The Conflict and Coordination Mechanism of Interpersonal Relationship between New and Old Residents in Community Reorganization at Heritage Sites: A Model Based on Tangkou in Huangshan

Abstract

During the transition to the tourism service community, the heritage community has absorbed more and more new residents, and the community undergoes constant reorganization. The relationship between new arrivals and original residents has caused many conflicts in the process of community restructuring, which in turn affects the sustainable development of the heritage site. Based on the survey of the typical heritage community in Tangkou, Huangshan, combined with grounded theory, it is found that interpersonal relationship conflicts between new arrivals and original residents of the heritage community are mainly affected by economic interests, environmental cognition, emotional exchanges, cultural customs, and so on. It is suggested to improve the interest coordination mechanism between new arrivals and original merchants, give play to the role of industry associations, protect the interests of marginalized or disadvantaged groups, strengthen the construction of community public leisure space, encourage residents to participate in the protection and inheritance of traditional cultural customs in the community, and establish community environmental protection and responsibility mechanisms.

1. Introduction

By 2022, the number of world cultural and natural heritage sites in China will have reached 56. As the most outstanding tourist destinations in China, these heritage sites not only bring prosperity and development to tourism but also lead to the fragmentation and reorganization of heritage site communities. In particular, the influx of a large population from the tourism industry has had many impacts on the lives and production of local residents. The relationship between new arrivals and old residents has become increasingly complex. Therefore, the conflict between new arrivals and old residents in heritage site communities has inevitably become the focus of attention. Firstly, although tourism promotes the rapid economic development of remote and backward heritage site communities, it also forms values dominated by economic interests, which leads to conflicts about the economic interests of residents in the process of pursuing economic development [1,2,3,4,5]. Secondly, since local residents of heritage sites have lived here for generations, the immigration of outsiders destroys their original living atmosphere; meanwhile, the new arrivals also occupy their original living space. Generally speaking, local residents pay more attention to the protection of the local ecological environment and the conservation of natural resources in the process of participating in tourism development. They hope to keep their hometown at a higher level of environmental quality and economic development. However, outside merchants tend to increase profits and income, caring less about the local ecological environment and natural resources, which puts great pressure on the resources and environment of heritage sites. The different “environmental awareness” of new arrivals and old residents eventually leads to conflicts over resources and the environment [6]. Thirdly, new residents will change the living environment of local residents, resulting in the inadaptation of their lifestyle, customs, and other aspects [7]. Finally, since most of the new residents live there for business or work in the heritage sites, there is a huge difference in values and social status between them and the native farmers or merchants in the heritage sites. Moreover, most of the local residents may have deep mistrust of the outsiders, arguing that they come here just to make money, so they are indifferent to the foreign merchants. Therefore, the difference in values and social status between new arrivals and original residents, as well as the lack of trust and a manner of coldness between old and new residents, eventually lead to emotional conflicts [8]. To sum up, although there are a series of interpersonal conflicts such as economic interest conflicts, environmental conflicts, life conflicts, and emotional conflicts in the tourism development process of the heritage site community, the residents of the community hope to live in a harmonious neighborhood, and the friendliness of local residents and their good relationship with each other will make the heritage site a more attractive place. This provides the possibility of coordinating and solving interpersonal conflicts.

