嵌入性对古村落旅游地经济可持续发展的影响机制研究——以西递、宏村为例

以西递和宏村发展路径的演变为例,借助嵌入性概念,解释了2个古村落兴衰交替的成因和影响,揭示该类旅游目的地可持续发展的机制。结论认为,高嵌入性可以带来较稳定的社区发展模式和和谐的利益分配方式,但是对产业升级存在双重制约作用,而低嵌入性所起到的作用刚好相反,二者的权衡在于旅游漏损的多与少、学习渠道的盈与缺之间。从动态角度看,对于古村落旅游可持续发展而言,学习机制比利益分配机制更重要;当学习机制有效发挥作用,带动产业升级发展,从而带来更加丰厚的利润时,分配不均的矛盾有机会被消解。

Impacts of Embeddedness Towards Tourism Economic Sustainability of Historic Villages: A Case of Xidi and Hongcun

The sustainable development of historic villages is one of the hotspots in the research field of Tourism Geography. Existing research mainly focus on the property right arrangement, benefit distribution mechanism, and the conservation and sustainable utilization of tourism resource. However, the learning mechanism and the source of technology progress are yet to discuss. In this context, the majority of extant studies hold a supportive view of community-dominated pattern of development. This article argues that the learning mechanism and industrial upgrading in these villages and the negative effects of the community-dominated pattern of tourism development cannot be overlooked. Through the cases of two cultural world heritages in China, Xidi and Hongcun, this study attempts to explain the reasons and impacts of the alternate rise and fall of these two historic villages, from the perspective of embeddedness. It aims to unveil the relation between high (community-dominated) and low (outsider-dominated)-embedded patterns and the economic sustainability in historical tourism villages. It intends to explain how different patterns of embeddedness lead to distinguished outcomes of tourism leakages, learning activities, industrial upgrading and their further tourism development in historic villages. Conclusions are as follows: 1) The high-embeddedness pattern can bring about comparatively stable community development and fair value distribution in the community. But it relatively hinders the upgrading of the tourism industry, and the low-embeddedness pattern, vice versa. The relationship between embeddedness and the economic sustainability of the tourism villages is dialectical and the key rests on the trade-off between less tourism leakages or more leaning opportunities. 2) Considering the sustainable tourism development of historic villages in a more dynamic and long-term manner, the learning mechanism is more important than the equal share of profits. When the learning mechanism effectively facilitates the industrial upgrading, abundant benefits can be generated and the conflicts caused by uneven distribution are more likely to alleviate. Overall, the contribution of this article is to construct a more critical analytical perspective for the branch of sustainability study in tourism geography. It identifies the key of the trade-offs in high/low embeddedness patterns and the importance of learning. Additionally, this study has supplemented a new type of case studies to the industrial upgrading research in economic geography from the perspective of tourism geography.