A Research on Community Participation of Rural Tourism Development -A Case Study of the Sansheng County in Sichuan Province

In this paper, the authors conduct an exploratory study of community participation of rural tourism development through case study. As a typical case of successful rural tourism development, the Sansheng County in Sichuan Province was selected to test the hypotheses that community participation may influence rural tourism development through several factors. The authors investigate the county through a deep interview and questionnaire survey from two aspects. The first aspect is the impacts of rural tourism development on the local community of the Sansheng County; the other aspect is the impacts of the local community on rural tourism development. Finally, the authors propose a community participation strategy to facilitate the Chinese rural tourism development.