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Journal of Resources and Ecology >

2024 , Vol. 15 >Issue 6: 1666 - 1678

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2024.06.022

Rural Revitalization and Ecotourism

The Governance of Rural Tourism Destination under the Eco-bank Model—A Case Study of Jukou Township in Fujian Province

  • ZHAO Xue , 1, 2, 3 ,
  • CUI Li , 1, * ,
  • ZHANG Yating 1
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  • 1. School of Tourism Sciences, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing 100024, China
  • 2. Postdoctoral Research Workstation, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), Beijing 100049, China
  • 3. School of Artsand Design, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, Shandong 266033, China
* CUI Li, E-mail:

ZHAO Xue, E-mail:

Received date: 2023-10-07

  Accepted date: 2024-03-20

  Online published: 2024-12-09

Supported by

The National Social Science Foundation of China(20BGL152)

The General Project on the Protection, Inheritance and Promotion of the Yangtze River Culture in Hubei Province(HCYK2024Y09)

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Abstract

Rural tourism is an important means of comprehensively promoting the rural revitalisation of industry and practising the concept of “two mountains theory”. Rural tourism transforms the resource advantages of rural areas into economic advantages, but its development entails problems such as the unfair distribution of benefits, unclear distribution mechanisms, and the non-standardised compensation of benefits. Therefore, finding a mode of governance of rural tourism that can effectively achieve sustainable development is an urgent issue that warrants attention. Taking Jukou Township in Fujian Province as a case, this study constructs a logical framework linking the Eco-bank model and rural tourism governance and reveals the practicality and sustainability of rural tourism governance under the Eco-bank model. The study shows the following. (1) As a kind of innovative mechanism for achieving the transformation of resource value through the participation of multiple subjects, the Eco-bank model solves the development dilemma of rural tourism through the integration of decentralised resource management rights, the establishment of property rights constraints and supervision mechanisms for the coordination of stakeholder interests, and the linkage and development of internal and external resources of the countryside. (2) Jukou Township has built a resource operation platform for “ancient house Eco-bank” based on ancient house resources and ecological tourism resources. The construction of a rural governance mechanism that combines village collectives, new township elites, villagers, high-end art operation units, and multiple institutional governance entities effectively converts idle ancient houses and high-quality ecological tourism resources into assets and funds to promote the development and growth of the rural collective economy while effectively promoting the stable and sustainable development of the cultural tourism industry in Jukou Township.

Key words： Eco-bank model; rural tourism site governance; case study; rural revitalisation

Cite this article

ZHAO Xue , CUI Li , ZHANG Yating . The Governance of Rural Tourism Destination under the Eco-bank Model—A Case Study of Jukou Township in Fujian Province[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2024 , 15(6) : 1666 -1678 . DOI: 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2024.06.022

