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By Thomas Stubbs, Connor Courtney, Christian Frabitore, Simone Alimonti, and Kate Stevens
Like the rest of China’s economy, the tourism industry is growing at an almost unimaginable rate. Travel was highly restricted for Chinese citizens until the mid-1980s, but since then it has become a form of leisure affordable for an ever-increasing number of people. For example, when Hong Kong was finally made open to mainland Chinese in 1997, soon they made up 75% of the island’s tourist population. Until the mid-2000s most Chinese tourists still traveled in big tour groups to keep their trips affordable, but since then independent tourism has become much more commonplace (Chan and Zakkour). Since more people have money and a desire to travel there has been a growth in tourism in the rural villages of China, as seen in one of our Chinese Environmental Film Festival Films, Peasant Family Happiness. The pumping of new economic life into these traditional agricultural villages would seem to be a positive occurrence. However, the conversion of an agricultural community into a tourist mecca comes with certain consequences. Continue reading “Chinese Village Tourism”