Research on Low-carbon Rural Tourism Development in Western Minority Regions in China from the perspective of neoinstitutional economics

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1 Research on Low-carbon Rural Tourism Development in Western Minority Regions in China from the perspective of neoinstitutional economics Zhou Gefen About the author: Zhou Gefen (1980- ), female, born in Shaanxi, Han, master, lecturer of School of Tourism of Sichuan Agricultural University, in China,mainly engaging in research of tourism management Fund program: social science union program of Sichuan Agricultural University, funding in 2011 Abstract Rural tourism, as a type of emerging tourism industry, has become an important integral part of China s new rural construction. However, in addition to bringing economic benefits to the western minority regions, the rural tourism development has also caused lots of carbon emissions, seriously affecting the ecological environment balance, so rural tourism should seek for a sustainable development in low-carbon model. In this context, this paper, from the perspective of neoinstitutional economics, has analyzed the main cause for high carbon emissions during the rural tourism development in western minority regions, which mainly is institutional deficiency, and built the formal and informal institutions regarding rural tourism development to guarantee the sustainable development of low-carbon rural tourism in western minority regions institutionally. Keywords: western minority regions, low-carbon rural tourism, formal institutions, and informal institutions Introduction Western minority regions, with a distribution mainly in 12 western provinces, municipality and autonomous regions such as Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, and Chongqing, are rich in natural resources and different ethnic culture resources [1]. To realize the economic development of western minority regions, under the support of Western Development policy, we have probed out a way of national economic development combined with tourism, which is rural tourism. In addition to bringing economic benefits to the western minority regions, the rural tourism development has also caused lots of carbon emissions, seriously threatening the ecological environment of western minority regions, mainly reflected in that: driven by economic interests, the planners, developers and implementers of rural tourism vigorously developed the scenic spots, built hotels and restaurants, but ignored the energy conservation and emission reduction in the tourism industry, which, plus the tourists luxury consumption, made the sustainable development of rural tourism face severe challenges in western minority region. Therefore, it has become an important choice to change the pattern of tourism growth and develop low-carbon rural tourism for rural tourism development in western minority regions. It is a topic worth studying on how to achieve the development of low-carbon rural tourism in harmony with environment. The research of neoinstitutional economics shows that institutions, as an endogenous variable, affect the economic growth, so it is required to analyze the barriers existing in the development of low-carbon rural tourism from the institutional factors, expecting to provide an institutional guarantee for development of low-carbon rural tourism. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 117

2 1. Background and Connotation of Low-carbon Rural Tourism Development With increasingly serious energy shortage, climate warming, and ecological environment problems in the world, the concept of low-carbon economy has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Low-carbon economy is a sustainable development model focusing on the harmonious development of society, economy and nature based on the principles of low energy consumption, low emissions and low pollution, and its core lies in obtaining a higher economic growth with a lower investment and actively undertaking the responsibility of environmental protection. Under the background of low-carbon economy, according to China s national situation and rural tourism development demands, traditional rural tourism development should change economic growth pattern and it has become the best choice to add low-carbon element to rural tourism development. Low-carbon rural tourism is the embodiment of low-carbon economy theory in rural tourism development, which is a way of rural tourism taking low-carbon economy theory as guide to realize the efficient and low-consumption utilization of rural tourism resources and the minimum environmental damage. Same as other means of tourism, low-carbon rural tourism includes the low carbonization respectively in development process, reception process and consumption process of rural tourism. Wherein, the low carbonization in development process requires following the philosophical view of Nature and Man in One to have rational planning and appropriate development to reduce the carbon emissions in the tourism development, seeking for the harmonious development of nature; the low carbonization in reception process mainly means that the tourism service suppliers like country inns or hotels, scenic spots, and operators participating in the local tourism reception should actively use the low-carbon facilities and equipments of energy conservation and emission reduction, abide by the 4R principles in production, reduce the energy consumption of tourism industry chain, and improve the utilization efficiency of resources, to achieve the purpose of obtaining good economic benefits with a small investment; the low carbonization in consumption process means to reduce the carbon footprint and carbon dioxide emissions caused by the tourists in the consumption to the minimum, advocating a kind of new way of tourism consumption [2]. 2. Analysis of the Institutional Factors Restricting the Low-carbon Rural Tourism Pattern in Western Minority Regions The representative of neoinstitutional economics, Douglas North, holds the opinion that institutions include formal institutions and informal institutions. Formal institutions are a series of policies and regulations consciously created by people, such as national and local laws and regulations as well as rules of business sector. Informal institutions are evolving unconsciously in the long-term relations of people which have a sustained vitality and are an integral part of culture, including the values and beliefs, ethical norms, moral ideas, customs and ideology formed in the process of socialization[3]. As two sides of social rules, formal and informal institutions supplement each other and are a unity of opposite. First, formal and informal institutions are mutually generated, since that informal institutions are the premise and basis for the generation of formal institutions, at the same time, formal institutions promote the evolvement of informal institutions which will gradually form new formal institutions; the implementation of informal institutions could reduce the implementation cost of implementing formal institutions; however, the implementation of informal institutions is lack of enforceability to a certain degree. Second, there exist some differences between formal and informal institutions, including: the implementation method of formal institution reflects a certain enforceability, while that of informal COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 118