1 Introduction

The implementation of a rural revitalisation strategy is an inevitable choice for achieving common prosperity for all people (Li et al., 2021). As an important industry for rural economic development, rural tourism is an effective path for achieving rural revitalisation (Lu et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2023). The Chinese government proposed the implementation of the strategy of rural revitalisation and established and practised the development concept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”. The Chinese government supported “comprehensively advancing rural revitalisation” and “developing rural areas”, with requirements of “comprehensively promoting rural revitalisation” and “developing rural industries and broadening the channels for farmers to increase their income and become rich”, which hold great significance for guiding the sustainable development of rural tourism. Rural tourism can promote the transformation of resource advantages into economic advantages in rural areas and play a positive role in improving the quality and efficiency of rural industries and in increasing the income of farmers, rural prosperity and stability, and urban-rural integration (Wang and Wang, 2017). However, due to the large number of related interests involved, a series of deep-rooted problems, such as the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of anticommunism, have emerged, limiting the sustainable development of rural tourism to a certain extent. The governance of rural tourism has become a hot topic (Depoorter and Vanneste, 2004). To give full play to the functions and roles of all relevant stakeholders in the sustainable development of rural tourism and to achieve the efficient use of the resource system and the maximisation of collective value, the only way is to reshape the structure and design the system from the source of effective governance (Xu et al., 2010).
The Eco-bank concept has existed internationally for decades and was developed through research on the preservation and appreciation of ecological resource value (Froger et al., 2015). Unlike the concepts of the Mitigation Bank (Marsh et al., 1996) in the United States, the Biodiversity Bank (Bekessy and Wintle, 2008) in New South Wales, Australia, and the Habitat Bank (Sudduth and Meyer, 2006) in Germany, the Eco-bank model is an innovative mechanism for exploring the realisation of the value of eco-products in China. It is an innovative mechanism for implementing the concept that “green water and green mountains are golden silver mountains” and for solving the challenges of counting decentralised resources, aggregating fragmented resource property rights, enhancing quality assets, and bringing social capital into China’s resource-rich post development regions. An Eco-bank draws on the model of decentralised input and centralised output of commercial banks to build a platform integrating natural resources, quality enhancement, and market-based trading and operation. Fragmented resources pass through the Eco-bank platform, with centralised storage in the back-end segment, scale remediation of resources forming a combination of high-quality assets in the middle segment, and investment, operation and management enterprises introduced to convert assets into capital in the rear-end segment (Cui et al., 2019). Since 2018, the Eco-bank model has been practised in the ecological resource-rich region of Fujian Province, and its operation mode and related concepts have gradually attracted the attention of Chinese scholars. Scholars have mostly conducted theoretical research and case analysis of Eco-bank from the perspective of ecological product value realisation, which entails certain limitations in research perspectives and contents. Li et al. (2020) explored feasible ways to overcome the current obstacles to realising the value of ecological products by taking Eco-bank as an example. Chen et al. (2022) analysed how a “Forest Eco- bank” could promote the realisation of natural resource value and the problems faced in operation by adopting the case study method. Zou (2020) researched the Eco-banks from the perspective of rural tourism, made the Eco-bank a market-based mechanism for rural tourism to achieve the transformation of the “two mountains”, and realised the value added of rural resources through the mechanism of “green mountains—Eco-bank—tourism enterprises—invaluable assets” mechanism.
Regarding research on the governance model of rural tourism sites, international scholars are currently exploring the governance paradigm with the aim of supporting the sustainable development of local tourism, which is gradually becoming a mainstream trend (Benedetto et al., 2016). Most scholars choose to study cases of conservation development, such as national parks, natural resource reserves, historical and cultural heritage sites, neighbouring communities, and other tourist attractions. Islam et al. (2017) identified a governance paradigm, adaptive eco-management (ACM), which effectively promoted the sustainable development of local tourism and enhanced the synergies and opportunities for tourism governance practices in the context of a protected area. Under the ACM paradigm, stakeholders share power and responsibility through the establishment of interest linkages. Bichler and Lösch (2019) used the South Tyrol tourist community in Italy as an example and the SFIC model as an analytical framework to reveal the collaborative process between stakeholders and to analyse the hindering factors. Most Chinese scholars’ studies on the governance model of rural tourism sites are reality oriented, reflecting on and improving the existing governance model or proposing a new model through specific case and event analyses. Huang et al. (2020) studied the evolution of the governance model of Yuanjia Village and concluded that the “collective governance” model and a dynamic and open governance system can promote the sustainable development of rural tourism sites. Yang et al. (2022) analysed the limitations of the governance model led by the government, enterprises and community residents through comparative case studies and proposed a five-pronged tourism governance model involving the government, the market, the community, tourists, and media.
In summary, the development of rural tourism involves various subjects of interest in economic and social development (Chen, 2019), and the governance of rural tourist sites has evolved from governmental logic to “government-market-society” logic (Gong, 2020), which requires multiple subjects to realise linked development (Bramwell and Lane, 2011). Scholars in China and elsewhere have considered the perspectives of governance dilemmas, governance modes, governance system arrangements, the coordination of the interests of multiple governance subjects, and the effectiveness of tourism community governance in rural tourism. Most scholars have applied qualitative analysis to case studies, which hold significance for orienting practice, but scholars have yet to analyse rural tourism from the perspective of the “resource-asset-capital” transformation of resource value. Therefore, this study takes Jukou Township, which has rich natural resources and a long history of residential resources, as a case study and explores the logical connection between the “ancient house Eco- bank” model and the governance of rural tourism. The study aims to lay a theoretical and practical foundation for the innovation of the governance mechanism of rural tourism and to realise the development of the rural tourism industry to achieve common prosperity. The following section offers a summary of the results of the study.

