Estructura de los marcos

These comments, while requiring further substantiation, potentially confirm the statement made by Deng, Qiang, Walker and Zhang (2003) that environmental degradation can influence the quality of visitors’ experience. As such, it is noted that although building infrastructure is needed for tourism development, relevant departments still should guarantee the protection of the environment and be responsible for the visitors and local community.

The following left hand photograph was taken by the author in 2010, and the second in 2012.

When comparing the two photographs, it can easily be seen that the landscape below the mountain had been changed a lot because of the various buildings and construction projects.

In this section responses to questions such as “Do you agree with the idea that the tourists’

coming may bring some social and cultural impacts to the local community?” Unlike the case of environmental impacts, which were mainly seen as being negative, normally the social-culture impacts were normally seen in a more positive fashion by visitors. Some frequently words mentioned by respondents were “positive impacts are more than negative impacts”,

“not so many significant negative social-culture impacts”, “I don’t think visitors will bring significant negative social impacts to the local residents, because the majority of visitors visit only 2-3 hours. Their short stay won’t bring lots of problem to local residents…”.

Additionally, it seems that this impact was quite difficult for respondents to access from their short visit. Unlike the environmental impacts, which could be simply observed by sightseeing;

social-culture impacts assessment require visitors to have a higher level of involvement with local villagers. Thus, during the interview, it was easy to find examples of a low level of awareness of the socio-cultural impacts associated with tourism, or indeed example of some indifference. In total 40 respondents responded to these issue, and there were 8 of them (20%) who stated that they had no real feelings about these impacts on the local village. The current results indicated 5 positive sub-themes: ‘know new things’, ‘keep traditional Taoism and heritage resources’, ‘keep ancient building’, ‘make friends with visitors’, ‘improve residents’

communication skills’, and 3 negative themes, namely ‘residents become commercial’,

‘Taoism become commercial’, and ‘Disturbances to residents’ daily life’.

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Positive social-culture impacts

Many visitors who had been interviewed reported that because of tourism development, local residents were able to see many visitors from different places, social levels, and backgrounds.

Visitors could come from international or ethnic minorities; they could be a business operator, doctor, teacher, government official, painter, soldier etc. Thus those people may bring different new things to the local village, from material objects to new ideologies. For instance, visitors used advanced cameras, climbing boots, export food and will show these to local residents; some important news from political, social or economic elite may also be transferred to residents. Accordingly, they help local residents broaden their own horizons and learn things outside of their remote village. Some important comments indicating this theme included:

“…we, visitors come to this village, can bring lots of new information to these small villages…this time, I tell a restaurant owner about the tea market in my hometown, and suggest he sell tea to the tea shop in my place…” (Male visitors from Nanjing)

“…I discuss the some information about Chinese university with a local villager, because his daughter will have college entrance examination this year, as I am a university professor…”

( University Professor, from Anhui)

The transcripts revealed that majority of tourists in the present study thought local Taoism culture and heritage was preserved because of tourism. Without tourism, there would be few opportunities to attract the government’s attention to repair and preserve those ancient treasures. Repairing the dilapidated temple; restoring broken inscriptions; or the promotion of Taoism to visitors, all of them needed investment. Additionally it was pointed out, to develop tourism meant old buildings such as the residents wooden houses also needed to be well maintained. Not one house was rebuilt in the style of a new modern house as in other villages below the mountain. This potentially confirms Ryan’s et al., (2011) and McDowall & Choi (2010) analysis that tourism can help to revitalize and preserve the local culture and heritage.

With reference to another sub-theme ‘improve residents’ communication skills’, some respondents felt that the local residents were good at communicating with strangers, unlike those who had never experienced meeting various aspects of society. No matter their age, gender, or job, everyone enjoyed communicating with visitors. There is no doubt that local residents have already established good communication habits by having frequent contact

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with tourists every day. One respondent stated that: “I am quite surprised that those elderly ladies who sell incense can speak Mandarin so frequently and well, and they never feel timid even when they faced prestigious government officials…” (Female journalist, from Hangzhou). Overall, it was clear from the transcripts that ‘know new things’, ‘keep traditional Taoism and heritage resources’, ‘keep ancient building’, ‘make friends with visitors’, ‘improve residents’ communication skill’ were considered as positive impacts by visitors. These impacts have been identified in the literature as tourism social-cultural benefits (McDowall & Choi, 2010; Cohen, 1984).

Negative social-culture impact

‘Residents become commercial because of tourism development’, followed by ‘Taoism become commercial’, and ‘Tourists may disturb residents’ daily life and even create conflict with hosts’ were considered as the three main negative social-cultural impacts. It was interesting to find that many respondents feel local villagers are not as simple as they had previously imagined. In the visitors’ perception, the fact that several local residents are driven by money belies their ‘pure image’. For example, residents charge difference prices to different visitors; residents lie by saying that the chicken which visitors eat is raised by themselves rather than it being purchased from town, yet the lie allows them to charge a much higher price. The following quotes illustrate this theme in the current study:

“…I think residents here become more commercial than 3 years ago, when I first visit Mt Qiyun…now, they are thinking too much about money…” (Female visitor from Maanshan)

“… I think the residents here are not kindly, especially for our students. They treat us unkindly, because we students have no money to spend in their shop or restaurant…this trip, we have 40 students from Jixi Middle school, we visit here for our spring outing…unfortunately, it rains heavily…we groups just find some restaurant to shelter from the rain. But no restaurants allow us to stay there, they said to us ‘if you guys stay here, how about my other customers, too crowded and you guys haven’t spent money in my restaurant”

(Middle school student from Jixi County).