3 institutions reflects spontaneity and non-mandatory property; as to the time of generation, formal institutions are more later than informal institutions; as to the proportion to the society, informal institutions take a larger proportion than formal institution; as to the influence of institution, informal institutions could make more sustained influence compared with formal institutions. In fact, the people s social activities are restricted by informal institutions in many fields not covered by laws and regulations. Therefore, it is required to consider the compatibility with informal institutions when formulating formal institutions. Low-carbon rural tourism is a kind of harmony tourism close to people and nature. Currently, the following institutional factors existing in western minority regions restrict the development of low-carbon rural tourism. 2.1 Imperfection of formal institutions including polices and regulations Lack of guidance on standards regarding low-carbon rural tourism Tourism industry has a wide span and a strong integrity which requires the support of core industries such as catering, accommodation, transport and entertainment as well as the assistance of periphery industries such as architecture, finance, insurance and communication. Due to the localism of tourism resources and close connection to rural economy, the rural tourism industry is much more comprehensive[4]. As a result, the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction may only be realized by incorporating low carbon concept through the whole rural tourism activity. At present, although green restaurant standards and low-carbon scenic spot demonstration areas have emerged in tourism, these standards fail to be systemized in general and can hardly provide a systematic and specific guidance to the development of low-carbon rural tourism Unclearly property rights of rural tourism resources Scarcity is one of the basic attributes of resources. For the same resources, the resource efficiency is different due to different utilization methods, participants and benefit distribution plans. The high carbon emissions generated and ecological environment pollution caused during the development and utilization process of rural tourism resources of western minority regions are directly related to the imperfection of property rights of resources. In accordance with the Constitution of China, tourism resources are state-owned or collectively-owned properties [5]. This means that our tourism resources have clear property rights with institutional guarantee and legal ground to follow. However, during the development process of tourism, the drawbacks of unclear property rights have gradually revealed, including the confusion of ownership, executive power and management right [6]; the phenomena of free riding in the development of rural public tourism resources threatens the ecological environment. 2.2 Deficiency of informal institutions Except the imperfection of formal institutions, the high-carbon emission behaviors of main participants in rural tourism development of western minority nationality region are not effectively restrained due to the deficiency of informal institutions Tourists psychology of comparing and pursuing luxury Large quantity of tourists are attracted to western minority regions for abundant natural resources and ethnic culture resources; however, the tourists comparing psychology and consuming concept of pursuing luxury results in the high carbon emission behaviors, which is reflected in: a great deal of remaining dishes on the dining table, failure to cut off the electricity when leaving the hotel room and self-driving rather than using public transport means, all of these have led to wasting of resources and increase of carbon emissions during touring. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 119

