Development of sustainable cultural heritage tourism in China : a comparative study of ancient towns in Lijiang and Chengdu

The development of cultural heritage tourism has become a world-wide issue recent years. There is increasing pressure between cultural heritage conservation and tourism industry growth, however, the sustainable integration of cultural heritage and tourism can results in positive and synergistic effect on the whole system. Thus the research on sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism is increasing significant in a global scale. China is the typical country that facing the dilemma of pursuing tourism industry growth and cultural heritage protection, an integrated framework that can guide the cultural heritage tourism towards sustainability is necessary and urgent at present. \n \nLijiang Old Town in Lijiang and China’s Lane in Chengdu are used as comparative case study. Aspects related to sustainable cultural heritage tourism development are examined and evaluated according to the conceptual framework, including heritage conservation performance such as resource integrity, cultural authenticity, publicity and education; tourism industry performance such as economic growth, marketing and branding strategies, tourist satisfaction; mechanism performance such as policy support, stakeholder cooperation, assessment and monitoring mechanism, etc. It is found out that China’s Lane has a better performance than Lijiang Old Town due to its government-guide development mode and right segregation system. While it is also found that the cultural authenticity is decreasing both in Lijiang Old Town and China’s Lane largely due to the displacement of indigenous population and the disruption of local community network. \n \nIt is concluded that the role of government should shift from dominance to guidance, right segregation management mode should be promoted and effective and comprehensive assessment and monitoring mechanism should be established regarding the development of cultural heritage tourism in China. Moreover, cultural authenticity and local community network as the core of cultural heritage conservation should be highly valued by various sectors in the society, since they are the basic and essence to ensure long-term development of cultural heritage tourism towards sustainability.