Farming versus tourism

Participation in the tourism industry around World Heritage Sites is an important livelihood strategy for farmers. To enhance their sustainable livelihood ability, it is important to identify these strategies and determine the factors that affect their shift from low- to high-stability employment plans. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 150 farmer households on a World Heritage Site in China. Using the sustainable livelihood framework, proposed by the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom, a detailed inventory of farmers’ livelihood capital was created. A livelihood capital evaluation system was established adopting an entropy weight method. In addition, a multiple logistic regression model was used to analyze the impact of farmers’ livelihood capital on their choice of tourism schemes. The results show that the most stable tourism livelihood strategies in the area studied were store types, and the most unstable, stall types. The key factors that affected the farmers’ shift of livelihood strategy were physical, financial, and human capital. Farmers with a larger quantum of these types of capital were more likely to choose a high-level livelihood strategy than other farmers. Moreover, the distance from their residence to the main attractions and tourist routes was an important factor that affected their choice of livelihood strategies.