Conflict is inevitable in social life [9], which refers to the phenomenon that the incompatibility caused by perceived material interests, institutional disorders, or value differences may result in negative or opposing emotions or even behavioral confrontation among people [10]. External and internal conflicts coexist in tourism communities, which are characterized by complexity, chronicity, and economic benefits [11]. Among them, the phenomenon of multi-group conflicts within tourism communities has aroused the attention of many scholars, who mainly approach it from three aspects: conflict identification, conflict factors, and conflict management. In terms of conflict identification, scholars generally believe that the subjects of conflict in tourism communities include local governments, tourism developers, community residents, tourists, NGOs, and other stakeholders. From the perspective of residents in tourism communities, conflicts within tourism communities usually occur between residents and government, residents and managers, residents and planners, residents and outside operators, residents and residents, as well as residents and tourists [10,12]. They are characterized by social and cultural conflicts such as loose supervision, lack or obstruction of appeal channels, ethnic minorities’ rejection of tourists, differences in religious beliefs, poor infrastructure construction, and ineffective improvement of residents’ living standards. Conflicts of economic interests such as self-interest and fund compensation of interest subjects, conflicts of the living environment such as deterioration of the living environment, etc. [13,14,15,16,17,18]. Moreover, there are various spatial competitions and benefit games among these subjects of interest. At the same time, they are jointly influenced by many factors, such as community micro-location, overall planning, market demand, and practice modes of different subjects, so that the overall spatial distribution of conflict hotspots presents a core-edge effect [19]. In terms of conflict factors, economy, system, and power are the main factors leading to tourism community conflicts. Among them, the economy is the direct inducement. The fuzzy boundary of the tourism resource property right relationship, the tourism income distribution system, and other systems are the internal roots. Power is the intermediary condition [14,20,21]. Other scholars analyzed the generation of multi-group conflicts and the fluctuation of social relations in ethnic tourism communities in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China through ethnographic investigation, believing that the community conflicts were caused by concepts, resources, and power, corresponding to the three life cycle stages of tourism destination exploration, participation, and development [22]. It should be noted that the conflict among stakeholders within tourism communities is also evolving from implicit conflict to explicit conflict due to factors such as the deviation and disentangling of institutional norms and the loss of community residents’ relational trust [23], and escalating from intra-group conflict to inter-group conflict [22,24]. In terms of conflict management, Wu (2005) analyzed multiple dynamic cycles of conflict diagnosis, treatment, information feedback, and measure optimization and argued that the establishment of a conflict management framework of community development and natural resource protection centered on benefit sharing is the main way to alleviate community conflicts [25]. Curcija (2019) conducted in-depth interviews with 23 Community-Based Tourism (CBT) stakeholders, divided tourism community conflicts into three stages: event, response, and consequence, and then proposed the Linear Conflict Management Model to provide a conflict coordination tool for stakeholders [26]. Yang (2023) applied the “conflict-coordination” theory to identify the potential cognitive conflict points of the multi-functional space of interest subjects through density mapping and the conflict tendency model, and built the mechanism and path of cognitive conflict coordination in the multi-functional space of the subjects by meeting the demands of interest subjects [27].

The above research has laid a solid foundation for further research on the internal conflicts of the tourism society, but there are still some deficiencies. Some scholars have noticed various conflicts between local residents and outside operators but ignored the changes in the composition of residents in tourism communities against the background of tourism urbanization and tourism immigration [28]. The interpersonal conflicts between local residents and new residents need to be further explored. Based on this, the present study takes Tangkou Town, a typical heritage site community of Huangshan City, as the case, aiming to explore the main aspects of interpersonal conflicts between new and old residents in the process of reorganizing heritage site communities. What are the relationships between interpersonal conflicts on different dimensions? This paper mainly contributes to exploring interpersonal conflicts such as interest conflict, environmental conflict, emotional conflict, and life conflict among the new and old residents of Tangkou Town heritage site community and putting forward the interpersonal relationship conflict model of tourism community residents. Emotional conflict is the intermediary condition, which enriches the tourism community conflict theory to a certain extent. At the same time, it also provides a case study and reference for Tangkou Town and other tourism communities to coordinate various interpersonal conflicts between new and old residents and promote the symbiosis and co-prosperity of tourism communities.

2. Literature Review

An interpersonal relationship is the emotional connection between people formed through communication [29]. The research on interpersonal relationships among residents in heritage communities originated from the study on the impact of the tourism economy on heritage sites. In the early 1960s, Forster J. (1964) began to notice that while tourism promoted local economic development, local residents’ values based on morality and blood ties were transformed into those based on money, and the norms of interpersonal communication were gradually transformed from “worldly wisdom” to “material benefits” [30]. Kadt E. (1979) believed that compared with the alienation of interpersonal relationships, the more serious problem was the contradiction caused by the uneven distribution of interests among community residents, and the interest disputes led to the deterioration of interpersonal relationships and the conflict of interests in interpersonal communication [31]. Bisilliat J. (1979) also believed that the development of tourism would impact the traditional local moral concept of mutual help and friendly coexistence, increase conflicts of interest among people, and destroy the inherent relationship among residents [32]. Just like others, Chinese scholars’ research on the interpersonal relationships between heritage sites also started with the economic impact of tourism [33,34,35,36].

