead of focusing on explicit institutions and interactions, discourse analysis draws evidence from languages, texts, and ideas to showcase implicit power dynamics that otherwise might not be detected. In a review of studies on environmental politics, Hajer and Versteeg (2005, 175) identified three features and strengths of discourse analysis in comparison to other analytical methods: “Its capacity to reveal the role of language in politics, its capacity to reveal the embeddedness of language in practices, and its capacity to answer ‘how’ questions and to illuminate mechanisms.”

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was employed for this study because of its focus on the intersection of language use and social practices (Van Dijk 1993). Fairclough (2003, 2) noted, “Language is an irreducible part of social life, dialectically interconnected with other elements of social life, so that social analysis and research always has to take account of language.” CDA centers on the language of social reality that can be viewed as interpretations of the world. Since discourses are always associated with different groups of people (social agents) (Fairclough 2003), it is necessary to explore linguistic practices of different social agents in terms of how they construct social events, processes, actors, and relations (Hastings 1999). In community tourism, social agents may include people from local communities, different levels of governments, the private sector, and non-government organizations (Caffyn and Jobbins 2003).

In CDA, language and text can be analyzed with a variety of techniques and procedures. For example, “intertextuality” is a technique that examines inclusion of one group’s language such as direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries into the language created by another social group (Fairclough 2003). Depending on the forms and contexts of the inclusion, intertextuality can provide direct evidence of the kinds of influence one group exerts on another group. In this study, intertextuality was used to contrast the languages of two different groups so as to identify instances of change that have been caused by an exercising of power.

In terms of the tourism literature, discourse analysis has been adopted frequently as a tool to explore the image and social representation of tourist destinations (Santos, Belhassen, and Caton 2006; Stamou and Paraskevopoulos 2004; Yan and Santos 2009), whereas its application in a politics-of-tourism context is rare. Xiao (2006) employed the method to explore China’s tourism development and policy at the national level. Markwick’s (2000) study is more relevant as it examined conflicting interests in a golf course development project. However, Markwick focused primarily on explicit power relations among different stakeholders. Given the inherent linkage between discourse and power, and the method’s wide applications in fields such as urban planning, organizational studies, and international relations (Alvesson and Karreman 2000; Hastings 1999; Milliken 1999), the present study renders a new perspective for understanding power relations at the grassroots level in a community tourism context.

Employing critical discourse analysis, we sought to answer two questions—what are the managerial and lay discourses about development issues in Chongdu Valley and what kinds of implications for community power relations can be drawn from the intertextuality and congruence/incongruence of the two discourses?

Study Method

The Study Area

Chongdu Valley Resort is a popular rural tourist destination in Henan Province, China. Located in the Resort is Chongdu Valley village, which, in 2013, was home to 367 households and 1,440 residents. Prior to tourism development, local residents made their living through farming, timber harvesting, and making bamboo crafts. Tourism development has changed their livelihood substantially. It has been estimated that more than 95% of local residents now work in the tourism industry, primarily in accommodations. These residents provide rooms and meals to tourists in their renovated farmhouses, which were originally their homes (they still live in different rooms of the same house). The farmhouses are located throughout the Resort in four different residential regions: southern, central, front, and western. The central region, which is the largest, is host to a street with multiple restaurants, grocery stores, a performance plaza, and a movie theater (see Figure 1 for images of typical farmhouses and street views).

Figure 1.

Typical farmhouses and street views in Chongdu Valley.

Since its opening in 1999, Chongdu Valley Resort has gradually gained in popularity and has become one of the most famous rural tourism destinations in central China. Visitors come to Chongdu Valley to stay overnight in farmhouses, taste rustic local foods, walk mountain trails, and enjoy the abundant springs and waterfalls. Primary target markets of the Resort include residents of nearby cities (i.e., Luoyang and Zhengzhou) and adjacent provinces (e.g., Shanxi, Shannxi, Hubei, Shandong, and Hebei). It is estimated that approximately half of the visitors drive on their own to Chongdu Valley, and another half come in tour buses organized by travel agencies. According to the Resort’s 2014 official work report, there were 573,700 visits in 2013, which generated about 200 million Yuan (US$33 million) in revenue for the village.

