Contemporary Issues in China’s Ethnic Region and Opportunities for Developing Ethnic Tourism in Xinjiang, Western Region of China

抄録

With the social development, ethnic tourism in Xinjiang has become ever more prominent as a possible option to increase inbound and domestic tourists’ awareness and as an attraction to a tourism destination for economic development in western region of China. This paper objectively and briefly analyses Xinjiang’s ethnic tourism industry’s own strengths and weakness as well as the opportunities and challenges the tourism industry faced, which provide intellectual support for Xinjiang’s ethnic tourism industry’s sustainable development and promote the local region’s economy. The purpose of this paper is the identification of issues and exploring the potential of ethnic tourism in order to be successful in the tourism industry. For illustration of ethnic tourism, SWOT analysis method is used in this paper. This method is used to explain internal factors assessment (strengths and weaknesses), and externals factors assessment (opportunities and threats/challenges). This analysis method will be useful in designing the recommendations for ethnic tourism that developing the potential in rural ethnic region. Based on local ethnic minority communities, overcoming weaknesses to pursue opportunities for a good fit to local regional strengths and establish a possible plan to regional development.