4 2.2.2 Distorted values and morals of parties relating to rural tourism development The development of rural tourism in western minority regions have driven the economy development of ethnic regions and improved the income of local residents. It is temptation of economic benefit that distorts the values and morals of people, which is reflected in: (1) people pursue too much in the immediate interests brought by rural tourism development which depends on extensive development[7], that is to say, rural sightseeing places are developed in large scale without reasonable planning and design and paying attention to the excavation of local cultural features. Some places even blindly cater to the demands of tourists and strive for maximum reception quantity in tourism development regardless of local ecological environment, giving rise to increasing emissions in tourism process Deficiency of village rules and regulations regarding ecological environment Village rules and regulations are common rules of conduct for all villagers to abide by, which are formulated based on relevant laws, regulations and policies and in combination with the reality of the village. They cover the contents of every side of rural society, such as ethics and morals, family virtues, customs, neighborhood relationship, weddings and funerals, social order and public security. According to the village rules and regulations, the villagers speeches and manners are standardized and regulated relying on the beliefs, customs and speeches in their hearts, to maintain an ordered village order [8]. It is difficult for the national laws to adapt to the management of minority areas due to the differences of ethnic cultures, so it is very important to rely on various village rules and regulations for managing the construction of minority areas. However, people s high-carbon tourism behaviors fail to be effectively restricted in time due to the serious threat posed by rural tourism development to ecological environment and the lagging of traditional village rules and regulations of western minority regions. 3. Institutional Arrangement of the Low-carbon Rural Tourism in Western Minority Regions 3.1 Formal institutional arrangement The development of low-carbon rural tourism in western minority regions needs to be bound by gradually developed and improved formal institutions. The formal institutional arrangement should be gradually improved from three levels that are national level, minority region level and community level The state should formulate and enact the standards and institutions regarding low-carbon rural tourism as soon as possible National government is the main provider of institutions. The central government should play as a guide in promoting the development of low-carbon rural tourism. First, accelerate the process of publishing Low-carbon Rural Tourism Standard : enterprises, communities and tourists shall make use of their subjective initiative to provide ideas and suggestions to the government for reference in discussion and making the standard, providing operability for the development of lowcarbon rural tourism to some extent [9] ; the central government may, based on the local standards such as the Low-carbon Tourism Standard enacted by Shanghai Tourism Bureau, combining with the characteristics of rural tourism, make the Low-carbon Rural Tourism Standard by revising the local ones. Second, build a complete low-carbon finance and taxation system: At the early stage of developing low-carbon rural tourism, technical costs were counted in the product costs and this resulted in a higher price of low-carbon rural tourism products comparing with the traditional products; as the tourists cannot accept such a high price, it is very hard for the low- COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 120

