Facilitating sustainable tourism by endogenization: China as exemplar

• Published in: Annals of tourism research Vol. 81; p. 102890
• Main Authors: Weaver, David, Tang, Chuanzhong, Zhao, Yanzhi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2020
• Subjects: China; Cultural relativism; Cultural values; Endogenization; Enlightened mass tourism; Sustainable tourism; Sustainable tourism; Endogenization; Cultural values; Enlightened mass tourism; China; Cultural relativism
• ISSN: 0160-7383; 1873-7722
• DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2020.102890

To make contemporary Anglo-Western sustainable tourism discourse more responsive to non-Western contexts, we augment the generic content of the enlightened mass tourism model with crucial endogenous injections, using China as exemplar. Han Chinese cultural values as input are summarized as harmony in all things toward creative transformation through parameters of collectivism, face, guanxi, self-cultivation, and embrace of opposites. Endogenous output considers the policy and power structure for achieving sustainability-related outcomes, in this instance for the better life of people, poverty alleviation and ecological civilization as embodied in the authoritative Report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The outcome is “endogenized” enlightened mass tourism as a framework more widely conducive to sustainability engagement in non-Western destinations. •Augments Eurocentric enlightened mass tourism with Chinese cultural injections.•Harmony among all things for creative transformation identified as core input.•Happiness, poverty alleviation and ecological civilization identified as core output.•Enlightened mass tourism with Chinese characteristics indicates endogenization theory.