Collaborative governance for rural tourism in a centralized state: a tale of two villages in China

Abstract

This study proposes a conceptual framework of collaborative governance for rural tourism based on social exchange theory, social capital theory, and pertinent literature of empirical and review studies. The framework guides the empirical investigation of latent governance structures of rural tourism in the two Chinese villages of Bajiaoting and Shangfeng, using primary and secondary data collected over six years. The study found that, although the two villages are similar in their formal administrative setup and collaborative governance intent, their latent de facto governance structures differ. Bajiaoting's commercial enterprise-led collaborative governance, involving and engaging all stakeholders, outperformed Shangfeng's village government-dominated governance, which demoralizes villagers. Bajiaoting's collaborative governance results in better habitat improvement, job creation, economic scale, and long-term planning. Bajiaoting villagers are also more satisfied than Shangfeng villagers with the improvement of their quality of life.