5 carbon rural tourism to achieve a sustainable development, and so, some compensations shall be given to the low-carbon rural tourism enterprises and communities to reduce the cost of tourist and enlarge the demand for low-carbon rural tourism products; for the enterprises with high energy consumption, high emission and heavy pollution, the government may, according to their resources, energy consumption and pollution condition, levy pollution emission fees, carbon tax, pollution product tax and other environment and resource taxes [10] The local government should make low-carbon tourism system combining with village rules and regulations The Constitution of China provides that The local people s congress of a national autonomous region has right to make autonomy rules and specific regulations according to the local political, economic and cultural characteristics. Therefore, the problem of pollutions and damages to the local environment due to high carbon emissions in development of tourism in western minority regions can be solved through local autonomy. When making policies related to tourism-related energy conservation and emission reduction and promoting the harmonious development of tourism and environment of minority regions, the local government should base on the village rules and regulations or may even directly incorporate the proper existing regulations and provisions adapting to ecological environmental protection into the local policies to bind the high carbon emissions and achieve energy conservation and emission reduction in the development of rural tourism Introduce modern enterprise management system into the rural tourism communities In fact, the development mode of rural tourism in western minority regions can be deemed as a mode of development with strength from community, resource from government and capital from investor led by community. Its investment and operation mode is similar to that of common enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce modern enterprise management system. The foundation of modern enterprise system lies in a clear property right. Introducing modern enterprise management system into the development of rural tourism in western minority regions means to identify the separation of management and ownership rights in the actual operation of rural tourism through identifying the property right of rural tourism resources and based on this, system of professional managers will be introduced, and the professional managers will manage the rural tourism with their professional knowledge with an responsible attitude towards the community, the government and the enterprises and develop the rural tourism to a new level which can satisfy parties engaged. This will help the rural tourism to take its social responsibility while pursuing economic interests, so as to realize the low-carbon rural tourism development. 3.2 Informal institutional arrangement Although the building of informal institutions makes progress slowly, the built and improved informal institutions will help in implementing formal institutions [6]. And at the same time, the institutional arrangement is mandatory and is not totally endogenetic. In order to make people regulate their behaviors to adapt to the development of low-carbon rural tourism, it is a must to work out informal institutions, and make the informal institutions be kind of moral rules which can lead people to regulate their behaviors consciously, in other words, to ethicize the informal institutions. The development of following ethic issues should be paid attention to in the development of low-carbon rural tourism: Tourists should build a view of life saving and being opposite to squander The luxury tourism consumption by the tourists in western minority regions resulted in high carbon emissions which broke the balance between human beings and nature. In order to create a harmonious relationship between human and nature, the luxury and squander consumption custom COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 121

6 should be replaced with a saving consumption custom. First, enhance people s awareness of being diligent and thrifty through promoting the traditional Chinese values of being diligent and thrifty; second, start from everyone and pay attention to every little thing to save the limited resources and build an awareness of low-carbon life style; finally, build a fine social atmosphere through wide spreading of this values and efforts by all people The designers and developers of rural tourism should insist on scientific outlook on development The continuous development of rural tourism in western minority regions requires the designers and developers to build a scientific outlook on development. The core of scientific outlook on development is people oriented and it is a comprehensive, coordinated and continuous development concept. In this concept, people oriented requires that the design and development of the rural tourism in western minority regions should be based on the long-term development for local people and benefit the long-term interests of the local people; designing with a philosophical view Nature and Man in One and developing properly to achieve not only the immediate economic interests but also the long-term economic interests of rural tourism and pay attention not only to economic interests but also the ecological benefits The reception personnel of rural tourism should build an ethics promoting harmonious development of people and nature The reception personnel in rural tourism in western minority regions only have weak ecology awareness and are lack of low-carbon knowledge and skills. This leads to the difficulties in implementing laws and regulations on low-carbon tourism and low-carbon rural tourism made and enacted by country or local governments. Therefore, the designers and developers should guide the ideology of the reception personnel and develop the channels and methods of building their awareness on low-carbon tourism: Apply low-carbon education and promote this concept to make them know the importance of the harmonious relationship between human beings and nature and this can help them to build the awareness of low-carbon tourism. Enhance the training of low-carbon knowledge and skills on the executives of rural tourism to provide reception personnel ecologic knowledge, circular economy knowledge and environment knowledge and make them be able to provide low-carbon services and skills. Meanwhile, with the development of rural tourism in western minority regions, the foreign cultures brought by tourists have caused a relatively great influence and impact on the original moral ideas of the community residents based hosts in rural tourism; and the diversified value orientation often makes people trapped into a dilemma of right and wrong while broadening their horizon, which is mainly manifested as a lack of proper moral constrain on ecological environment. Therefore, the construction of moral level of the hosts of rural tourism should be improved. One of the important means to improve the moral level of each party involved in rural tourism is to carry out a publicity and education on the major documents as for low-carbon tour, ecological tourism and environment protection and laws and regulations such as ecological civilization construction initiated by the state to combine moral construction with economic construction so as to eliminate the confusion of the hosts of rural tourism and make the moral rule restrain the high-carbon operation of the hosts of rural tourism The rural community should establish village rules and regulations giving priority to the ecological environmental protection Village rules and regulations occupy an important position in the rural diversified regulation systems of China and an important role in governing rural economy and culture, initiating morality and environmental protection, etc [11]. Since most village rules and regulations in regions COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 122