The development of Chongdu Valley Resort occurred in three phases: 1995 to 1998, 1999 to 2004, and from 2004 on. The first phase took place from 1995 to 1998 when a deputy town chief saw the potential of Chongdu Valley as a tourist destination and led residents in the construction of new roads, stone steps, and other basic facilities. In 1999 Chongdu Valley Resort was officially established and co-managed by Tantou township and the village governments. The resort also started to charge an entrance fee. During this second phase of development, the Resort gained popularity but was restrained by financial barriers. Because of stagnant growth and a need for upgrades to the local infrastructure and surrounding environment, the township and village governments solicited financial support from outside developers. In 2004 a deal was reached with a private company that later established the Chongdu Valley Scenic Area Corporation (mentioned as the Company hereafter). This third developmental phase highlights the involvement and impact of the Company.

According to the deal, the Company has the right to operate and manage the Resort for 50 years (i.e., until 2054). It is obligated to invest millions in upgrading the Resort’s facilities that include, but are not limited to, roads; the bamboo plantation; parking lots; and the building of a restaurant street, a performance plaza, a man-made lake, a hotel, and multiple high-quality restrooms. With the support of the township and village governments, the Company is also in charge of daily operation of the Resort including acquiring the entrance fee, marketing, and managing the farmhouse and retail markets. Local residents do not receive a percentage of the entrance fee, and they are not taxed for their properties nor charged for use of the infrastructure. The township government no longer has any management-related responsibility and the village government largely plays a cooperative role.

Despite the Company’s dominant role, Chongdu Valley residents have been allowed to continue to live in the Resort and be involved in the tourism economy. Indeed, they have been actively involved in the tourism industry by running farmhouses and other tourism-related businesses. The Company has no right to displace Chongdu Valley residents because the latter collectively owned the land within the Resort. The ambiguous property rights of the Resort, however, have set the stage for a variety of development challenges. For example, the Resort requires constant upgrades of the infrastructure and facilities, which inevitably leads to resettlement of some local residents. Many other issues such as water use, garbage disposal, wastewater treatment, house design, and room prices all require negotiation and cooperation between the Company and local residents. It is against this background that the politics of Chongdu Valley are reviewed.

Chongdu Valley Resort is an ideal setting for this study because it has experienced fast, fairly smooth development of the tourism product as well as political stability since 2004. The rapid growth of the tourism economy and the continuous improvement of local residents’ living standards have to a large extent hidden and postponed political confrontations within the community. To date, the Company has introduced a number of community-level development projects whose implementation has been supported by local residents. In addition, Chongdu Valley represents a typical rural tourism destination in China where political actions involve very limited community participation. Decisions have been made in a top–down manner, so few political interactions between the community and the Company have taken place. It is therefore an ideal place to examine implicit power relations among different social agents within the community.

Data Collection and Analysis

Researchers who study power relations in a community context tend to examine overt political actions by asking questions such as “who participates, who gains, and who prevails in decision-making about key issues” (Gaventa 1982, vii). Asking these types of questions won’t work in Chongdu Valley, where interaction between different stakeholders on developmental issues is extremely limited. We chose to use discourse analysis because it focuses on languages and texts rather than explicit actions and has the ability to identify the interplay of differing perspectives in spite of surface consensus and agreement.

Two different social agents—local residents and the Company—were selected and examined as separate entities. All of the Company’s managers were hired from outside Chongdu Valley. Local residents who work for the Company are only a few; they occupy lower-level positions and earn salaries far lower than that which their families earn running tourism-related business. Therefore, they stand with their families and all other local residents when it comes to tourism development issues. In addition, the two social agents have very limited interaction in their various social networks. Given these reasons, we considered it feasible to distinguish between them and to compare them as two distinctive social agents. We chose not to include government representatives (i.e., village leaders) as a third social agent because they are local residents and were elected by the residents. Their identity as both government officials and residents may add complexity to the analysis of their discourses.

Data were collected through on-site and online material collection, semi-structured interviews, informal conversation, and participant observation. This mixed-method approach took into account the social circumstances in which discourses are formed, and enabled analysis of discourses within their real world context. “Managerial discourse,” which was analyzed based on the “written” language of the Company, was used to represent the discourse of the Company (i.e., the dominant managerial entity of the Resort). The written materials collected included published books, annual reports, planning documents, tourism promotion materials, and speeches (see a list of the key documents in Table 1). All the documents were either published or used for external communications with other stakeholders. The large amount of data provided a clear, formal, and unified representation of the Company’s discourse. Interviews and informal conversation with a deputy manager and several staff were used to enhance our understanding of the documents and contribute to the data pool for managerial discourses. In addition, online materials, including the official website of the Resort and news articles about Chongdu Valley, were collected and analyzed.

Table 1.

List of Key Documents Produced by the Company.