2 Study design

2.1 Logical framework for rural tourism site governance under the Eco-bank model

2.1.1 Connotation of the Eco-bank model

An Eco-bank is an innovative mechanism for realising the value of market-oriented ecological products. By borrowing from the decentralised input and centralised output of commercial banks, it builds a platform for managing, integrating, transforming, improving, market-oriented trading, and performing sustainable operation around natural resources. As an innovative mechanism for realising the value of ecological products, Eco-banks can effectively solve the problems of resource distribution fragmentation, property rights decentralisation, difficulty in improving high-quality assets, and difficulty in introducing socialised capital in underdeveloped areas with abundant ecological resources in China. Additionally, they can promote the transformation from “green waters and green mountains” to “golden mountains and silver mountains” (Li et al., 2020).
First, the Eco-bank model follows the evolutionary “resource-asset-capital” path (Fig. 1), and its driving mechanism combines natural resources and their associated human capital, culture, technology, and institutions into asset packages that can form a sustained and stable income stream (Zhao and Zhu, 2019). Resource capitalisation means treating resources and their property rights as assets, managing inputs and outputs based on market rules, and establishing a management system based on the constraints of the property rights system (Zhang and Zhang, 2019).
Fig. 1 Eco-bank “Resource-Asset-Capital” transformation pathway
Second, the Eco-bank model follows the principle of “government guidance, enterprise participation, farmer participation, and market-oriented operation”, gathering the government, enterprises, farmers, and other entities in the same field for dialogue and attracting resource owners, investors, and operators to share the benefits of ecological products through the construction of a reasonable profit distribution mechanism, thus forming a long-term and stable cooperative relationship.
The core characteristics of the Eco-bank model are mainly reflected in the following: 1) The Eco-bank model focuses on transforming resource advantages into economic advantages. Additionally, it focuses on the sustainable utilisation of local resources, following the diverse and inclusive natural capital concept of “green waters and mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains”, highlighting the importance of resource and environmental factors, emphasising the scientific transformation of resource advantages into economic advantages under the premise of resource protection, solving the contradiction between “protection” and “growth”, bringing a sustainable income flow to local areas and villagers, and achieving local development. 2) The Eco-bank model adheres to the combination of an effective market and a promising government. It emphasises fully leveraging the role of the market and reasonably fulfilling government functions, highlighting the balance between efficiency and fairness, and avoiding failures caused by single government or market dominance. 3) The Eco-bank model pays attention to local participation and interest protection. Eco-banks emphasise ensuring the main position of farmers through mechanisms, ensuring their participation, obtaining development benefits, and redistributing the value created by local resources to local areas.

2.1.2 The inherent logical characteristics of rural tourism destination governance under the Eco-bank model

In specific times and spaces, rural tourism sites form different modes of governance to solve development problems, with strong historical and environmental dependence. Eco-bank need to form a differentiated model based on the specific resource attributes and economic and social development of each rural tourism site to address governance problems.However, both the intrinsic logical connection between Eco-banks and rural tourism and the fit between Eco-banks and the concept of governance of rural tourism sites are universally applicable.
Eco-banks promote the development of the rural tourism industry through the revitalisation of rural resources, incorporate multiple subjects with different resource advantages into the scope of rural governance and are embedded in the process of rural social development by the rules of resource trading and the system of benefit distribution formed in the process of rural resource capitalisation (Fig. 2). The development of rural tourism under the Eco-bank model inevitably causes changes in rural development contradictions, leading to changes in the main body of rural tourism governance, the institutional system, and other aspects of the development of rural tourism. In the development of rural tourism, normative policies, Eco-bank platforms, foreign investors and other elements interact with the rural governance system, rural society changes from closed to open, and some of the old development contradictions can be solved, while new development contradictions also arise.
Fig. 2 Logical framework of rural tourism destination governance in the Eco-bank model

