Abstract
Tourism is a crucial pathway to global poverty reduction and sustainable development. Pro-poor tourism (PPT), which is conducive to the development of the poor, can bring social, environmental, cultural and economic benefits to the poor. The path dependence theory affirms that past choices determine future decisions. Once the path dependence results in a lock-in effect in pro-poor tourism, it is likely to affect pro-poor tourism performance. Here, we quantitatively analyze the characteristics and causes of path dependence in pro-poor tourism in China and investigate how path dependence affects pro-poor tourism performance. We find that the sunk cost (factor input) of pro-poor tourism is a major cause of path dependence. Path dependence in pro-poor tourism takes various forms: cognitive path dependence, institutional path dependence, technological path dependence and economic path dependence. Among these, cognitive dependence and institutional path dependence negatively affect pro-poor tourism performance, whereas technological dependence and economic path dependence positively affect performance. Simultaneously, the factor input of PPT affects PPT performance through the four dimensions of path dependence. The path dependence in PPT mediates the effect of factor input on PPT performance. Our findings reveal the characteristics and regularities of path dependence in the pro-poor tourism strategy implemented by the Chinese government. Findings of this study are important for policymakers that can assist in the implementation of PPT strategies and help improve PPT performance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, P., & Parmenter, B. (1995). An applied general equilibrium analysis of the economic effects of tourism in a quite small, quite open economy. Applied Economics, 27(10), 985–994
Aguilar-Becerra, C. D., Frausto-Martínez, O., Avilés-Pineda, H., Pineda-Pineda, J. J., Soares, J. C., & Umaña, M. R. (2019). Path dependence and social network analysis on evolutionary dynamics of tourism in coastal rural communities. Sustainability, 11, 48–54
Ap, J., & Crompton, J. L. (1998). Developing and testing a tourism impact scale. Journal of Travel Research, 37(2), 120–130
Archer, B. (1995). Importance of tourism for the economy of bermuda. Annals of Tourism Research, 22, 918–930
Archer, B. (1996). Economic impact analysis. Annals of Tourism Research, 23, 704–707
Arthur, W. B. (1989). Competing technologies, increasing returns and lock-in by historical events. Economic Journal, 99(3), 116–131
Bai, X. H., Chen, H. S., & Wang, S. (2017). Transportation, population and history dependence –based on the estimates of Jiangsu and Zhejiang data. Shanghai Economy, 2, 43–52
Boley, B. B., Mcgehee, N. G., Perdue, R. R., et al. (2014). Empowerment and resident attitudes toward tourism Strengthening the theoretical foundation through a Weberianlens. Annals of Tourism Research, 1(49), 33–50
Bowden, J. (2005). Pro-poor tourism and the Chinese experience. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 4(10), 379–398
Bramwell, B., & Cox, V. (2009). Stage and path dependence approaches to the evolution of a national park tourism partnership. Sustainable Tourism, 17, 191–206
Brouder, P., & Eriksson, R. H. (2013). Tourism evolution: On the synergies of tourism studies and evolutionary economic geography. Annals of Tourism Research, 43, 370–389
Brouder, P. (2017). Evolutionary economic geography: Reflections from a sustainable tourism perspective. Tourism Geography, 19, 438–447
Butler, R., Curran, R. O., & Gorman, K. D. (2013). Pro-poor tourism in a first world urban setting: Case study of Glasgow Govan. International Journal of Tourism Research, 15, 443–457
Chaperon, S., & Bramwell, B. (2013). Dependency and agency in peripheral tourism development. Annals of Tourism Research, 40, 132–154
Chen, G. H., & Bao, J. G. (2014). Path dependence in the evolution of resort governance models in China. Tourism Geography, 16, 812–825
Chen, G. H., & Bao, J. G. (2013). Path dependence in developmental model changes of tourist resorts: A case study of yalong bay national tourist resort in Sanya, China. Tourism Tribune, 8, 58–68
Chen, H. G. (2018). A study on the performance evaluation of local governments for poverty alleviation through tourism based on AHP – A case study of rural tourism development in Gansu Province. Journal of Hubei University of Education, 3, 86–89
Clavé, S. A., & Wilson, J. (2017). The evolution of coastal tourism destinations: A path plasticity perspective on tourism urbanisation. Sustainable Tourism, 25, 96–112
Dahles, H., & Bras, K. (1999). Entrepreneurs in romance: tourism in Indonesia[J]. Annals of Tourism Research, 26, 267–293
David, P. A. (1969). Transport innovation and economic growth: Professor Fogel on and off the rails. Economic History Review, 22(3), 506–525
David, P. A. (1975). Technical Choice, Innovation and Economic Growth: Essays on American and British Experience in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press.
