Through participant observation and interviews, the results show that there is a significant difference in residents’ perceptions of tourism development between different geographic locations. The influential factors including level of tourism development, cultural heritage and residents involved in tourism planning influenced on their perceptions of tourism development. The tourism industry in Hwa-ling village went into decline due to the lack of resource management, the low degree of resident’s involvement in tourism planning, and unable to accommodate itself to the modern tourism industry.
The implication for the aboriginal tourism is how to integrate villagers involved in planning, and how to diversify management in tourism market. The possible strategies are: to help empower rural people to make better use of resource and cultural heritage; to create the new opportunities of combing industry, ecology and cultural tourism; and sustainable management. Under such competitive tourism market, local residents should seriously consider the above issues in the future planning of tourism in their villages.