2.2 Selection and overview of case sites

Jukou Township in Fujian Province is selected as a case study for the construction of the “ancient house Eco-bank”. Jukou Township is a national eco-township, with many ancient houses, characteristic houses and other architectural heritage, and there are 8 complete villages of local specialties and more than 600 ancient houses in the township. In 2018, Jukou Township was included in the pilot project of comprehensive rural reform of the Ministry of Finance, and it established an “ancient house Eco-bank” for the operation of resources by taking the resources of ancient houses and characteristic houses as the basis, using an information trading platform as the carrier, empowering the resources with cultural heritage and artistic means, and learning the operation mode of commercial banks. In this operation mode, “ancient house Eco-bank” resource operation was built.
The government of Jukou Township took the lead in establishing Jufu Tourism Investment Co. As a platform for implementing the activities of the village art season and the “ancient house Eco-bank”, Jufu Company performs the functions of resource integration, project implementation, industrial integration, resource information management, investment promotion, etc., and it attracts social capital, village capital, and industrial capital to invest in the construction of the countryside and the development of rural tourism and actively explore the development path of the village collective economy. In addition, the village collective is mobilised to actively participate, along with participants from all segments of society and experts from overseas, forming an operation mode involving the platform company, the village collective, the council, farmers, and art units that together support the “ancient house Eco-bank” (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3 Mechanism for the operation of the ancient house Eco-bank