David, P. A. (1985). Clio and the economics of QWERTY. American Economic Review, 75(2), 332–337
Deery, M., Jago, L., & Fredline, L. (2012). Rethinking social impacts of tourism research: A new research agenda. Tourism Management, 33, 64–73
Fletcher, J. (1989). Input-output analysis and tourism impact studies. Annals of Tourism Research, 16, 514–529
Gartner, C., & Cukier, J. (2012). Is tourism employment a sufficient mechanism for poverty reduction? A case study from Nkhata Bay Malawi. Current Issues in Tourism, 6(15), 545–562
Ghali, M. A. (1978). Tourism and economic growth: An empirical study. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 3(24), 527–538
Guo, L. F. (2003). Path dependence and the development of county tourism economy. Issues in Agricultural Economy, 12, 41–44
Han, X. Y., Kwortnik, R. J., & Wang, C. X. (2008). Service loyalty: An integrative model and examination across service contexts. Journal of Service Research, 11(1), 4–25
He, H., & Wang, S. X. (2014). Index system construction for pro-poor tourism performance evaluation of mass poverty area. Journal of Hubei University of Arts and Science, 8, 74–79
Jackson, J. E., & Kollman, K. (2012). Modeling, measuring, and distinguishing path dependence, outcome dependence, and outcome independence. Political Analysis, 20, 157–174
Jamal, T. B., & Getz, D. (1995). Collaboration theory and community tourism planning. Annals of Tourism Research, 1(22), 186–204
Jiang, M., Delacy, T., Mkiramweni, N. P., et al. (2011). Some evidence for tourism alleviating poverty. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(3), 1181–1184
Knetsch, J. L. (1963). Outdoor recreation demands and benefits. Land Ecnomics, 39, 386–391
Knight, D. W. (2018). An institutional analysis of local strategies for enhancing pro-poor tourism outcomes in Cuzco Peru. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 26(4), 631–648
Kwaramba, H. M., Lovett, J. C., Louw, L., et al. (2012). Emotional confidence levels and success of tourism development for poverty reduction: The South African Kwam eMakana home-stay projec. Tourism Management, 33(4), 885–894
Lacher, R. G. (2012). Is tourism a low-income industry? Evidence from three coasta lregions. Journal of Travel Research, 4(51), 464–472
Lanktord, V., & Howard, D. (1994). Developing a tourism impact attitude scale. Annals of Tourism Research, 21, 121–139
Lee, T. H., & Hsieh, H. P. (2016). Indicators of sustainable tourism: A case study from a Taiwan’s wetland. Ecological Indicators, 67, 779–787
Li, X. F. (2007). On the path dependence and transcendence in the environment protection in China. Economic Survey, 6, 8–10
Li, P., Ryan, C., & Cave, J. (2016). Chinese rural tourism development: Transition in the case of Qiyunshan, Anhui 2008–2015. Tourism Management, 55, 240–260
Li, Y. C. (2018). China’s tourism poverty alleviation efficiency: research based on dea-window analysis and nonlinear threshold effect. Guangxi University.
Luo, Z. X. (2014). Small tourism town— the path choice for the economic development of Guizhou rural areas. Journal of Guizhou Commercial College, 2, 62–66
Luvanga, N. (2005). The role of tourism in poverty alleviation in Tanzania. Mkukina Nyota Publishers.
Ma, M., & Hassink, R. (2013). An evolutionary perspective on tourism area development. Annals of Tourism Research, 41, 89–109
Ma, M., & Hassink, R. (2014). Path dependence and tourism area development: The case of Guilin China. Tourism Geographies, 16(4), 580–597
Mahoney, J. (2000). Path dependence in historical sociology. Theory and Society, 29, 507–548
Martin, R., & Sunley, P. (2006). Path dependence and regional economic evolution. Journal of Economic Geography, 6, 395–438
Mitchell, C. J., & Shannon, M. (2018). Exploring cultural heritage tourism in rural New found land through the lens of the evolutionary economic geographer. Rural Studies, 59, 21–34
Meireles, J. P. R., Azevedo, Y. G. P., & Schwarz, L. A. D. (2019). Sunk cost effect in the decision-making process: an analysis with accounting and business administration students. Revista Ambiente Contábil, 11, 199–217
Muchapondwa, E., & Stage, J. (2013). The economic impacts of tourism in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa: Is Poverty Subsiding? Natural Resources Forum, 2(37), 80–89
North, D. C. (1997). Structure and Change in Economic History. Shanghai People Press.
Page, S. E. (2006). Path dependence. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 1, 87–115
Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, 94(2), 251–267
Pierson, P. (2004). Politicsin Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton University Press.