With more in-depth study on the impact of tourism, researchers in the West have gradually realized that the social and cultural impacts of tourism are also of great significance. Rothman R. (1988) found that the deterioration of community interpersonal relationships was reflected in the conflict of interests and gradual disappearance of traditional forms of mutual help due to the reduction of communication time, and the cold attitude and mutual distrust among residents also destroyed the traditional interpersonal relationship among residents [37]. Moreover, the development of tourism and the arrival of a large number of tourists also had a great impact on the traditional forms of living habits and social activities in the heritage site, which reduced the time for communication between residents to a certain extent. Choi C. and Murray I. (2010) paid special attention to the changes in residents’ attitudes and emotions towards outsiders in the development process of tourism at heritage sites. With the continuous increase in the number of outsiders, the original lifestyle and values of residents would be threatened, so that the attitude of residents towards outsiders would change from welcoming to indifference to exclusion and hostility [38]. Hwang (2012) also believed that, under the influence of tourism, the decrease of traditional social activities and the crash of foreign cultures had changed residents’ emotions and their traditional friendly attitude towards guests [39]. With the prosperous development of tourism in China, the interpersonal relationships between tourism destinations were becoming complicated, and Chinese scholars were beginning to pay attention to the impact of tourism destination residents in such aspects as lifestyle, emotion, and cognition. Su Qin and Lin Bingyao (2004) found that the development of tourism and the arrival of a large number of tourists did change residents’ lifestyles and customs through the classification of residents in Xidi, Zhouzhuang, and Jiuhuashan [40]. Li Yu and Sun Jiuxia (2018) also found that economic development and cognitive change would have an impact on the original simple interpersonal relations and traditional religions and customs of the local people [41]. Li Xianfeng and He Jian (2010) believed that emotional changes in life would lead to disapproval and rejection in emotion and living habits among residents in ethnic minority areas and between residents and tourists [42]. Guo Hua and Gan Qiaolin (2011) found that changes brought by tourism development to heritage site communities would increase community residents’ feelings of inferiority and frustration, and they would perceive their “exclusion” from multiple dimensions, such as economic exclusion, political exclusion, cultural exclusion, and relational exclusion [43].

In addition to economic and social cultural factors, resources and the environment may also cause interpersonal conflicts among heritage site residents. Scholars such as Tang Wenyue (2008) and Xie Hongbin (2009) paid attention to the damage or waste to the local environment caused by outside tourists and the development of tourism resources by developers and governments, resulting in environmental conflicts between tourists, governments, developers, and residents [44,45]. In recent years, Chinese scholars have conducted more and more research on a series of social, economic, and cultural conflicts caused by the deterioration of resources and the environment in tourist destinations. On the one hand, tourists’ intentional or unintentional tourism behaviors might damage the ecological environment of tourist destinations, especially if some tourist destinations were excessively disturbed by human activities, which might cause the man-made destruction of biodiversity [46,47]. On the other hand, environmental changes, in turn, would have a reverse impact on tourist behaviors and residents’ attitudes, prompting local residents and foreign tourists to pay more attention to the protection of resources and the environment in tourist destinations [48,49].

It can be seen in the above discussion that there are inevitably interpersonal conflicts in heritage communities, including economic interests, social culture, emotional attitudes, environmental conflicts, and other aspects of the process of tourism development. Such interpersonal conflicts, especially those between new arrivals and original residents, will change with the continuous reorganization of tourist communities. Therefore, based on the investigation of typical communities, this paper applies grounded theory in discussing the conflict between new arrivals and original residents in the process of reorganizing heritage site communities and the influencing factors behind it in order to provide some guidance for the construction of a good interpersonal coordination mechanism.

3. Methods

3.1. Selection of the Research Case

Huangshan scenic spot is a famous representative of the world’s cultural and natural heritage sites. Tangkou Town, where the South gate and the south service center are located, is a typical heritage site community. It serves the development of heritage tourism and undertakes many functions such as tourism distribution, accommodation and reception, commercial services, and the residence and office of the employees of the scenic spot (Figure 1). Since the development of Huangshan tourism in 1978, Tangkou Town has been the main entrance and exit for tourists in the scenic area. The number of tourists is growing every year, and the corresponding tourism reception service facilities and employees are also growing, thus encouraging the community to expand and reorganize. In 1997, Tangkou Village became the largest tourism reception center in Huangshan. There are nearly 400 individual industrial and commercial businesses in the village, including more than 200 individual hotels with 6,000 beds. Small shops and restaurants are scattered all over the place. Extremely dense commercial facilities and the influx of migrants have led to a chaotic living population and environmental deterioration, resulting in many social problems.

Therefore, the General Plan of Tangkou Town (1997–2010) issued by Tangkou Town in 1997 proposed that Zhaixi Village should be regarded as the functional extension of Tangkou Village and undertake part of the functions of Tangkou Village, so as to form two core communities of Tangkou and Zhaixi. To this end, Tangkou Town has built Chengqi Villa, Zhaixi Comprehensive Service Area, and other projects in Zhaixi Group to undertake the relocation of functional departments of scenic spots and encourage private owners to invest in the construction of “tea culture street” and star-standard tourist hotels. At the same time, the implementation of the Zhaixi New Village project was intended to speed up the process of farmer citizenization. By the end of 2005, more than 400 households had come to Tangkou Town to start collective or individual industrial and commercial businesses, and more than 2000 people from other places had temporarily lived in the Tangkou community.