2.3 Data collection and analysis

The research team conducted several rounds of fieldwork in Jukou Township from October 2021 to February 2022 focusing on four core administrative villages, namely, Lokguyuan Village, Jiulong Village, Yuecheng Village, and Linggen Village. A semi-structured interview method was adopted to interview people involved in key events, such as the construction of the Eco-bank platform, the organisation of the Village Art Season, and the development of rural tourism in Jukou Township. The inductive data analysis method proposed by Gioia et al. (2013) was used to assign codes to different types of interviewees, with the villager interview code CM, the village committee interview code CW, the government interview code ZF, and the enterprise interview code QY; the nongovernmental organisation interview code was the English acronym for NGO. The villagers and the village committee were further divided by village, with Guyuan Village being numbered CM-1 and CW-1, Jiulong Village being numbered CM-2 and CW-2, Linggen Village being numbered CM-3 and CW-3, and Yuqing Village being numbered CM-4 and CW-4, as shown in Tables 1, 2, and 3.
Table 1 List of data sources
Data sources Data type Specific types Amount of data
Primary data Face-to-face
interviews		 Suco government staff 4
Giant fortune 1
Two village committees 12
Ordinary villager 25
Village sage 3
Foreign investor 1
Staff of Ruan Yisan Urban Heritage Preservation Foundation 1
Telephone interviews Art curator 3
Artists 1
Used data Textual material Yearbook of Jukou Township 1
Introduction to each village 5
Ancient house resource questionnaire 9
Declaration of traditional villages in Jukou Township 9
Historical and cultural village protection plan of Jukou Township 4
Government
working reports		 Assessment determination Jufu 2021 ministry of finance’s rural integrated reform pilot summary 1
Summary of the Eco-bank model in the Yanping District 1
Eco-bank pilot in Yanping District 1
Policy documents Habitat for Humanity Award Programme 1
Jukou Township folk lodging incentive support scheme 1
Jukou Township agritainment (restaurant) incentives and support measures 1
Interim measures for rural tourism incentives in Jukou 1
Table 2 Details of the village respondents
Serial number Gender Age Career Length of interview (minutes) Number of words in text
CM-1-1 Female 50 Farming 40 7269
CM-1-2 Female >60 Farming 30 4177
CM-1-3 Male 59 Farming 25 5830
CM-1-4 Female 62 Farming 20 1844
CM-1-5 Male 74 Former country doctor 23 3840
CM-1-6 Male 70 Kiosk owner 15 2524
CM-2-1 Male 53 Farming 52 10007
CM-2-2 Male 65 B&B operators 49 9365
CM-2-3 Male 50 B&B operators (townspeople) 55 11887
CM-2-4 Male 70 Farming 35 6705
CM-2-5 Male 60 Farming 60 11321
CM-2-6 Male 84 Retired communal cadres 39 7231
CM-2-7 Male 68 Retired village council 49 9273
CM-2-8 Male 74 B&B operators 21 3508
CM-2-9 Female 45 Farming 36 6820
CM-2-10 Male 76 B&B operators 25 3084
CM-2-11 Male 51 Drivers 19 2007
CM-3-1 Female 42 B&B operators (townspeople) 132 35823
CM-3-2 Male 48 Farming 68 12590
CM-4-1 Male 62 Farming 27 4662
CM-4-2 Male 74 Farming 20 2071
CM-4-3 Female 61 Farming 30 4695
CM-4-4 Male 67 Returning home from working
abroad		 58 9865
CM-4-5 Female 54 Rural cadre school administrators 21 3645
CM-5-1 Male 57 B&B operators (towns people) 24 3874
Table 3 Government, business and NGO respondent information
Typology Serial number Office Length of interview (minutes) Number of words in text
Village Committees CW-1-1 Guyuan Village Party Branch Secretary 64 20648
CW-1-2 Guyuan Village accountant 129 35658
CW-2-1 Jiulong Village clerk 73 22381
CW-2-2 Jiulong Village chief 56 12181
CW-2-3 Jiulong Village cadre 34 5505
CW-3-1 Linggen Village clerk 96 31056
CW-3-2 Linggen Village cadre 31 5327
CW-4-1 Yuqing Village branch secretary 77 13942
CW-4-2 Yuqing Village chief 84 13903
CW-4-3 Yuqing Village support committee 26 4498
CW-4-4 Yuqing Village accounts clerk 51 9863
CW-4-5 Yuqing Village committee 22 3197
Governments ZF-1 Township Party Secretary 43 8221
ZF-2 Mayor (of village or township) 20 3226
ZF-3 Chairman of the national people’s congress (NPC) 40 7238
ZF-4 Propaganda committee 74 17635
Corporations QY-1 General manager, Jufu corporation 83 15696
QY-2 Manager of field dreams 106 23540
Nongovernmental
Organisation (NGO)		 NGO-1 Secretary of the Ruan Yisan Foundation 74 11512
NGO-2 Curator, artist 18 4672
NGO-3 Cocurator and artist 32 3424
NGO-4 Cocurator 38 4328
NGO-5 Artists 10 2174

