Tourism development in China since 1949: a regime perspective

The People’s Republic of China has experienced great economic, political and socio-cultural changes since its founding in 1949, which in turn have considerably impacted every aspect of the Chinese society. Adopting a regime perspective, the paper discusses China’s tourism development against these backdrops, with an aim to disentangle the relation between tourism development and the broader context. In the light of the heritage-tourism-urban development strategy today, a special attention is given to tourism’s (non)interaction with heritage and urban development, to examine the impact of the (lack of) internal dynamics on their development paths. In its attempt to answer the questions of ‘why’ and ‘what’ in China’s tourism development, the paper aims to provide a panoramic view of the topic and the unique dialogism among tourism development, heritage conservation and urban development that underlines the appropriation and practice of tourism and heritage in contemporary China.