However, the construction of the Zhaixi community has not effectively relieved the pressure on the Tangkou community. Therefore, in 2005, the revision of the General Plan of Tangkou-Zhaixi and the implementation of the Detailed Plan of Group Control of Zhaixi further positioned Zhaixi community as the main life service base and important transportation hub of Huangshan scenic spot, absorbing the excessive population and funds of Tangkou Group and effectively regulating the transformation of the old town of Tangkou Group. This was to take place in three steps: first, reforming the old city in a comprehensive way, including the renovation of Xiaoyao Creek, the central region of the old city and the reconstruction of the high roads; second, starting the overall development of Zhaixi planning area, including infrastructure construction and central village construction; third, speeding up the planning and construction of new villages for the surrounding farmers in new village for residents of Feicui, new village for residents of Kowloon, new village for farmers of Gangcun and new village for farmers of Fangcun; It is expected to optimize the layout of the whole community through the reconstruction of the old city, the construction of new towns and villages, and guide the rational living of all types of residents, including the migrant businessmen.

Then in 2008, the third round of overall planning revision of the town was launched, in which the idea of “controlling and transforming Tangkou and developing Zhaixi in an orderly way” was further proposed. First, focusing on the construction of infrastructure such as roads, transportation, and environmental protection, especially the construction and use of the Huangshan tourist distribution center and Dongling parking lot, so as to truly optimize the whole service pattern; Second, speeding up the construction of the Zhaixi comprehensive development zone and moving more than a dozen departments such as industry and commerce, taxation, fire protection, hospitals, middle schools, and water works to Zhaixi Village so as to build Zhaixi as the political, economic, and cultural center of the town. After the above-mentioned planning adjustment, old community transformation, new community construction, and optimized layout of infrastructure, Tangkou Town has gradually completed the reorganization and merger of the whole community in the process of supporting the whole tourism development of the Huangshan scenic area.

In the process of community reorganization, the immigration phenomenon in Tangkou Town has become more and more significant. At present, the number of permanent residents in Tangkou Town is about 12,000, of which more than 70% are from outside. Most of these permanent residents came from She County, Anqing City, and other surrounding areas and mainly lived in the Zhaixi community. Some permanent residents have bought houses there and settled down as new residents. When foreign residents enter Tangkou to do business or settle down, they bring new strength to Tangkou Town but at the same time cause some problems, such as the phenomenon of foreign residents doing business together in groups, disobeying government discipline, and bullying local people, which causes tension in community relations. These issues complicate the interpersonal conflicts between new arrivals and original residents and thus can be used as references in research into this problem.

3.2. Data Collection

In view of the interpersonal relationship between new and old residents in the process of community restructuring in Tangkou Town, taking the research opportunity of “Collaborative Research on Ecological Protection and Community Development of Heritage Sites”, a key research and development plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the authors conducted field surveys and interviews in Tangkou Town in July 2018. The three large, reconstructed communities are Tangkou, Zhaixi, and Shancha Village. Therefore, new arrivals and original residents from Tangkou community, Zhaixi community, and Shancha Village were randomly selected for in-depth interviews. A total of 75 valid interview samples were collected (23 in Tangkou community, 19 in Zhaixi community, and 33 in Shancha Village). In terms of the age of the sample, 58% of interviewees were between 30 and 60 years old; 14% were below 30 years old; and 28% were above 60 years old. In terms of occupation, employees in enterprises, farmers, and individual industrial and commercial businesses were the three main groups, accounting for 12%, 36%, and 52%, respectively. The interview mainly included information in the following three aspects: first, the basic personal information of the interviewee; second, the status quo of community residents’ interpersonal relations; and third, the attitude and view between local residents and foreign residents towards each other. To verify theoretical saturation, 50 interviewees were randomly selected as coded data for grounded theory, and the remaining 25 interviewees were used to verify theoretical saturation.

In addition, in order to enrich the data, this study used the search functions of Baidu News (https://news.baidu.com/ accessed on 13 June 2020.) and Toutiao Today (https://www.toutiao.com/ 13 June 2020) to search for “Tangkou + residents” and “Tangkou + villagers” as the main keywords. Cases that fit the theme of this study, such as “resident conflicts” and “vicious competition among merchants”, were selected as supplementary research materials for grounded theories.

3.3. Research Methods

In this paper, based on the methods of grounded theory, through three steps of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding [50], the original interview records were integrated and analyzed to obtain their basic components and the frequency of each key word. In the process of analysis, the concepts obtained from the coding of the upper level were constantly extracted, the nodes were constantly modified and integrated, and the corresponding theoretical categories were constantly revised until there were no new theoretical categories or classes and theoretical saturation was finally reached. Therefore, a theoretical model of interpersonal conflict between new arrivals and original residents was proposed.