Document Type	Document Name	Year(s) Created
Published book	True love with Chongdu Valley	2003
Managerial Reports	Tourism development brings economic prosperity to Chongdu Valley	2008
	Chongdu Valley Resort Annual Report	2010–2014
	Work summary of the sales department	2013
	Rural tourism development in Chongdu Valley	2013
Regulations	General thoughts on farmhouse construction	2012
	Articles from the farmhouse association	2013
	Regulations on farmhouse construction	2013
Planning documents	Application materials for provincial tourism resort	2012
	Application materials for national five star tourist attraction	2013
	Application materials for national demonstration area of ecotourism	2014
Speeches	Speech at farmhouse renovation meeting	2011
Speeches	Speech at farmhouse conference in Henan province	2012
Promotional materials	A brief description of Chongdu Valley	2006
	Tour guide manual	2006
	The model of rural tourism development, the model of farmhouse management	2013

“Lay discourse” was adopted to represent the collective everyday discourse of local residents. Because of the absence of written documents created by local residents and in line with previous studies (Halfacree 1993; Jones 1995; Van Dam, Heins, and Elbersen 2002), lay discourses were analyzed based on the “vocal” language of local residents. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with local residents and informal conversations during participant observation from June to August 2014. Interviews were conducted until saturation of information was reached (n=50). In acknowledging the heterogeneity of the community, interviewees were selected based on their gender, age, and economic status. In total, 22 females and 28 males were interviewed; 10 were 20 to 29 years old, 13 were 30 to 44 years old, 19 were 45 to 59 years old, and 8 were 60 years or older. All interviewees worked in the tourism industry and only one worked for the Company. The majority of interviewees came from households with an annual income ranging from 50,000 to 200,000 RMB. Local residents’ opinions about various aspects of tourism development were gathered during the semi-structured interviews (see a list of interview questions in Table 2). Informal conversations with nonlocal residents were used to triangulate the data and verify the information provided by local residents (Decrop 1999). All formal interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The content of informal conversations was noted in field notes.

Table 2.

Interview Questions Used with Local Residents and Company Staff.

For Local Residents
1. Please recall the time when tourism development began in Chongdu Valley. What did you do for a living then? What was your life like then? What was the village like then?
2. What did you think of tourism then? Can you remember what others in the village thought about tourism?
3. Do you feel your life has changed since you began working in the tourism sector (or since tourism started being developed in Chongdu Valley)? If yes, can you recall the changes in a chronological order? a. Probing^a: income, values, social network, kinship ties, lifestyle, etc.
4. Do you feel the village has changed along with tourism development? If yes, can you recall the changes in a chronological order? a. Probing: natural environment, built environment, interpersonal relationships, governance, etc.
5. What things do you think represent Chongdu Valley?
6. What do you know about the Company’s descriptions of Chongdu Valley? Do you agree with them? If yes, why? If no, why not?
7. What do you think of your relationship with the Company?
8. What do you think of tourism as a livelihood strategy for your family right now and in the future?
9. What do you think of tourism as the major industry for Chongdu Valley right now and in the future?
For Company Staff
How do you describe Chongdu Valley as a tourist destination?
How have Chongdu Valley and the local people changed since you started working here?
How has the Company managed the Resort over the past years?
According to your knowledge, how are the Company and the local residents getting along with each other? Has the relationship changed from the beginning?

“Probing” was used when interviewees could not properly put their thoughts into words.

According to Fairclough (2003, 15), examining texts is not enough to understand their power; researchers must also interpret how texts “practically figure in particular areas of social life.” Thus, a historical approach was adopted to examine whether there were changes in discourses along with tourism development. To do this, interviewees were asked to recall their perceptions of tourism and Chongdu Valley as a tourist destination at the beginning of tourism development. Constant reflection on their answers and examination of the data resulted in a number of common themes. For example, local residents mentioned (and Company documents highlighted) various impacts of tourism development, all of which were grouped into “development outcomes.” The relation between the Company and local residents were found to be mainly a result of “institutional developments and regulations.” Techniques including intertextuality and congruence/incongruence were used to compare and contrast the two discourses. For example, contents from Company documents were mentioned by local residents during interviews and were coded as “inclusion.” Depending on whether the interviewees agreed or disagreed with the contents, the relation between the two discourses were coded as “congruence” or “incongruence.”

