Sharing the benefits of tourism: a case study in Hainan, China.

Abstract

Public participation has long been recognized as a tool for balancing power in decision making and to spread the benefits of development projects. However, empowerment is a long-term and continuing process. In a top-down development context such as China, the sharing of benefits is likely to precede involvement in decision making. This paper reports a case study of community displacement as a result of tourism development in Hainan Province, China. It illustrates the encouraging process whereby the resettled villagers prepared for participation and became involved in the surrounding tourism development. The productive energies and creative talents which had been previously bottled up by minority cultures and traditions were opened up after the move, and the villagers began to demonstrate enhanced desires and abilities to share in the benefits of tourism. The paper demonstrates that they are able to articulate their needs and desires, if given the opportunity. However, it is hard for the minority Li villagers to participate and achieve significant benefits with their own efforts alone. Outside political, financial and technical help is required if they are to move up the participation spiral.

La participation publique a longtemps ete reconnue comme un outil pour equilibrer le pouvoir dans le processus de prise de decision et pour repartir les avantages des projets de developpement. Cependant, le renforcement du pouvoir est un processus C long terme et continu. Dans un contexte de gestion hierarchique du developpement comme on le retrouve en Chine, le partage des avantages est susceptible de venir avant la participation au processus de decision. On presente dans ce rapport une etude de cas sur le deplacement d'une collectivite en raison du developpement touristique dans la province de Hainan, en Chine. On souligne le processus encourageant par lequel les villageois reinstalles se sont prepares C la participation et ont pris part au developpement du tourisme environnant. Les energies productives et les talents createurs qui avaient auparavant ete beillonnes en raison du caractere minoritaire de cette culture et des traditions ont enfin ete liberes, et les villageois ont commence C faire preuve de leurs habiletes et de leurs desirs grandissants de retirer certains avantages du tourisme. On demontre dans cet article qu'ils etaient en mesure d'articuler leurs besoins et leurs desirs, si on leur en laissait l'occasion. Toutefois, il est difficile pour les villageois de la minorite Li de retirer des avantages significatifs par leurs seuls efforts. Hormis l'aide politique, une aide financiere et technique est donc necessaire afin qu'ils puissent gravir des echelons en matiere de participation aux avantages.

Keywords

China, planning, participation in decision making, participation in benefit sharing, displacement, indigenous people

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Participation in Decision Making

Public participation in decision making (PDM) is advocated so that people can have some control over resources, initiatives and decisions that affect them. In tourism, PDM of the local community has been suggested as one way to balance the physical and commercial orientation of tourism development with the needs and goals of local people, to enhance destination planning, to ensure the maintenance of a "sense of place", to foster a better understanding of the entire development situation, to promote the formation of a common value base, to increase recognition of interdependence among stakeholders and, in these ways, to promote sustainability (Murphy 1985, Gill 1997, Haywood 1997, Jamal and Getz 1997, Wall 1997). PDM in tourism development has been discussed in the academic literature for more than two decades (de Kadt 1976, Hughes 1995) and the World Bank has made considerable efforts to foster participatory planning. There has been, however, little progress so far towards addressing the initiation of participation in a top-down planning system in which economic growth is the primary goal (Din 1998). The World Bank model will be discussed below.

As Tosun (2000) has pointed out, the practicality of PDM is seldom considered in detail when researchers suggest that developing countries should adopt the Western notion of PDM. In the absence of a careful examination of the local political and planning environments, it is hard to determine whether or not community PDM is likely to work at a destination (Din 1997). PDM is likely to be meaningful only where it is politically acceptable to the government (de Kadt 1976). PDM is sometimes little more than a public relations exercise and has many challenges, including the costs of time and money involved. Further, decision making can still be difficult when the public has diverse perspectives - consensus may not be achieved (Cooke and Kothari 2001). On the other hand, PDM can, in theory, be an empowering process in which the public assesses, plans, manages and controls collective actions (Askew 1989). Thus, PDM can be a tool used for rebalancing and decentralizing power (Willis 1995). PDM, however, faces an immediate obstacle in a top-down political situation in which the powerful may be reluctant to relinquish or dilute their power.

Community involvement in tourism development can be interpreted from at least two perspectives: participation in decision making (PDM) and participation in benefit sharing (PBS) (Timothy 1999). Thus, four possibilities exist: participation in decision making and benefits, participation in decisions with no benefits, acquisition of benefits without participation in decision making, and no decision-making power or benefits.

This paper introduces and modifies the participatory spiral advocated by the World Bank and considers the applicability of the early rungs of the spiral to a minority community in Hainan, China, that has been displaced by tourism. At the same time, in a context in which public officials express doubt concerning the ability of such people to contribute anything useful to the development process, it will be shown that they are capable of articulating their concerns and needs when given the opportunity to do so.

PBS and the Participatory Spiral

Participation in benefit sharing (PBS) reflects an interest in finding forms of development through which benefits actually reach the majority of the population (Kaufman 1997). Mathieson and Wall (1982) pointed out that one of the main objectives of tourism development should be to provide a means for improving the lives of residents of destination areas. Tourism planning, then, should be as much about planning for residents as planning for visitors. The role that tourism might play in poverty alleviation is receiving more and more attention. PBS is consistent with the political perspective espoused in many developing countries. Therefore, there may be fewer political and social obstacles in promoting PBS instead of, or as a precursor to, PDM in initiating public participation in development. In suggesting this, there is no intent to separate PBS and PDM into different processes because they actually form one interrelated process and reinforce each other. As Friedmann (1992: 34) stated, "giving full voice to the disempowered sectors of the population tends to follow a certain sequence" and acquisition of financial resources may be an initial requirement for effective participation in politics. PDM will reinforce PBS in the long run, further contributing to PDM (Friedmann, 1992). Based on the experience of the World Bank in many developing countries, the participatory continuum is summarized as follows:

"Participation" is a continuum along which the poor are

progressively empowered ... On one end of this continuum, the

poor may be viewed as beneficiaries--recipients of services,

resources, and development interventions. In this context,

community organizing to participate in development to share the

benefit, training and one-way flows of resources and information

through government are often appropriate ... As the capacity of

poor people is strengthened and their voices begin to be heard,

they become "clients" who are capable of demanding and paying

for goods and services provided by government and private

development sectors. Under this changed circumstance, their

needs may also change as well--the poor people may have more

confidence and resources to ask to be better "heard" in

initiating the development activities. When the poor people

further strengthen their capacity and they reach the far end of

the continuum when these clients ultimately become part of the

owners and managers of the development activities, the previous

poor people then obtain the highest level of participation ...

(World Bank, 1996: 8).

In short, following the work of the World Bank, a participatory spiral can be organized based on the above discussion with the lowest level of "impactee" being added by the authors (Figure 1). By analogy with "interviewee" and "employee", the neologism "impactee" here refers to whoever is being impacted negatively without gaining obvious benefits from the development generating the impacts. This situation, of no local community PBS in an outsider-dominated development, is a frequent phenomenon in the beginning stage of many development projects in China, especially in tourism, and is the situation in the case examined below.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Chinese Context