4. Process and Results

4.1. Open Coding

Open coding is conceptualized and abstract analysis based on the original data of in-depth interviews. Through the step-by-step and sentence-by-sentence coding integration of the original data, the categories and concepts that can best express the original data are abstracted. Since conceptualization is the direct integration of the original data, it gets rid of the intervention of personal logic and bias. However, categorization is further sorted out and concluded on the basis of conceptualization, so it has more research significance. In the process of coding, it is more accurate to retain the original statement of the interview as far as possible and then categorize the original record. After processing and analysis of the data, 133 labels were given. Each label was extracted, and initial concepts with overlapping meanings were combined, to further categorize initial concepts. Finally, 79 initial categories were formed. Limited by space, this paper lists the conceptualization and categorization deduction processes of part of the coding, as shown in

Table 1. Example of open coding.

Original Interview Materials	Conceptualization	Preliminary Categories	Subcategories	Main Categories
I don’t get along very well with the natives. I don’t interact much with the local people. They all have their own things to do. There is still no sense of belonging here. It takes a long time to integrate into the community. There will be vicious competition between local and outside businessmen. (001-W-07) … Most conflicts take places among single business owners. There are few public activities in the community. Generally speaking, everything is OK, but there are too many stores and the competition is too fierce. There is not enough parking space, no large parking lot; the city is too crowded. (005-W-35) … Because of the housing dispute, there were conflicts with local residents. They arbitrarily built houses and occupied land just because they were local, and bullied us outsiders. After the development of tourism, people in good geographical locations have lived a much better life, but people in poor geographical locations are still in the same situation as that of 20 or 30 years ago. (007-W-49) … Outsiders do business a bit too much. It will affect the local business. I do not have a special view of outsiders, but welcoming high-quality outsiders. I prefer communicating with them to those low quality outsiders. It’s best if we don’t interfere each other. There is a conflict between residents. Some people may be jealous and develop psychological imbalance over how much money to make. (009-W-63) …	Natives Not getting along very well Little contact Local residents No sense of belonging Integrating into the community Long process Outside merchants … Vicious competition Similar business Saturation Business progress Intense Big problem Outsiders More and more … Inter-inhabitants Getting along very well No conflict Single business owners Having a conflict Community public activities Leisure walk Square Public service … Outsiders Doing business Affecting local people Welcoming high-quality outsiders Exclusion of low-quality outsiders Unwilling to communicate Non-interference Inter-inhabitant Jealous How much money do you make Mental imbalance …	a1 Not getting along very well a2 Very little contact a3 Less interaction … a7 Vicious competition among merchants … a10 Conflicts among merchants … a25 Uneven development in the region a26 Contradiction caused by income gap a27 Mental imbalance caused by the gap between the rich and the poor a28 House dispute a29 Clashes between old and new residents … a30 Having no sense of belonging a31 Community strangeness … a32 New residents lack affection for the community a33 Difficulty in integrating into the community … a41 Local people have a bias against outsiders a42 Unwilling to communicate a43 Locals don’t trust outsiders … a46 There has been a surge in migrant population … a72 Poor sanitation a73 More rubbish by the outsiders a74 Not cooperating in sewage treatment a76 Lack of environmental awareness among outsiders a77 Local people have a strong sense of responsibility ...	aa1 Less interaction between new and old residents (extracted from preliminary categories a1-a6) aa2 Vicious competition among merchants (extracted from preliminary categories a7-a10) … aa6 Widening gap between rich and poor (extracted from preliminary categories a25-a29) aa7 Lack of sense of belonging (extracted from preliminary categories a30-a33) … aa10 Lack of trust (extracted from preliminary categories a42-a43) aa12 Too large migrant population (extracted from preliminary categories a46-a48) … aa15 Lifestyle conflict (extracted from Preliminary categories a56-a59) aa16 Impact on original customs (extracted from preliminary categories a60-a63) … aa17 Environmental pollution issues (extracted from preliminary categories a64-a66) aa19 Health issues (extracted from preliminary categories a71-a73) ... aa20 Environmental awareness differences (extracted from preliminary categories a74-a76) aa21 Differences in environmental responsibility (extracted from preliminary categories a77-a79)	A1 Conflicts of interest (extracted from subcategories aa1-aa6) A2 Emotional conflict (extracted from subcategories aa7-aa11) A3 Life conflict (extracted from subcategories aa12-aa16) A4 Environmental conflict (extracted from subcategories aa17-aa21)

.