A typical ethnographic approach was used during analysis—the first author initially coded the data by engaging with the data reflectively (constantly comparing her own experiences on site with the data collected, as well as continuously reviewing the data across all categories until a coherent, focused conclusion was reached) and the second author reviewed the transcripts and discussed her codes with the first author when unclear themes or quotations occurred (Strauss and Corbin 1990). Changes were continuously made until both authors completely agreed upon the results, enhancing the trustworthiness of the study (Krefting 1991).

Findings

Three overarching themes were identified in both the managerial and lay discourses: destination image, development outcomes, and institutions and regulations. In this section, each theme will be presented with the congruence and incongruence between the two discourses as well as their underlying reasons and associated effects.

Destination Image

The image of Chongdu Valley as a rural tourist destination was portrayed in the planning documents as well as the tourism promotion materials created by the Company. In general, Chongdu Valley has been portrayed as an ideal retreat from urban chaos and daily routines. The Company’s tourism promotion materials focused on the natural landscape and the traditional lifestyle in Chongdu Valley, presenting sharp distinctions from that which people experience in the cities. In particular, water and/or the springs flowing down from the mountains around the village as well as bamboo forests amid and surrounding it were heavily promoted. In addition, capitalizing on the traditional lifestyle ever present in Chongdu Valley, the farmhouses operated by local residents were highlighted as a “must-experience” when visiting the area. The following translated description, drawn from the home page of Chongdu Valley Resort’s official website, is typical of the discourse found in the promotional materials:

Chongdu Valley is blessed with three special attractions. The first is water. Northern China lacks water, but not in Chongdu Valley. Here, hundreds of springs come out from the deep earth and merge into the steady stream of Lan River. The stream carves a variety of shapes of springs and waterfalls running through the mountains. The second is bamboo. Visitors coming for sightseeing and relaxation can enjoy the pleasing scenery of the “Bamboo Sea,” and live in the bright and spacious bamboo inns. Before leaving, they can also take home some delicate bamboo utensils and handicrafts as souvenirs. The last is the farmhouse. Rural and mountain-style farmhouses, scattered alongside Lan River, can accommodate the needs of 13,800 tourists simultaneously. The farmhouse businesses also open the doors for local farmers to [enjoy] economic prosperity.

The three attractions (i.e., water, bamboo, farmhouses) have become symbolic features of Chongdu Valley and have been mentioned over time in the Company’s promotional materials. While we were not able to definitively find out who proposed the idea of focusing on the three attractions to position Chongdu Valley, from the results of the interviews and informal conversations, it is highly possible that it was early developers and/or resort managers. During the first stage of tourism development (i.e., 1995 to 1998), local residents’ collective perceptions of Chongdu Valley were very negative. They resisted tourism development because of their history of economic hardship and their disbelief that urban people would visit the village they considered to be “poor,” “dirty,” and “lagging behind.” Their negativity did not begin to change until a deputy town chief, who was later deemed the pioneer of the community’s tourism development, influenced their thinking. An older local resident who had been actively involved in the tourism development process from its inception told the following story:

He (the deputy town chief) is the kind of person with foresight and vision. One day (before 1996), he gathered a group of smart and knowledgeable local residents for a meeting. He proposed the idea of tourism [and] local people said, “Impossible! What you said is impossible! Tourists have gone to famous scenic spots, why would they come to our village? What would they look for, the poor remote mountain area? What could we offer them for food?” He replied, “They will eat what we eat.” [Residents replied,] “They have chicken, duck, fish and meat in the cities, everything is better than ours.” He said, “You have no idea! Time is different, people have begun to feel nostalgic and look for a return to nature. They feel bored living in high-rise buildings. They are bored of eating chicken, duck, fish and meat. They want to come to rural areas to live in farmhouses, and eat local cuisine, especially wild vegetables. Now pollution is quite serious in the cities, and wild vegetables are considered good for health.”

However, his argument alone was not persuasive enough for local residents to accept tourism as a new opportunity of livelihood. The influx of urban tourists into Chongdu Valley and their interest in the local cuisine, the farmhouses, and various forms of rural entertainment eventually opened their eyes to the alternative livelihood and strengthened their commitment to the tourism economy. At present, local residents have adopted the rhetoric of the managerial discourse to promote the natural beauty of Chongdu Valley. Throughout the interviews with local residents, the three symbolic features—water, bamboo, and farmhouse—were repeatedly mentioned when asked what things they think represent Chongdu Valley. If they were asked the same question 15 to 20 years ago (i.e., during the first phase of tourism development), they would likely have given a completely different answer.

