Differences

Based on the literature about rural tourism in US and China, I identified the differences between the two countries in these aspects: 1) main forms of tourism; 2) rural tourism management and marketing; 3) role of government; 4) socio-economic condition of rural areas; 5) connection with QOL.

Main Forms of Tourism

In China, the "Nong Jia Le" tourism is the dominant form of rural tourism (Hu, 2008). By 2009, the number of farmer families operating "Nong Jia Le" had reached 1.3 million (Sun, 2009). At the early stage of "Nong jia le", rural families offers tourists lodging with rooms of their private home or rural campsites equivalent to "Bed & Breakfast" in Europe and North America. In term of land using, the owners of "Nong Jia Le" substitute leisure activities for agricultural activities, providing a number of activities related to nature and local historic heritage interests such as rafting, fishing, local medicinal herb therapy, fruit-picking, local cuisine, and sale of home-made country products. It has become a trendy phenomenon in China's rural areas where agriculture is not economically competitive (Su, 2011).

In China, the "Nong Jia Le" tourism provides tourists the authentic experience of local rural life. Tourists stay at farmer's places and do farmer's routine but in a more recreational way. Many of the tourism activities offered in "Nong Jia Le" are actually everyday recreation of rural residents. Therefore, immersion with local culture is an important element of tourist activities.

In contrast, many rural tourism activities in US are nature-based and are less combined with local life. Tourists may dine in a restaurant enjoying the local "farm to table" gastronomy but do not taste the food prepared by an individual family. Tourists may experience the local culture by attending local events, many of which are staged to tourists, and interact with local people. But they do not take part in the routine of general local people and experience what local people do for living and recreation.

Rural tourism development in the USA is often directly tied to the provision of public lands for recreation purposes (Gartner, 2004). National parks and state parks system is an important feature of US rural tourism development. A lot of the activities in US rural tourism such as golfing, mountain bicycling, camping, skiing and cultural events are not popular in China. For example, playing golf has become a significant activity since the early stage of rural tourism development in US (Gartner, 2005). However, this activity is commonly regarded by Chinese people as a form of luxury consumption and is related to modernity and urban lifestyle. Moreover, staging local events to attract visitors has become a trend in many US rural communities (Gartner, 2004). Some communities invest a lot in branding based on these events. For example, Gilroy in California aims at being the world's garlic capital and devotes almost all of its marketing effort to developing this brand image.

Rural Tourism Management and Marketing

Rural tourism in US today is involving a lot of professional organizations in marketing and attraction management. For example, many rural communities that emphasize the importance of tourism have their own destination marketing organizations in charge of branding and coordination of businesses. Since local events have become important attractions for many rural communities, event organizers have been established to manage the planning and operation. Most of the attractions and recreation facilities are under the management of experienced companies who specialize in marina recreation, agriculture activity, horse riding, golf course, amusement park or other types of rural recreation.

Since rural tourism China is still at a very early stage compared with US, the involvement of professional tourism organizations or companies that specialize in hospitality business is much lower than US. Most operators and owners of rural tourism business are local families who have been little educated and are less experienced in hospitality business. Many of them lack required management and marketing skills in running an efficient business (Su, 2011). And tourism planning is also lacking in many rural destinations.

However, in China professional organizations participate through the development model called corporation plus community or plus famers. Tourism corporations lease land and other resources from farmers or sign agreement with community authorities to develop attractions and facilities. Farmers are also involved in the process of development and management (Gao, Huang & Huang, 2009). This model is unique to China because of the rural land per capita is much smaller in China than that in US and the ownership systems are different between the two countries .

Involvement of Government

Rural tourism development in China first took the form of poverty alleviation through tourism (PAT). Chinese government is driven by a socio-economic imperative to alleviate poverty in China. How to develop rural economy within the very limited resources at poor rural villages has been a core issue faced by the Chinese government. Therefore, the Chinese government, from its very beginning, is highly involved in developing rural tourism as a major tool to adjust the distribution of income in poverty-stricken rural areas (Ryan, Gu, & Fang, 2009). Chinese government, from central to provincial, initiated a series of programs to promote rural tourism and make policies to support development of rural tourism. The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) has initiated many programs in this process (Gao, Huang & Huang, 2009). For example in 2000 the CNTA set up the first PAT experimental zone in Xihaigu, Ningxia province. Later CNTA published the guideline of PAT experimental zone development.