4.2. Axial Coding

There was obvious repetition, contradiction, and ambiguity among the 79 categories obtained by open coding. Therefore, the paper continued to analyze and carry out axial coding on the basis of grounded theory so as to better determine the interrelationship among the categories and form the main category. The canonical model mainly follows the process of “causal conditions-contextual analysis-mediating conditions-action/interaction strategy-result” to achieve the connection between categories and form the main category. Many concepts of reference nodes are repeated, but these repeated items are not eliminated in the research process because the more frequently an item node is repeated, the more universal the behavior described by the statement is. The original concepts were classified and given certain concepts, and 79 initial concepts were finally aggregated into 4 main categories and 21 subcategories (

Table 2. Example of axial coding.

Category of Axial Coding Extraction		Category of Open Coding Extraction
Main Category	Subcategories
A1 Conflict of interests	aa1 Little interaction between old and new residents	a1 Not getting along very well, a2 little contact, a3 little interaction, a4 no interaction, a5 being busy with personal affairs, a6 being busy with work
	aa2 Vicious competition among merchants	a7 Vicious competition among merchants, a8 price reduction by merchants, a9 price war of merchants, a10 business conflicts
	aa3 Old and new merchants exclude each other	a11 Crowding out local development opportunities, a12 fierce competition in business, a13 too fierce competition, a14 local merchants have competitive advantages, a15 high rental cost for outsiders
	aa4 Serious business saturation phenomenon	a16 Similar business saturation, a17 too many stores, a18 more outside merchants, a19 affecting local business, a20 too many stores, a21 catering business saturation
	aa5 Merchant improper operation	a22 Insufficient government supervision, a23 merchant rip-off phenomenon, a24 merchant solicitation behavior
	aa6 Widening gap between rich and poor	a25 Region development imbalance, a26 conflicts caused by income gap, a27 mental imbalance caused by wealth gap, a28 housing disputes, a29 old and new residents conflict
A2 Emotional conflict	aa7 Lack of sense of belonging	a30 Lack of belonging, a31 community strangeness, a32 new residents lack community affection, a33 difficulty in integrating into the community
	aa8 Exclusion of outsiders	a34 Local people’s exclusion of outsiders, a35 exclusion of low-quality outsiders, a36 local people do not want to communicate with outsiders
	aa9 Communication misunderstanding	a37 Outsiders only care about business, a38 outsiders are not honest, a39 outsiders are unfriendly, a40 outsiders are irresponsible, a41 locals are biased against outsiders
	aa10 Lack of trust	a42 Unwilling to communicate, a43 local people do not trust outsiders
	aa11 Strong sense of strangeness	a44 Strong sense of strangeness between new and old residents, a45 indifferent attitude of local people
A3 Life conflict	aa12 Excessive migrant population	a46 Surging migrant population, a47 too many migrant residents, a48 more and more outsiders
	aa13 Living space occupied	a49 Crowded city, a50 smaller living space
	aa14 Living resources occupied	a51 Poor infrastructure, a52 lack of entertainment facilities, a53 lack of fitness and leisure facilities, a54 lack of leisure square, a55 lack of parking spaces
	aa15 Living habits conflict	a56 Different habits, a57 different life patterns, a58 different ideas, a59 regional differences
	aa16 Impact on original customs	a60 Fewer public activities in the community, a61 fewer activities on festivals, a62lack of traditional activities, a63 faded festival atmosphere
A4 Environmental conflict	aa17 Environmental pollution problems	a64 Living environment problems, a65 air pollution, and a66 dissatisfaction in living environment
	aa18 Sanitation work aggravated	a67 Many problems in sewage treatment, a68 untimely sewage treatment, a69 environmental deterioration caused by outsiders, a70 garbage disposal problems
	aa19 Sanitation problems	a71 Sanitation in poor condition, a72 sanitation is becoming poorer, a73 more garbage caused by outsiders
	aa20 Difference in environmental awareness	a74 No cooperation in sewage treatment, a75 only pursuing economic benefits, a76 outsiders lack environmental awareness
	aa21 Difference in environmental responsibility	a77 Local people have a strong sense of responsibility, a78 outsiders have a weak sense of responsibility, a79 local people have been living there for generations

).