Local residents’ adoption of the managerial discourse into their daily language indicates their agreement with the Company’s use of the three attractions to position Chongdu Valley. The change in lay discourse reflects locals’ changing attitudes toward tourism, and the acknowledgment of their initial misinterpretation of Chongdu Valley as a tourist destination. The dominant role of managerial discourses on destination image can be partly explained by Foucault’s (1990) thesis on power and knowledge, whereby knowledge is denoted as a general foundation on which power can be formed. In the case of destination image, those who are perceived to have more knowledge of tourism (in this case the Company) get to construct the current image of Chongdu Valley. Further, because of the initial misinterpretation, local residents tend to belittle their own knowledge of Chongdu Valley and the tourism market; they give the Company the full power to control the image of Chongdu Valley.

Development Outcomes

Tourism development has led to dramatic changes at both the community and household levels. At the community level, roads connecting Chongdu Valley with nearby major cities have been developed, and in 2013 a highway transecting through Chongdu Valley was built. Tourism development has also led to improvements in the community’s infrastructure (e.g., garbage disposal, water supply, and public restrooms) and, ultimately, resulted in a clean and pleasant environment. At the household level, tourism development has contributed to increases in the average annual household income from an estimated 400 yuan in 1999 to an estimated 100,000 yuan in 2014. Most families have developed small tourism businesses. More than 90% of households run farmhouses, a small business that provides accommodation to urban tourists. All of these community- and household-level changes were reflected in reports produced by the Company and mentioned by most interviewees.

In spite of the agreement on overall changes, the managerial discourse and lay discourse differed on a variety of details. For example, the managerial discourse stressed tourism as a top–down, “pro-poor” strategy that has been able to diminish poverty and increase the living standards of rural residents. It also emphasized that without higher-level government authorities and the lead of and investment from the Company, the current changes would have been impossible. The description below was obtained from a document produced by the Company:

In August 2004, the government of Luanchuan County showed great foresight to transfer the Resort from township ownership to private ownership. Since the transfer, the Company has invested 660 million Yuan to infrastructures, entertainment facilities, marketing, and conservation to make Chongdu Valley not only a leading resort in Luanchuan County, but also a famous rural tourist destination in Luoyang municipal area and Henan province.

The Company’s efforts to develop the Resort were acknowledged by most residents. For example, one said,

Now there are big changes. Last year we got more paved roads, this year we got [a] monitoring system and Wi-Fi coverage over the whole Resort. This year they have other plans. The Company works pretty hard and wants to improve the Resort. They want to make Chongdu Valley a five-star tourist destination.

But, more often, local residents indicated that tourism’s success and the improvement of their living standards should be attributed primarily to their own hard work. They discussed the courage it took to obtain a loan for the first 1,000 yuan they needed to renovate their houses for tourists; how they collectively built the village roads, stone steps, and other tourism facilities when the government did not provide funding; how they quickly adjusted themselves and their lifestyles to accommodate the needs of tourists; and how they worked hard every year to make the farmhouses an attraction of Chongdu Valley. While the divergent discourses suggest that both the Company and local residents may contribute to the success of tourism, each group focuses on different aspects of development that lean toward their own experiences and interests.

In addition, managerial discourses tended to exaggerate the previous “bad” condition of the village so as to amplify the changes introduced through tourism development. For example, the aforementioned Company document indicated that before 1999 Chongdu Valley was not only famous for its poverty but for having “a lot of bachelors unable to find a wife, a lot of villagers gathering for gambling, a lot of family living on credit, and a lot of children unable to go to school.” While local residents acknowledged the hardship they had experienced, their discourse challenged this statement. They said the truth is that there were bachelors, but only a few. There also was no gambling, and locals only played Mahjong (a traditional game in China). And, although they were very poor, they normally could make ends meet, and they tried their best to send their children to school.

Divergence also existed with respect to the current economic status of local residents. During data collection, the village head, in consultation with the Company, wrote a thank-you letter to a vice prime minister of China who had, in the previous year, visited Chongdu Valley to view its success with tourism development. In the letter, the village head wrote that the average household income of Chongdu Valley was reaching 230,000 Yuan. The deputy manager later confirmed this number. However, several local residents who cited the letter during their interviews disagreed with the annual income. They argued that the average household income should be around 100,000 Yuan at most, and considering growing economic disparity, a lot of families are earning less than 100,000 Yuan. They also indicated that many families have no savings because they have to re-pay their loans or invest their money back in to upgrades and/or renovations of their farmhouse.

