Tourism Area Development from an Evolutionary Economic Geography Perspective —The Case of Guilin, China Doctoral dissertation The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel Submitted for the doctoral degree by Mulan Ma Kiel, 2013 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. This thesis has been prepared subject to the Rules of Good Scientific Practice of the German Research Foundation. This thesis work was conducted from October 2009 to May 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Robert Hassink at Department of Geography, University of Kiel. Name: Mulan Ma Signature: Place: Kiel Date: Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Robert Hassink Jun.-Prof. Dr. Max-Peter Menzel Defense of doctoral dissertation: 4th July 2013 Approved for publication: 13th August 2013 gez. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang J. Duschl, Dekan The research project of this dissertation was conducted at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the Christian-Albrechts-Universtät zu Kiel. The project was funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). Acknowledgements With the deepest gratitude I wish to thank every person who has inspired, illuminated, supported and encouraged me to make this dissertation possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Robert Hassink. His vision, enthusiasm, kindness and patience guided me through the various stages of this process. The regular and stimulating meetings with him over the whole course of my PhD study have indeed enhanced my understanding of evolutionary economic geography concepts in the contexts of tourism area studies and my academic thinking. Moreover, his goodwill, humor and extraordinary wisdoms have always encouraged me to overcome various difficulties when I am staying in foreign environments. I would like to give honorable mention to Associate Prof. Max-Peter Menzel, Prof. Florian Dünckmann, and Prof. Rainer Wehrhahn for their useful comments and suggestions on my PhD research and inspired me to improve my dissertation. I also wish to acknowledge the help provided by friends and colleagues at different stages of thesis production, especially Dr. Zhouyang Wang, Dr. Zhigao Liu, Dr. Claudia Klaerding, Dr. Oliver Plum, Dr. Pedro Marques, Xiaohui Hu, Su-Hyun Berg, and Heidi Seeliger. Special thanks to and in memory of Prof. Yuming Wang at East China Normal University in China. It was Prof. Wang who opened up a window for my study in tourism area since I became his postgraduate student in 2005. During my doctoral studies, I constantly got enlightened guidance from him and also got great support in conducting my fieldwork in Guilin. Many thanks also to all the interviewees in Guilin for kindly sharing their inspiring stories and knowledge in managing or operating tourism sectors in Guilin or their sights on the -i- Guilin tourism area development. Without their open, candid and crucial information input, this dissertation would not been possible. I would especially like to thank Associate director Tiejian Pang at Guilin Tourism Bureau, Dr. Yuanheng Gao at Beihai Tourism Bureau, Prof. Xi Wang at Guilin Institute of Tourism for their intellectual support and assistance in organizing fieldwork. I appreciate especially a college student from Guilin Institute of Tourism, Yanshan Liao for her assistance in conducting questionnaire survey of tourism business owners. This research would not have been possible without adequate funding. I own great thanks to the China Scholarship Council, which funded this dissertation through a generous PhD candidate research grant. I also acknowledge the financial supports from our working group of economic geography, the female funding center and the graduate center at the University of Kiel in attending academic courses or conferences for the communication of this research. Finally, I am forever indebted to my precious family members. Without their love, patience, encouragement, support and confidence, I would not have completed this undertaking. -ii- Summary There is growing concern in the literature about how to analyze and examine the rise and decline of tourism areas. Despite the fact that a substantial literature is devoted to construct a new descriptive or mathematical model in the tourism area life cycle literature, little research has been done on formulating a more systematic and theoretical framework by employing the theoretical notes from other disciplines. Concepts from evolutionary economic geography, for instance, not only have the potential to explain the rise and decline of old industrial areas, they also significantly bring a new perspective to better understand tourism area evolution. In particular, two concepts derived from evolutionary economic geography, namely path dependence and coevolution are argued to bring the debate around the literature of tourism area life cycle substantially forward. Based on the works done by Martin (2010) concerning path dependence and Murmann (2003) concerning coevolution, I develop two alternative theoretical models for analyzing and explaining tourism area evolution, namely an alternative path dependence model and a coevolutionary framework of tourism areas. To further test the validity and utility of the two proposed models, I apply the two theoretical frameworks to a case study of a tourism destination, Guilin, China. The case research reveals that Guilin has experienced path preformation, path creation, lock-in and a new turn of path creation phases of tourism area development. The emergence of Guilin as a tourism destination is due to its pre-existing initial conditions, policy triggers and small chances. The findings show that there is continuous resource-based path dependence in both natural and cultural tourism products. Concurrently, strong institutional path dependence could be observed in the development of Guilin tourism sectors, either policy-oriented path dependence of private tourism firms or administrative path dependence of public tourism firms. The case research also analyzes how tourism products, tourism sectors and their associated institutional environments have developed and changed over the forty years in Guilin, covering four phases: before 1978, from 1978 to mid-1989, from mid-1989 to late 1990s and -iii- the 2000s onwards, which are consistent with path-dependent process of the Guilin tourism area. The methods and sources used at each phase of investigation are combined past literature and interviews analysis. The interaction and coevolution of tourism products, sectors and institutional environments suggest that external environments, policy changes and product innovation are the main coevolutionary mechanisms for tourism development in Guilin over time. Furthermore, the study makes use of quantitative analysis (the questionnaire survey of small tourism business owners or managers) to investigate the impact of policy changes and product innovation on the development of their businesses in recent years. The findings suggest that policy changes and product innovation have affected the development of small tourism businesses to different extents, while the local government have played less important role in the cooperation and interaction with small tourism business owners or managers. This case research indicates that the path dependence model is useful to explain the rise and decline of tourism areas, while the coevolutionary framework approach has its strength in analyzing complex and dynamic evolutions of tourism products, sectors and institutions occurring at multiple levels. The research argues for a combination of both a path dependence and a coevolution perspective to analyze tourism area development in further case studies. Keywords: Tourism Area Life Cycle, Evolutionary Economic Geography, Path Dependence, Coevolution, Guilin, China -iv- Zusammenfassung In der Fachliteratur gibt es ein zunehmendes Interesse daran, wie man wachsende und schrumpfende Fremdenverkehrsgebiete analysieren und untersuchen kann. Ungeachtet dessen, dass umfangreiche Literatur der Konstruktion neuer deskriptiver oder mathematischer Modelle im Bezug auf den Lebenszyklus von Fremdenverkehrsgebieten gewidmet wurde, wurde nur wenig Forschung betrieben, um einen systematischeren und theoretischeren Rahmen unter Einsatz von theoretischen Anmerkungen aus anderen Disziplinen zu schaffen. So haben Konzepte der evolutionären Wirtschaftsgeographie nicht nur das Potential die Weiterentwicklung und den Niedergang altindustrieller Regionen zu erklären, sie können auch eine neue bedeutende Perspektive zum besseren Verständnis von Fremdenverkehrsgebieten erbringen. Insbesondere die zwei Konzepte der Pfadabhängigkeit und der Koevolution lassen sich aus der evolutionären Wirtschaftsgeographie ableiten. Diese Konzepte sind dafür bestimmt, die Debatte in der Literatur über die Lebenszyklen von Fremdenverkehrsgebieten voran zu bringen. Auf der Basis von Forschungen zur Pfadabhängigkeit von Martin (2010) und der Koevolution von Murmann (2003), habe ich zwei alternative theoretische Modelle zur Analyse und Erklärung von Fremdenverkehrsevolution entwickelt. Namentlich ein alternatives Modell zur Pfadabhängigkeit und ein Rahmenkonzept