USA government involves in rural tourism development in a different way. Rural tourism is never a tool to address poverty problem in rural areas. Rural tourism began to develop under the prosperity of USA after World War II and significant growth in communities catering primarily to tourists. Tourism was pursued by many rural communities to add to the mix of local economy. Assistance with rural tourism development at the early stage did not come from the Federal Government (Gartner, 2004). In later stage, government support rural tourism mainly through funding the destination marketing organizations, providing public lands for recreation and building the national park system.

Socio-economic Condition of Rural Areas

At the beginning of the government leaded rural tourism promotion, China was still the biggest agrarian society by population in the world. The challenge of rural social and economic development was the foremost issue for Chinese governments because of the fact that peasants constituted about 75% of China's population and the success of China's economic modernization depended largely on rural economic development (Chen, 1997).

On the contrary, rural tourism development in USA was emphasized under an economic force that compelled the agriculture related labor to reduce and service employment to increase (Gartner, 2005). According to statistics of USA Census, USA rural population has been reduced to 35% in 1950s and to 25% in 1990s. And people who are in agriculture related jobs were even much fewer than those living rural areas. Recently, there is even a trend that urban population moves to rural areas to live but commute to downtown to work.

Connection with QOL

In evaluating their QOL, USA residents and Chinese residents attach importance to different domains of life. One significant difference is the perception of community life or social life. Studies based on USA residents found that the opportunity to participate in community decision, as well as the quality of social activities with other residents in the community was recognized as a critical indicator in QOL (e.g., Allen et al., 1998; Andereck & Nyaupane, 2010; Kim et al., 2013). Rural tourism impact on community life was a major concern of relevant studies and a strong association was identified. For example, Allen et al., (1998) found that rural tourism development may lead to a lost sense of community or lack of control. Rural residents concerned a lot about civic and social involvement but this community sense dropped significantly at upper level of tourism development. And this change was perceived by residents as negatively affecting their life satisfaction. Moreover, increase of labor demand triggered by tourism may attract more immigrants or commuters to the community. As the community population becomes larger, residents feel that there are more strangers and the social relationships become more complex.

Although Chinese residents expressed serious concern over the negative impact of tourism, the community life that emphasized by US residents was not one of the major concerns (Li et al., 2016). In terms of social and cultural aspects of QOL, Chinese residents in Qiyunshan care more about the conflicts between touristic activities and local customs. Much of the attention was paid to economic and environmental impact of tourism. One phenomenon that is unique to China as shown in the literature is that tourism development in some places made local people lose their jobs rather than provided more employment (Li et al., 2016). This phenomenon occurs as a result of poor planning and strong governmental interference. Local farmers were force to sell the farm lands for infrastructure construction but employment opportunities were not distributed equally to all the areas being affected.

Similarity

First of all, USA and Chinese tourists have similar motivation of taking rural tourism. Literature on motivation for visiting rural destinations shows that the common motives of USA and Chinese tourists include escaping from stressful urban life, seeking tranquility and simplicity, relaxation, enjoying peace and quiet, immersing in nature, experiencing authentic rural lifestyle which is novel to urban residents, learning rural cultures particularly customs and daily activities, taking recreation activities unique to rural areas (e.g., Cai & Li, 2009; Dong et al., 2013; Urry, 2002).

For example, in China the rural life and recreation activities such as fruit picking, fishing, rafting, rural style cuisine, and local crafts and architectures are novel experiences for people who grow up in urban areas. According to Su (2011), the attractiveness of "Nong Jia Le" tourism is the strong contrasts between rurality and urbanity. For most common people in China, city is synonymous with modernity while countryside is synonymous with tradition and continuity with the past. China's rurality has been associated with the idyllic rural life and natural scenery such as family intimacy, green lifestyles, simplicity, organic food, fresh air, and open space. This rurality image is also held by USA urban residents (Urry, 2002).

The second similar characteristic is that rural tourism is primarily in the form of domestic tourism. And most of the trips are taken from the closest urban markets. Gartner (2004) in review of USA rural tourism history concluded that rural tourism in USA is a story of demotic tourism. He found that most of the visitors to rural destinations are from the same states. This phenomenon is particularly obvious for the "Nong Jia Le" tourism as most of the destinations are very small in scale and are known only to adjacent cities (Su, 2013).

Third, rural tourism affect local resident's QOL through increasing employment, increasing income, improving infrastructure, causing criminal problems and degrading natural environment. The positive impact on local community's economy and residents' material life has been widely reported in both China and USA (e.g., Crotts & Holland, 1993; Gartner, 2004; Gao et al., 2009; Su, 2013). And environmental pollution has been commonly mentioned by both Chinese and USA rural residents (Allen et al., 1998; Li et al., 2016).

Related