In terms of the natural environment, the managerial discourses only mentioned positive changes such as sanitation and new bamboo plantation; they did not touch on the negative impacts of tourism development. While local residents were happy, particularly about beautification of the environment and upgrades to the built environment, they also raised concerns about polluted water, a lack of water, noise, increased temperatures, and air pollution, all of which have become issues as a result of tourism development. A female resident said, “[the] environment is certainly not as good as before because we get more people using this place. Before, the air was very clean and fresh, and it was quiet and we could hear birds singing everywhere, especially in this area,” but now the area has “people, vehicles, and air pollution.” Another woman commented, “Compared to cities, the pollution here is much less serious. But [when] compared to other rural villages, [this village] should be considered polluted. Thinking about the street with restaurants, all kinds of barbecue, smoke going up, floating in the air, will all be pushed down to the ground with the rain.”

The difference in the two discourses regarding the environment can be explained by each social agent’s distinctive relationship with tourism. For the Company, tourism is a means by which it can generate revenue and make a profit. Its contract lasts for 50 years, so the primary goal is to make as much profit as possible during that time. Environmental degradation may reduce the sustainability of tourism in Chongdu Valley, but its effects may not become salient within 50 years. However, for local residents, tourism is their major livelihood, and the community is the place where they and future generations will live. Environmental issues are intricately associated with their everyday life and thus cannot be jeopardized for economic development.

In summary, the managerial and lay discourses tended to be similar with respect to macro-level development outcomes, but showed incongruence at the micro level. Both discourses aligned with each group’s self-interests as well as its values and attitudes toward tourism. Because managerial discourses came from written text and lay discourses were attained through conversations with local residents, it is reasonable to believe that the managerial discourses will have a longer and wider influence than the latter. For the long run, how the story of Chongdu Valley development will be told depends on whether lay discourses can be documented in stored media such as text, audio, or video, as well as the degree to which the stored media are accessible to the public.

Institutions and Regulations

As mentioned earlier, the Company has been granted 50 years to manage and operate the Resort, yet the community still collectively owns the land. Further, with the support of higher-level governments, the Company has become the primary decision maker regarding tourism development issues. Neither the community- nor the village-level government has the power to challenge or disobey the Company’s decisions and actions. Local residents have no avenues for public participation and are excluded from the entire decision-making process. This situation has directly impacted businesses, properties, and the feelings of local residents.

On the surface, the Company seemingly has been able to manage the Resort quite well because of the continuous increase in tourist arrivals and improvements in the community infrastructure, the environment, and the living standards of local residents. In addition, there have been few challenges from the community, despite a series of big projects executed by the Company. For example, the Company acquired land for the construction of a large hotel, a manmade lake, several parking lots, an entertainment plaza, and streets with restaurants and souvenir shops. Affected residents were compensated satisfactorily with a new house or a new house site plus a certain amount of money so they did not feel a direct loss from the land acquisition. Thus, despite the imbalance of power relations, it appears that the Company and the community have coexisted peacefully since 2004.

Discourse analysis also revealed that locals praised the Company on some of their policies and regulations. For example, the Company gives local residents priority over outsiders when they have new job vacancies. The Company also works hard in marketing and educating locals about how to strengthen Chongdu Valley’s competitiveness as a rural tourist destination. As one resident mentioned, “It all attributes to the Company. They went out to promote the Valley to tourists. They also hold meetings often to ask the locals to treat tourists in a good manner. Never cheating and ripping off customers.” The Company has even invited professional chefs to train local residents to cook dishes so they can offer meals to their guests.

However, discourses of the two groups also indicate that they have conflicting values about a variety of issues, which may challenge their relationship in the future. At the beginning of their relationship, many interviewees did not want to rent the Resort to the Company. Although they did not have any evidence, many believed that local government officers had gained personal benefits from the deal. Residents commented, “There were a lot of problems in the process. They (the Company) only needed to feed the officers and leaders, what else can we ordinary people say?” and “They (the Company) were not treating us well. They are a private company, and they think of their own interests.”

Value conflict was especially prominent with respect to farmhouse management. According to residents, the farmhouse is their private property and the Company has no right to interfere with it. But the Company has insisted that farmhouse businesses are a critical component of Chongdu Valley’s tourism industry and, as a result, the owners need to obey a series of regulations imposed by the Company. For example, the Company put forth detailed regulations about the way farmhouses should be constructed, such as the maximum number of floors and options for external and internal appearance. The Company also unified (a) the room price of farmhouses into a higher one and a lower one, as well as (b) meal options and prices. The Company believes that these regulations have helped to regulate the farmhouse market and to enhance the image of Chongdu Valley. In a document distributed by the Company, the goal of the farmhouse regulations was to create “unified construction, unified standards, unified prices, and unified service.”