Rengel, R., Gasparetto, V., & Schnorrenberger, D. (2019). Sunk costs and irrational insistence: Behavior in decision making in personal, organizational and public contexts. Revista Ambiente Contábil, 11, 19–38
Ribeiro, M. A. (2017). Residents’ attitudes and the adoption of pro-tourism behaviours: The case of developing island countries. Tourism Management, 61, 523–537
Sanz-Ibáñez, C., & Clavé, S. A. (2014). The evolution of destinations: Towards an evolutionary and relational economic geography approach. Tourism Geography, 16, 563–579
Sarrasin, B. (2013). Ecotourism, poverty and resources management in Ranomafana Madagascar. Tourism Geographies, 1(15), 324
Scheyvens, R. (2007). Exploring the tourism-poverty Nexus. Current Issues in Tourism, 10, 231–254
Song, L. (2006). Analysis on the path dependence of corporate governance. Jinan University.
Stylidis, D., & Terzidou, M. (2014). Tourism and the economic crisis in Kavala Greece. Annals of Tourism Research, 44, 210–226
Sydow, J., Schreyogg, G., & Koch, J. (2009). Organizational path dependence: Opening the black box. Academy of Management Review, 34(4), 689–709
Teece, D., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 7(18), 509–533
Thelen, K. (2004). How institutions evolve: The political economy of skills in Germany, Britain, the United Stated, and Japan. Cambridge University Press.
Truong, V. D., Hall, C. M., & Garry, T. (2014). Tourism and poverty alleviation: Perceptions and experiences of poor people in Sapa Vietnam. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(7), 1071–1089
Vergne, J. (2013). QWERTY is dead; long live path dependence. Research Policy, 42(6–7), 1191–1194
Vergne, J., & Durand, R. (2010). The missing link between the theory and empirics of path dependence: Conceptual clarification, testability issue, and methodological implications. Journal of Management Studies, 47(4), 736–759
Wagner, J. (1997). Estimating the economic impacts of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 24, 592–608
Wanhill, S. (1994). The measurement of tourist income multipliers. Tourism Management, 15, 281–283
Williams, A. M., & Baláž, V. R. (2002). The Czech and Slovak republics: Conceptual issues in the economic analysis of tourism intransition. Tourism Management, 23, 37–45
Wu, J. (2012). Path dependence, creation and break in the county tourism evolution—A case study of Chunan county in Zhejiang province. Journal of Business Economics, 247(5), 57–63
Wu, J. L. (1995). Path dependence and China’s reform—comments on professor North’s speech. Reform, 3, 57–59
Wu, G. Q. (2017). Tourism performance study in poor mountain area based on residents’ perceptions—A case study of Hao Tong village. Journal of Xinyang Normal University (philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 4, 38–42
Xiang, Y. P. (2008). Economic performance evaluation of poverty reduction through tourism—A case study of Yongshun County. Journal of Hunan University of Arts and Science (social Science Edition), 33(6), 58–60
Xie, L. S., Zhao, Q. S., & Guan, X. H. (2017). Innovative behavior of service frontline staff: The driving role of enterprise interaction orientation and customer value co-creation. Journal of Sun Yat-Sen University (social Science Edition)., 2(57), 200–210
Xiong, Y. B., & Jiang, X. (2011). Path dependence and innovation of sustainable tourism development. Journal of Business Economics, 232(2), 92–97
Xu, H. G. (2005). A theoretical model of path dependence for cultural heritage tourism commercialization. Tourism Science, 3, 74–78
Xu, H. G., & Wan, X. J. (2008). Path dependence of regional tourism development: A case study of ancient village tourism in southern Anhui Province. The academic annual meeting of Chinese geographical society in 2008, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Yin, Y. M., Liu, Z. G., & Lu, Y. Q. (2006). A new view of tourism destination development: Implications from evolutionary economics thoughts. Geography and Geo-Information Science, 1, 84–88
Zhao, W. (2009). The nature and roles of small tourism business in poverty alleviation: Evidence from Guangxi, China. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 2(14), 169–182
Zhang, X. M., & Bao, J. G. (2009). Tourism development and rural vicissitudes: The hypothesis of “origin -dynamics.” Tourism Tribune, 6, 19–24
Zou, J., & Zhang, F. (2017). The influence of sunk cost on the path dependence of the governance structure of state-owned enterprises and its market-oriented transcendence. Modern Economic Research, 5, 11–15
Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the English editor from Edtage who help us to modify English language problems in this article. Also, we thank postgraduate student Peiliang Yu and PhD student Kehan Shi in the Business School of Guangxi University. They helped to collect data and information in this article. Finally, we appreciate the grant (No. 16XJL006) from the China National Social Science Fund.
Funding
This study was funded by China National Social Science Fund (No. 16XJL006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Yaping Liu contributed to conceptualization, methodology, writing—reviewing and editing, supervision, funding acquisition. Jie Yu contributed to software, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, Y., Yu, J. Path dependence in pro-poor tourism. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 973–993 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01478-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01478-x