4.3. Selective Coding

Selective coding is the core category presented in the selection of data. The 16 categories obtained from the axial coding were systematically related to other categories, and the incomplete category was supplemented to some extent. By reintegrating free nodes and tree nodes and merging and recombining axial coding, the above 21 independent categories were finally summarized into 4 core categories: conflict of interests, emotional conflict, life conflict, and environmental conflict. Selective coding is the process of selecting the core category, associating it with other categories systematically, verifying it, and supplementing the category whose concept has not been fully developed. The four main categories abstracted by axial coding had their own canonical models, evidence chains, and aspects, but none of them could accommodate all the data content. Through the investigation of the four main categories of conflict of interests, emotional conflict, life conflict, and environmental conflict extracted from the axial coding, combined with the original data, it can be concluded that interpersonal conflict is the core category between new and old residents. Conflict of interests and environmental conflict are the causal conditions of interpersonal conflict between new and old residents; emotional conflict is the intermediary condition of interpersonal conflict between new and old residents; and life conflict is the action strategy of interpersonal conflict between new and old residents (Figure 2).

(1) A conflict of interests is the direct manifestation of interpersonal conflict. The development of Huangshan tourism has brought more economic income and employment opportunities for the new and old residents of Tangkou Town. However, due to the different location conditions, the gap in personal abilities, and other factors, the phenomenon of uneven distribution of benefits and a widening gap between the rich and the poor gradually appeared. “After the development of tourism, people in good geographical locations have lived a much better life, but people in poor geographical locations are still in the same situation as that of 20 or 30 years ago. (007-W-49)” This creates a great psychological gap among the residents who benefit less, especially the local residents, so they tend to reject the foreign merchants doing business in Tangkou. Moreover, after the development of tourism, residents in Tangkou Town are busy with their own work or business, lack time for interpersonal communication, and their relationships with neighbors and friends become isolated. “I don’t get along very well with the natives. We rarely contact. I don’t interact much with them. They all have their own things to do. Usually we are busy with work, so we did not interact with others. (002-W-14)” Actually, the traditional morality of helping each other has evolved into a value based on economic interests. The most important thing is that too many migrants doing business puts pressure on local residents and businesses. The phenomenon of business saturation is serious in Tangkou. “Similar business is very saturated, and the competition in the business process is too fierce, which is a big problem. The number of outsiders has increased, so the infrastructure has been unable to meet the needs of daily life. Since government supervision is poor, visitors often get cheated. (003-W-21)” In order to fight for their interests, groups of local and foreign merchants compete for customers with vicious price reductions, which has a pervasive negative impact on local social stability and sustainable economic development. Therefore, it has become urgent to solve the conflict of interests and interpersonal contradictions between the new and old residents of Tangkou Town.

(2) Environmental conflict is the manifestation of the difference between new arrivals and original residents in environmental cognition at a higher level. There is no doubt that the vigorous development of Huangshan tourism will put great pressure on Tangkou’s natural resources and ecological environment, which will definitely bring dissatisfaction among the old residents who have lived here for generations. “I’m very confident in the future of Huangshan tourism development, but I’m most worried that too many shops will cause more garbage and environmental deterioration is inevitable. Especially the catering industry is overloaded because foreign merchants will bring many people from their hometowns to do business here, which makes fewer and fewer development opportunities for locals. (010-W-70)” More importantly, a large number of migrant residents will occupy the living space of local residents and destroy the original living atmosphere. Commercial operations will also cause more resource waste and environmental pollution. In addition, in the views of local people, migrant businessmen just want to grab more profits without paying too much attention to the environmental quality of Tangkou Town. “Most outsiders come here to open shops and make money. We don’t want to interact with them. After the development of tourism, more and more people come from outside. The original space is smaller, and the environment and sanitary conditions become worse. (008-W-56)” Such differences in thinking eventually led to conflict between the new and old residents in terms of resources and the environment.

(3) Emotional conflict is the intermediary condition of conflicts among residents. According to the survey, the interpersonal relationship among the local residents in Tangkou Town, especially the neighbors, is good. Many outsiders also think that the local people are simple, friendly, and hospitable. “I think that the residents get along well with each other. There are almost no conflict, only some conflicts among single business owners. (005-W-35)” However, local residents do not trust non-native residents. Local farmers believe that non-native residents are businessmen who only seek profit. “The non-native people in this community are worse than the local people, maybe not as honest as the local people. Most of them come here to start business for money, so we do not want to make contact with them. After the development of tourism, more and more people come from outside, so the original space is becoming smaller, and the environment and sanitary conditions become worse. (008-W-56)” The difference in social status and values leads to misunderstandings with each other, resulting in indifferent attitudes and a lack of communication between new and old residents.

(4) Life conflict is the final action strategy for new arrivals and original residents. With the rapid development of tourism and the local economy, a large number of foreign residents will inevitably shock the traditional living habits and cultural customs of Tangkou Town. “Outsiders do business a little too much. It will affect the local business. I do not have a special view of outsiders, but welcoming high-quality outsiders. I prefer communicating with them to those low quality outsiders. It’s best if we don’t interfere each other. There is a conflict between residents. Some people may be jealous and develop sense of psychological imbalance about how much money they make. (009-W-63)” Moreover, due to the interest entanglement and business competition between the new arrivals and original residents, especially between the new and old merchants, vicious events such as confrontation, vicious price reduction, and even physical conflicts occur, which seriously affect the local public security and social atmosphere.