The Company also controlled the allocation of tourists on package vacations staying in farmhouses on busy weekends in order to make sure all tourists have places to reside in the Resort. Local residents have not uniformly responded to this regulation. Some have welcomed the regulation because their farmhouse location is remote and this regulation ensures that they will book all of their rooms. Other farmhouse owners have opposed the regulation because it makes it less likely for them to receive independent tourists who tend to spend much more on rooms and meals than tourists on package tours.

Another divergence occurred in the way the Company has exercised its power on a daily basis. For example, to implement its regulations, the Company hired staff to monitor the way local residents run their businesses. According to residents, when staff notices violations they try to deal with them on site, but are often quite rude. As one resident said, “those staff throw away my stuff, flip things around, and never speak to us kindly.” But in the rhetoric of the staff, they were not at fault. A staff member commented on the tension between local residents and his colleagues: “They (local residents) see us as a nail in the eye, and we see them as a thorn in the flesh. We tell them what they should do, but they never listen to us.”

The Company has also used different standards with residents when it comes to regulation implementation. It has been accused of giving special treatment to elite members of the community and outside investors. For example, “ordinary” residents were only allowed to build a three-floor farmhouse, but quite a few outside investors were able to build four-floor farmhouses. Further, local residents were prohibited from destroying even a single bamboo plant, but outside investors were allowed to build their farmhouse in the middle of the bamboo forest, causing damage to a large number of bamboo plants. The Company itself has damaged the bamboo forest to build the street on which the restaurants are located. According to one resident, “Our income is increasing on average, but inequality is huge, and distribution is unfair. The governments and the Company work together to abuse power and appropriate public resources.”

Overall, in the area of institutional arrangements and regulations, disputes and friction between the two discourses are profound, far more serious than with destination image and development outcomes. Although the current, dominant position of the Company is still stable given the support of higher-level governments, discourses from local residents indicate that discontent is present and prevalent. The verbal complaints of local residents might finally lead to confrontation and rebellion if the two groups’ values and actions continue to diverge from each other.

Discussion and Conclusions

Using discourse analysis, the discourses of a private company and local residents over a variety of tourism development issues in Chongdu Valley, China, were explored. Analysis revealed that in spite of congruence on destination image and overall development outcomes, the two groups hold conflicting values, theories, and attitudes, and thus divergent discourses toward a range of community and tourism development issues. Disconfirming opinions among local residents exist (Andereck et al. 2005), but in general the divisions between the Company and local residents are prevalent.

Since 2004, the Company has occupied an influential and dominant position when it comes to decision making, practices, and implementation of development strategies. On the surface, residents have cooperated and followed the rules established by the Company, but their discourses illustrated that there is growing discontent among local residents toward the Company. Economically, the Company has performed well, but environmental degradation, growing inequality, and the feeling of powerlessness among local residents may eventually lead to a fragmented community and failure of the tourism industry.

Although the current discontent of the community is still represented in the form of language, it has the potential to translate to social practices and actions. According to the theory of discourse, language can affect social facts and have the power to cause social change. As Fairclough (2003, 8) noted, “Texts have causal effects upon, and contribute to change in, people (beliefs, attitudes, etc), actions, social relations, and the material world.” If the transfer from language to social facts is underway in Chongdu Valley, the interested groups (i.e., the Company, the community, and the various levels of government) must take action to prevent head-on confrontation between the Company and the community. Following are a few practical implications drawn from the results of the study.

First, a clear, bi-partisan property rights agreement needs to be created, demarcating the rights and obligations of the Company and the community. Clearly defined property rights are the foundation for common pool resource (e.g., community resources) management (Ostrom 2015). Currently, the Resort’s ownership and use rights are held separately by the community and the Company. So, while local residents consider their relationship with the Company to be like that of a “landlord-tenant,” the Company considers their relationship to be more like that of a “manager-employee.” While local residents expect the Company to focus on bringing more tourists to the Resort, rather than interfering with their private businesses, the Company insists that business owners involved in the tourism industry shall obey their regulations. Therefore, a property rights agreement needs to be established to clarify the existing ambiguity regarding the rights of the Company and local residents.

