Is Community‐Dominated Tourism More Pro‐Poor Than Enterprise‐Dominated Tourism? Empirical Evidence From Two Miao Villages in Southwest China

ABSTRACT

Eradicating poverty is a tough worldwide challenge and is listed as the top priority among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations. Tourism plays a positive role in fighting against poverty. This paper examines which of the two is more pro‐poor: community‐dominated tourism or enterprise‐dominated tourism. The authors conduct a comparative study both horizontally and longitudinally on the pro‐poor effects of tourism under different development models in Xijiang Miao Village and Upper Langde Miao Village in southwestern China. The results indicate that: (1) There are significant differences in the pro‐poor effects of tourism under different tourism development models. However, the community‐dominated tourism development model is not necessarily more pro‐poor than that dominated by an enterprise. (2) For tourist attractions like ethnic minority villages, what development model to be adopted in practice to be more pro‐poor should depend on what local conditions they have. Specifically speaking, for large villages with high tourism popularity, the enterprise‐dominated tourism development model is better; for small villages with high tourism popularity, the community‐dominated model is more pro‐poor. However, for such ethnic villages with low tourism popularity, the tourism development model of “government aids + community participation” should be adopted in the early stage, and then a switch should be made to either the community‐dominated or enterprise‐dominated model when high tourism popularity is achieved.