There was a field note recorded by the author in the afternoon of 7/3/2012 that comments on these issues:

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“Today is tomb-sweeping festival holiday. I have been told that the visitor number will be great in this day. Thus, I prepare lots of visitor questionnaire to start my work. Everything goes well, until 12 o’clock, there appears much noise near a big restaurant. I went there as quickly as possible, and find 7-8 visitors argue with restaurant owner. I am been told that the owner want to charge 1 RMB for each visitor who wants to go to the public toilet. Of course, visitors refuse this requirement , they think it is a ‘public toilet’, it should for free; while restaurant owner think the public toilet is in her backyard, so many people come here will damage her back yard, thus she thinks about charging a price…”

This is just on particular case that happened in Mt Qiyun, and other similar events also occurred sometimes, especially during peak holiday periods. Therefore, it can be postulated that some of residents’ commercial behaviour may lead to visitors’ low satisfaction during their trip. Gallarza, Saura & García (2002) stated that residents’ attitudes toward tourists can affect tourists’ perceptions of a certain destination; because a local host’s anger, apathy or mistrust will be conveyed to the tourists and lead to visitors’ being them unwilling to revisit that place (Gursoy et al., 2002; Bachleitner & Zins,1999). Secondly, findings from the present study showed that many respondents interviewed were aware of ‘commercial Taoism’. The main reasons given for this were that majority of visitors felt unable to sense a

‘real’ Taoism culture in Mt Qiyun. They complained that there were no Taoists praying in the temple; no one could properly introduce Taoism for visitors and that the Taoist priests themselves lacked any deep understanding of Taoism. However, much to visitors’ dismay, visitors had to experience the aggressive selling of incense sticks by the older residents, experience some over assertive ‘hassling’ from the fortune tellers, as well as being asked to donate money to the temples. Some respondents also complained that the price of candles and incense being sold on the mountain was too high. This finding is quite similar to that of Sun and Teo (2009), who found the tourists in Lijing, China, insisting that they have not experienced the authenticity of Naxi culture. As well as Sofield and Li (1998) stated that:

“…cultural events to serve economic interests without due regard to their cultural integrity has resulted in the loss of heritage quality and educational value…” (p.386). As illustrated in the following quote:

“…Taoism culture become commercial, it can’t do real exchange with visitors… I hate those commercial activities…you can see so many fortune tellers, incenses stick sellers wanting to

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make money...if you don’t buy, they will keeping talking with you, or following you all the way…” (Male visitor from Shanghai)

As such, there seems that commercial Taoism and commercial residents have resulted in a low quality travel experience. It is the author’s view that both local residents and the Taoism Association need a unified management plan to overcome the ‘commercial problem’ and make Taoism in Mt Qiyun more authentic. Otherwise, visitors’ satisfaction may be adversely affected by the impressions detailed above.

Finally, some considerate respondents mentioned that their own visits may disturb the local residents’ daily life. To better service visitors, local residents should change many things to better fit tourists needs. These could include residents getting up very early to prepare breakfast for visitors, while some need to be prepared go to sleep very late because some visitors ask for midnight snack. While, many visitors perceived these demands as being very perfectly normal things, a few held to a view that it was fair to sacrifice something. Some important quotes are as follows:

“Yes, our coming will disturb local residents’ life. For example, I stay in this village for two nights. We guys wake up very early, because many of us want to see the sunrise. We get up at 4 o’clock, and our movement might wake the hosts. We also get back to the accommodation very late, because we want to see the Night Mountain, and the stars. We feel guilty that the host keeps waiting until the midnight, after we get back, they just close the door” (Tour group leader, from Shanghai).

“…yes, it will disturb their life to some extent, but I think it is normal, because they want to earn more money …” (Female visitor from Shanghai).

There was another field note which recorded by author in 23/2/2012, 11pm to 2 am in next day which provided some evidence to support this result:

“Today, there a large foreign group visited Mt Qiyun for 2 days. 42 young visitors come from many countries, China, US, UK, Australia, German et al., They plan to have a party in the night, and they also invite me to enjoy their party. We start party at 11 pm; we are drinking, dancing and singing. I feel everything is so great, because author hasn’t play with so many young friends for 4 month. However, the bad thing is two hours later, 3 residents come to

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censure us for making noise, disturbing their sleep, then cut the electricity. The party just stop, and those young visitors are unhappy”.

Therefore inherent in these quotes is the nature of the impact on residents’ daily life, and a need to respect the situation that while the tourist is on holiday at 1.00am, the local residents are not and have to get to work the following morning and do not have the leisure to sleep until mid-day (Mathieson &Wall, 1982; Doğan, 1989).