Second, the village-level government should act as a mediator between the Company and local residents to balance the power relations between them. Right now, the village-level government only plays a cooperative role when it comes to resort management. Village officers are even being accused of conspiring with the Company to damage the interests of the community. To reverse their negative image and for the benefits of the community, the village-level government should act as a representative of the community to negotiate with the Company when disputes occur. A formal organization could be established to tackle the development issues in the village similar to Native American tribes’ chairman’s office or economic development committee in the United States (Lew 1996). Further, the township government should be responsible for supervising and urging the village-level government to put residents’ interests first.

Last, but not least, opportunities for community participation should be created in a timely manner in order to integrate local residents into the planning, development, and management of Chongdu Valley. Researchers have found that community participation is directly related to residents’ support for tourism and environmental sustainability (Choi and Murray 2010). Although China’s political environment does not provide an ideal setting for public participation (Li 2004), it has proven to be successful in some communities of China (Palmer, Perkins, and Xu 2011; Su and Wall 2014; Wang et al. 2010). For example, the Company in Chongdu Valley holds biweekly meetings with local residents to deliver important information and decisions; however, the communication is unidirectional (i.e., from the Company to the community). If the conveners of the meeting would employ a discussion format where critical issues regarding community development are put on the table and local residents are allowed to express their opinions, perhaps community integration and empowerment could take place. Once effective dialogue between the Company and the community is established, environmental problems and social inequality can be tackled through collective efforts.

Overall, despite continuous growth, the future of community tourism development in Chongdu Valley relies on a variety of institutional rearrangements. The situation also indicates that economic development is not necessarily associated with a set of clear and sound political arrangements. Existing studies denote that tourism will not play an effective role in local economic development if it is controlled externally and has limited local involvement (Akama and Kieti 2007; Sandbrook 2010; Ying and Zhou 2007), but it fails to explain the developmental trajectory of Chongdu Valley. On the contrary, economic growth has helped to hide institutional problems and delay the process of political reform in Chongdu Valley. This may be because locals’ need for economic prosperity surpassed their need for cultural integrity, environmental sustainability, and political rights at the early stage of tourism development. However, once their living standards reached a certain level, their longing for a healthy and balanced life, for a high-quality environment, and for the right to participate in the decision-making process have become their primary concerns.

In addition, the present research added to existing literature another case study of community-based tourism in China. It is the first one that applied discourse analysis to understand the complexity of community politics in China’s unique social-political context. In line with previous studies (Cornet 2015; Ying and Zhou 2007), we found that tourism development is still managed in a top–down manner, and private companies started to interfere in the businesses with the support of local governments. However, by focusing on micro-power dynamics, we discovered that local residents’ awareness of and desire for political, environmental, and social rights are rising inherently (Xue, Kerstetter, and Buzinde 2015). Scholars in the future should keep monitoring the changes and how they evolve and transform along with community tourism development in China.

In terms of discourse analysis, this study showcases that it is a valuable tool for understanding community politics, especially in social contexts where explicit political actions are lacking. While traditional approaches still focus on the navigation and negotiation of key political actors in decision making and implementation, discourse analysis can identify more intricate power dynamics that are beneath the surface of political practices and actions (Foucault 1972). Further, using this method can help detect potential problems in community issues, and thus prevent serious plights and drawbacks in community sustainability. Therefore, the method’s application in the politics of community tourism, and in the politics of tourism in general, is promising.

While the contributions of this study have merit, the study does have limitations. First, it only covers lay and managerial discourses, leaving out official discourses of the township and village-level governments. This is limiting because both levels of government have played crucial roles in the tourism development of Chongdu Valley. Second, the sources from which the two discourses were drawn used inconsistent formats. While the lay discourses were drawn primarily from interviews and informal conversation, the managerial discourses drew primarily from text documents. According to Fairclough (2003), discourse is constructed by the particular format of languages and texts, so the study’s results should be viewed in light of these inconsistent formats.

In conclusion, discourse analysis is a valuable analytical tool for understanding political issues at the community level, and more research should be conducted in tourism studies with the help of this technique. While the present study attempted to examine the power relations between two groups in Chongdu Valley, future research should include the full range of participants to draw a holistic picture of power structure and practices. Another direction is to focus on a specific tourism development event rather than the whole process. Doing this will allow for a more detailed comparison between different discourses on a particular issue, leading to a better understanding of the nuanced relations between different social agents.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Lan Xue is currently affiliated with Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by the Interinstitutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge at the Pennsylvania State University.

Author Biographies

Lan Xue earned her PhD in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests lie in community development, rural tourism, sustainable tourism, and tourism planning.

Deborah Kerstetter is a professor in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interest lies in decision-making behavior and impacts of tourism.

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