3 Results and analyses

3.1 Governance actors and drivers

To ensure the reliability of this study, triangulation of information and the “participant test” were used to cross- validate the information given and to ensure the saturation of information. During the validation process, first-order conceptual labels were given based on the initial information. Then in-depth generalisation was carried out based on the nature and dimensions of the first-order concepts to establish the relationships between the concepts, which were aggregated into second-order themes. The relationships between the terms of the themes were examined and analysed in depth in a cyclical manner, and overarching concepts were ultimately formed (Table 4), These concepts summarised the main subjects of governance and their motives regarding rural tourism in Jukou Township and the Eco- bank model.
Table 4 Subjects and drivers of rural tourism site governance under the Eco-bank model
Governing body First-order themes Second-order themes First-order concepts
Governments Development difficulty Conditions of geographical resources Land fragmentation
Ancient houses resource features
Rural resources lying idle
Rural social conditions Remote location
Difficulties in attracting investment
Weak collective economy
Outflow of talent
Development opportunity Project resources for the countryside Policy funding support
Project grip
Project implementation platform
Village capital The financial strength of the townspeople
Sage local sentiment
Objectives of interest Economic target Economic endogenous development
Utilisation of idle resources
Formation of the industrial chain
Cultural objective Formation of cultural assets
Social objective Brain drain
External conditions Policy orientation Government subsidy
Insufficient supply of accommodation
Villagers Interest claim Economic interests Increase revenue
Rental income from fields
Participation in stock dividends
Rents
Environmental benefit Improvement in infrastructure
Restoration of old houses Alter and preserve ancient houses
Government funding for repairs
Insufficient funds to repair your own home
Local sentiment Tourism brings popularity
Environmental benefit
Restoration of old houses
New townsman Policy guidance
and support		 Policies bring change to the
countryside		 Integrated reform project brings change
Comprehensive reform project opportunities
Arts season brings benefits
Housing rental policy support Right of first refusal
Rent subsidy
There is a guarantee that the
government will step in		 Government help in coordinating resources
Invitation from government leaders
A love affair
with one’s native land		 local identity Ecological product quality
Quality of ecological resources
Emotional attachment Sense of belonging
Family relation
Personal condition Economic capacity Capital strength
Social networking Marketing channel
Housing capital Save on rental costs
Own house
Non-governmental
Organisations (NGOs)		 Reason for intervention Aims of the organisation Architectural heritage conservation
Rural crisis Closed and backward
Lack of vitality
The traditional appearance of the village is on the verge of
disappearing
Conditions of geographical resources Limited resources
Expected results Awakening Rural cultural confidence
Rural civilisation
Social concern Humanistic care
Village social life
Rural issues
Left-behind children
Rural rejuvenation Improvement in the lives of villagers
Urban-rural interaction
Return of population
Rural cultural continuity
Diverse governance subjects have different knowledge and resource strengths as well as different interest needs. Such needs are the initial motivation for their interactions with other actors and their governance behaviour. A single actor has a certain resource dependence on other actors and cannot achieve a goal by relying only on the resources it has.
The government’s interests are complex, representing both public interests and private interests, which is a co- existence of “due” and “real” interests. Most permanent villagers in Jukou Township make their living by farming, and due to the massive loss of labour, the issues of land abandonment and fallow land are serious, making economic benefits the most important interest for villagers. The many villagers in Jukou Township have rich work experience and advantages in social capital, technical capital, economic capital, etc. Most of the core resources on which the existence and development of NGOs depend are held by the power sector, and communication, cooperation and interaction with the power sector is a task that must be faced by NGOs.

3.2 Governance rules

3.2.1 Rules for resource property transactions in the “resource-asset-capital” process

The resource property rights system is an institutional framework that regulates the individual decision-making and interaction behaviour of destination stakeholder groups, and it can play an important role in changing the rural governance structure and physical environmental space (Zhang and Le, 2019). The “ancient house Eco-bank” platform integrates the idle resources of village collectives and the idle ancient houses transferred by farmers, and it takes the lead in attracting foreign investment (Fig. 4). The Jufu Companyconducted a mapping survey of the village collective’s unused assets, invited a third-party company to undertake value accounting, and involved the village collective in turning the assets into shares, and the village collective representatives and the Jufu Company signed an agreement. To prevent individual property owners from breaching contracts, the Jufu Company first confirms the right to investigate an ancient house, and based on clear property rights, the villagers who have the right to use the ancient house sign a transfer agreement. As a platform for trading rural resources and property rights, Jufu connects village collectives and villagers at one end and the capital market at the other. The institutional arrangement of the flow of land, housing and other resource property rights among different subjects revitalises idle local resources, enriches the local tourism industry, and boosts the orderly and standardised development of local rural tourism.
Fig. 4 Rules for trading property rights of ancient house resources

3.2.2 Rural tourism market standardisation and governance rules

The standardised market governance of rural tourism is a series of measures taken by the local government to supervise and maintain the order of the rural tourism market, which can provide incentives for and constraints on the participation of multiple subjects in the governance of rural tourism. The government of Jukou Township stipulates standards and incentives for the development of B&Bs and agritainment through the formulation of rules and regulations, and it offers rewards instead of subsidies, encouraging villagers and village collectives to carry out construction projects through self-financing. In addition, to further expand the source market of tourism in Jukou, the Jukou township government formulated incentives and signed a strategic cooperation intention with Jufu Tourism Investment Co. Ltd., and it organised tourists from outside the township to take part in Jukou group tours, offering the reward of countryside tours by the travel agency.

