(Re)shaping the Tourists’ Imagined Identity of Mosuo towards Sustainable Ethnic Tourism Development in Southwest China

Huichao Feng () and Jieling Xiao
Additional contact information
Huichao Feng: School of Arts and Communication, China University of Geoscience, Wuhan 430074, China
Jieling Xiao: School of Architecture and Design, Birmingham City University, Birmingham B4 7BD, UK

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 16, 1-22

Abstract: Ethnic tourism development has emerged as a vital strategy in ethnic regions to drive local economic growth and improve the quality of life. However, numerous ethnic areas have undergone transformation to accommodate tourism and commercial advancement, with little regard for the conservation of their cultural values. Therefore, the aim of this study is to enhance the cultural tourism attributes and construct place identities from the tourists’ perspective. By conducting fieldwork in Zhaishi village of Yongning Township and Lige village near Lugu Lake, encompassing semi-structured interviews with professionals and questionnaires for tourists, we explore the relationship between the “imagined” and “perceived” identity from the tourists’ perspective and the constructed identity from the authorities’ perspective in two Mosuo villages in China. The findings suggest that the local government should focus on the (re)shaping of tourists’ imagined identity and perceived identities. The results of this study provide policy recommendations for the future development of tourism in the Mosuo region, thereby enriching the perspective of ethnic tourism research.

Keywords: ethnic tourism; Mosuo villages; tourist perspective; imagined identity; sustainable tourism development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/16/7042/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/16/7042/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:16:p:7042-:d:1457823

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().