7 inhabited by ethnic groups include related contents for the protection of ecological environment and natural environment, therefore, the negative influence on ecological environment brought by tourist activities can be restrained through the establishment of reasonable village rules and regulations, which can also make up the deficiency in the formal institutions for the development of low-carbon rural tourism in western minority regions. Reasonable village rules and regulations can be established and carried out through the following steps: 1The village rules and regulations should be decided through consultation and discussion of all the villagers to be put down in written form, which should particularly make clear the rules and principles to be followed in tourism activities and related agreements to be followed by both parties and they can avoid tragedy of commons for the public resources with the property rights undefined; 2The village rules and regulations and their detailed rules and regulations established should be notified to the community, including communities outside this community to require everyone to follow so as to guide and restrain the carbon emissions in tourism activities; 3The village rules and regulations should have some punitive rules so that anyone who violates, namely violates the tourism regulations and principles which have been agreed by everyone, he or she should receive moral condemnation and corresponding punishment. The establishment of village rules and regulations should follow a principle of dynamics, since with the change of people s level of consciousness, moral standard and values along with the change of time, the village rules and regulations should also be timely changed accordingly. 4. An important access to the development of low-carbon rural tourism in western minority regions: interaction between formal institutions and informal institutions The implementation of formal institutions regarding low-carbon rural tourism are compulsory but if there is no constrain from informal institutions such as ethics, and plus high implementation cost, the formal institutions may exist in name only; however, if there are only informative institutions but no compulsory formal institutions, the low-carbon rural tourism development may, as if without the mechanism guarantee, have the goal be likely to be subject to magnetic north1. Therefore, the realization of low-carbon rural tourism in western minority regions needs an interaction between formal institutions and informative institutions to boost a sustainable development of low-carbon rural tourism. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 123

8 True North Object Achieve the development Of low-carbon rural tourism in harmony with environment in western minority regions Rules EStablish formal institutions based on the village rules and regulation Formal institutions Build a view of life saving and being opposite to squander Informal institutions Figure 1: Interaction between formal institutions and informal institutions Western minority regions should formulate Low-carbon Rural Tourism Standard, establish impeccable low-carbon fiscal and taxation system and introduce modern enterprise management system as soon as possible; meanwhile, since the management of ecological environment in the western minority regions mainly depends on regional autonomy, it is required to combine with the characteristics of regional autonomy of ethnic minorities to accelerate the construction of the tourism regulations and principles adapting to the minority regions. These rules and regulations rely on the local village rules and regulations to a large extent, therefore the establishment of formal institutions such as low-carbon rural tourism regulations should be based on the village rules and regulations. Meanwhile, most informal institutions, such as values, moral level, and cultural quality require a relatively long time of evolution to adapt to the development of lowcarbon rural tourism, while the establishment of an outlook of life saving and putting an end to waste can be realized in a short time, and also village rules and regulations have already existed in the western minority regions with the traditional characteristic of governing affairs in minority regions, so it is necessary to accelerate the arrangement of village rules and regulations which adapt to the development of low-carbon rural tourism. Therefore, only via the establishment of outlook of life saving and putting an end to waste and integration of formal institutions and informal institutions based on village rules and regulations, can the development of low-carbon rural tourism in the western minority regions be promoted, so as to realize the true north1 of goal for the development of low-carbon rural tourism. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 124

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