3.2.3 Rules for distribution of benefits and compensation system for rural tourism

(1) Rules for benefits distribution
Spatial resources and interest relations are reorganised to establish rural tourism destination with the participation of multiple subjects. Different rules of benefit distribution produce different distribution patterns, which in turn affect the equity of spatial benefits and the right to development (Liu et al., 2023). The main objects of benefit distribution in rural tourism are villagers who operate independently, village sages, and village collectives. For example, villagers obtain benefits in diverse ways, such as engaging in tourism-related service work. Village sages benefit from operation, and village collectives obtain dividends from the operating income of the assets that they have invested in. For rural tourism development in a market economy, groups differ in resources and other factors, and there must be a certain gap in the distribution of benefits because of the market allocation of resources.
(2) Rules for benefit compensation
From the economic perspective, benefit compensation is essentially the internalisation of the product economy, and any individual or group receives such compensation from the tourism development of traditional villages (Yan and Zhang, 2008). The distribution of tourism benefits is mainly based on the proportion of production factors contributing to the development of the tourism industry, and it fails to reflect the costs of rural tourism development borne by the residents of the village community as well as the return on local public welfare undertakings. To strengthen the village collective economy and fully protect the interests of the rural community, the Jukou Township government stipulated in the policy for the development of B&Bs and agritainment that “B&B and agritainment operators who receive B&B development bonus funds must sign an agreement with the village collectives and pay a one-time tax of 10% of the annual operating income (not less than 5% of the B&B bonus) to the village collectives where they reside as village collective income”. Village revenue is used for various expenses, such as environmental improvement within the village.

3.3 Governance effects

3.3.1 Effectiveness of resource integration within and outside the village

The “Gucuo Eco-bank” provides rural resource capital attributes through the overall packaging and development of hard resources such as land and ancient houses as well as soft resources such as traditional folk customs and agricultural culture in Jukou Township. The introduction of the Eco-bank platform and the development of rural tourism have increased the rate of utilisation of unused houses in Jukou Township. According to the statistics of the Jukou township government, since the implementation of the Eco- bank model, Jukou Township has renovated 32 lodgings and 342 rooms, of which the Jufu Company has leased and renovated 20 lodgings, auditoriums and schools and added 20 new agricultural entrepreneurs. Moreover, 240000 guests have been received as countryside cultural tourists. Government funds support rural construction projects including the repair of ancient resources to quickly enhance the development of the tourism industry and provide a good environment (Table 5).
Table 5 Repair and renovation of assets in shares and leases in Jukou Township (part)
Management style Sites Preconversion Altered use
Repair of equity assets Jiulong Village Old primary school Kowloon inn
Old hall Art season forum 2018
Guyuan Village Old warehouse Grain garden wine shop
Old hall 2019 art season forum
Linggen Village Old hall Research space
Old school suilding Summer camp dormitory
Yuqing Village Old primary school School for village cadres
Noyo car park Eco-car parking
Car parks Ancient stage coach road self-drive campsite
Tenancy Linggen Village Private house Ancient houses love inn
Huang yuntong’s former residence Filial piety and lian culture exhibition hall
Guyuan Village Flagstaff alley Tourism painting and calligraphy exhibition centre
The organisation and mobilisation of the government have attracted the participation of multiple actors with different resource advantages in the governance of rural tourism sites, bringing development capital and new elements to the villages. Village residents, market investors and NGOs are all dependent on the rural government to varying degrees. Villages rely on government projects or market resources to improve their development conditions, while villages with outstanding resource characteristics and development potential are more favoured to receive government project resources and financial resources. Although the intervention of administrative power can quickly promote the development of rural construction and the rural tourism industry, it can easily lead to a “lack of position” and “overstepping”, which squeezes the independence and development space of other subjects.

