Evaluation of spatial differences in tourism resources values in Honghe Hani Rice Terrace Systems

Tourism, as a type of non-pollution industry with low cost and short return period on investment, has become the first choice of local governments for economic development. Agricultural heritage site, as a kind of traditional rural area, has obvious advantages in terms of its abundant tourism resources. However, agricultural heritage site usually covers a big region including many counties or towns. There is the need that each sub-region develops different types of tourism, depending on its resource advantages, to avoid competition between sub-regions. Honghe Hani Rice Terrace System (HHRTS) enjoys a lot of natural and cultural landscapes and the titles of globally and nationally important agricultural heritage and world cultural heritage systems, but is located in impoverished counties. Tourism development in this area now is imbalanced in space. Thus, in this study, a scientific assessment of the resources in Hani Terrace area was conducted, on which basis a tourism development route for the area was proposed. In the study, the qualities of tourism resources in 8 towns of HHRTS site were assessed using the AHP-Fuzzy method. Based on the differences among the natural and human landscapes, an evaluation index system for resource characteristics and impact were constructed, which included 6 indexes (appreciation value, rare degree, scale, diversity, popularity and grade) for the natural landscape and 7 indexes (history, scale, cultural value, art value, popularity, originality and protection grade) for the human landscape. The weight and value of each index was marked by tourism experts. The assessment of tourism resources in 8 towns were done by researchers with long-term experience in Hani Terraces. The results showed that in the natural landscape resources, Maandi Town had an overwhelming advantage. Adebo Town and Sanmeng Town had an advantage over other towns due to their national-level natural reserves. Jiayin Town also had an advantage due to its good mix of water and plant landscapes. Panzhihua Town, Xinjie Town, Jiayin Town and Baohua Town had huge advantage over other towns because of the famous terraced landscape and advertisement. Then other towns had higher evaluation because of the human landscape, such as terraces, ancient villages and traditional cultures. In summary, the human landscape value was higher than the natural landscape value for HHRTS. Actually, the natural landscape also had a high value, but it still was not fully developed. The development level of tourism in Hani Terraces area varied in space. Therefore, different tourism development strategies for 8 towns were proposed, driven by tourism resource advantages of each town. Jiayin Town and Baohua Town were good for tourism in terraced agricultural activities because of special tourism villages and agricultural handicrafts. Xinjie Town, Panzhihua Town and Niujiaozhai Town were good for tourism in Hani terraced sightseeing and cultural experience of minority to make use of the ethnic culture and terraced landscapes. Sanmeng Town should develop minority festival experience and health-keeping traveling because of its good environment and ethnic culture. Then Adebo Town was to develop leisure agriculture and eco-tourism based on farming culture and natural reserves. Finally, Ma'andi Town was to build tourism in mountain and water sightseeing and artistic creation because of the fantastic natural sceneries.