3.3.2 The effectiveness of art intervention in rural areas

Through the integration and advantage analysis of tourism resources through the “Gucuo Eco-bank”, Jukou township has established a cultural tourism industry development model characterised by research, learning, tourism, and art seasons. The rural art season combines local culture with art to explore the path of “rural branding”, attracting tourists to enter the countryside and experience life, stimulating tourists’ consumption of agricultural and tourism products in the local area to a certain extent, and enabling art to empower agricultural production and life. At the same time, the rural art season attracts domestic and foreign cultural and tourism enterprises to negotiate projects concerning, for example, health care, homestay renovation tourism, and agricultural tourism. In this process, the injection of funds and culture promotes the construction of the brand system in Jukou Township while driving the consumption of tourists, further promoting the deep integration of rural cultural tourism and industrial revitalisation, and giving strong momentum to rural revitalisation.

3.3.3 Collaborative participation of multiple governance entities

Jukou Township has multiple stakeholders, and each stakeholder has its own development needs in the development process. The “Gucuo Eco-bank” aims to establish a collaborative governance mechanism for diverse stakeholders in grassroots society, handle the relationships between local governments, relevant units, Gucuo residents, and foreign investors, and fully leverage the decisive role of the market in the allocation of rural tourism resources, while the property rights subject is state owned, to promote the marketization of tourism resource elements in Jukou township.

3.3.4 Effectiveness of institutional provision

Although the township government led the establishment of the “Ancient House Eco-bank” platform, which assumes some functions as a rural resource and property rights transfer and trading centre, the Eco-bank mechanism is still in the exploratory stage and has not been perfected. This study found that after commercial and industrial enterprises enter the countryside, land transfer is still mainly undertaken with village collectives and villagers signing a contract, but the stability of the contract is not sufficiently strong or binding. Contractors’ breach of contract cannot be traced, resulting in the loss of interests of villagers and village collectives.

4 Discussion

This study combines the Eco-bank model with rural tourism destination governance issues, providing a new perspective on the applicability of the Eco-bank model. However it lacks a comparative study of multiple cases and selects only one case site to demonstrate and analyse the theoretical fit between Eco-bank and rural tourism destination governance. The differentiation factors of the case site itself are not considered. In a later study, two or more case sites, some adopting the Eco-bank model and some not adopting it, may be selected for a comparative study to further validate the effectiveness of the Eco-bank model in solving rural problems and rural tourism destination development problems.

5 Conclusions

This study selects Jukou township as a typical case study, and based on the logical path of motivation, behaviour, and effect, it analyses the governance process and mechanism of rural tourism under the Eco-bank model. It explores the positive effects and new governance problems associated with multi-subject governance and reflects on the validity and limitations of the Eco-bank model in the field of rural tourism, as well as the gaps and deviations between practice and theory. The main conclusions of this study are as follows:
(1) The Eco-bank model effectively integrates the internal and external resources of rural tourism sites for linked development.
The Eco-bank model emphasises the transformation of resource advantages into economic advantages, adheres to the combination of effective markets and organised governments, and emphasises local participation and interest protection. In the process of governance, rural tourism destinations face the contradiction between the independent development of villages and the embedding of foreign capital, the contradiction between the excessive utilisation and idleness of rural tourism resources, and the contradiction between the individual rationality and collective action of participating entities. There is a convergence between the core characteristics of the Eco-bank model and the development difficulties of rural tourism destinations. From a theoretical perspective, the Eco-bank model can solve the difficulties of rural tourism destination development by unifying and integrating decentralised property rights, establishing property rights constraints and supervision mechanisms for stakeholders, and establishing interest coordination mechanisms to achieve a specific path of coordinated development of resources inside and outside the countryside.
(2) A multi-party governance mechanism for rural tourism sites based on the Eco-bank model should be built.
The “ancient house Eco-bank” model incorporates subjects with different resource advantages into the ecological governance of the rural tourism areas, and the capitalisation of rural resources constructed on this basis can promote the transformation and development of traditional villages into rural tourism areas. The “ancient house Eco-bank” has also formed a rural governance model involving the village collective, new villagers, villagers, high-end art operation units and institutional governance. The construction of a coordinated governance mechanism for multiple subjects, the promotion of the development and growth of the rural collective economy, and the full embodiment of pluralism, equal participation, coordination, and inclusion in the rural governance of Jukou Township have effectively promoted the stable and sustainable development of the cultural tourism industry there.

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