4.4. Saturation Test

Generally speaking, if no new concepts and categories can be extracted from the new materials or no category can be further developed, it can be considered theoretical saturation [51]. In this study, the interview data of the remaining 25 interviewees among the 75 interviewees was used as the material to verify theoretical saturation, and open coding was carried out. Through analysis, there are no new concepts and categories in the remaining interview materials, so the existing categories leave no room for supplementation. Actually, in the interview data of 50 interviewees, no new concepts and categories have emerged since the 39th interviewee.

5. Conclusions and Suggestions

5.1. Conclusions

It has been more than ten years since the community of Tangkou Town was restructured, and a large number of migrants have been continuously integrated into Tangkou, Zhaixi, and the surrounding communities as new residents. In the process of getting along and interacting with the local residents, a series of multiple conflicts have taken place, which to some extent supports the view of Liuyang (2021) [10]. Based on grounded theory, it is found that the interpersonal conflicts between new arrivals and original residents are mainly manifested in four aspects: First, conflict of interests, the direct manifestation of interpersonal conflicts, is mainly affected by the deterioration of business competition, the uneven distribution of interests, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, resulting in the values of the supremacy of economic interests, which intensifies the conflict of interests. Second, environmental conflict, the difference between old and new residents in environmental cognition, is mainly affected by the crowding of living space, the destruction of living atmosphere, the waste of resources, and environmental pollution, which generally aggravates the dissatisfaction of old residents. Third, emotional conflict, the intermediary condition of conflicts between old and new residents, is mainly affected by neighborhood relations, the friendliness of local residents, and mutual trust, and differences in social status and values will aggravate emotional conflicts. Fourth, life conflict, the final action strategy of new and old residents, is mainly affected by the interference of living habits and the involvement of cultural customs, and the conflict of interests between the two sides will aggravate the life conflict. Meanwhile, there are certain interrelations among these conflicts, which is in accordance with the view of Wang L. (2019) [18].

5.2. Suggestions

In view of the above research, suggestions for coordinating interpersonal conflict are as follows:

(1) Explore the establishment of interest coordination organizations composed of new and old merchants, industry associations, and other third parties, strengthen industry self-discipline, and give play to the role of industry associations. As the most significant conflicting party within the rural tourism community, community governments should enhance the trust of community residents in community government management [52], play the role of regulators by establishing and improving regulations on fair competition of merchants, strengthen market supervision, and improve market order through strict enforcement of laws and regulations, and promote orderly competition of merchants in communities. At the same time, the government should guide the scientific development of tourism forms and encourage the consciousness of innovation and sustainable development of new and old businesses, so as to achieve a virtuous cycle of development. In addition, the government should also strengthen the construction of the business service system, strengthen the education and training of businessmen, help community residents improve their own abilities to do business, strive to coordinate the interests of all parties, and achieve win-win results.

(2) Establish the mechanism to guarantee the economic interests of marginalized or vulnerable residents. Various microlocations lead to the different internal development of rural tourism communities, which constitutes the conditions for conflicts [10] Compared with Tangkou and Zhaixi communities, residents in relatively remote villages like Shancha Village (especially Wuniguan Natural Village) are still in a state of poverty, and the affluence of neighboring communities also brings great psychological imbalance to them. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the benefit sharing and security for the marginal or vulnerable residents of heritage sites, formulate compensation policies, and provide them with jobs or pre-job training so that the marginal residents and vulnerable groups can also share the benefits of tourism development and reduce the conflicts caused by the gap between the rich and the poor.

(3) Strengthen the construction of community public spaces to create an atmosphere of community communication and interaction. In the process of community reorganization and infrastructure construction, attention should be paid to the creation of public cultural leisure spaces, such as block parks, cultural squares, pocket parks, community paths, etc., so as to provide more opportunities for new and old residents to exchange leisure time. In the off-season of tourism, some community cultural activities can also be held to increase the emotional exchanges between new and old residents and eliminate prejudice and hostility. In addition, the government can lead the establishment of exchanges and sharing platforms for new and old residents, promote life exchanges between new and old residents and business cooperation between community merchants, and create a harmonious and friendly living and business atmosphere.

(4) Encourage residents to participate in the protection and inheritance of community traditional culture and customs, strive to form cultural consensus, and improve the sense of cultural pride in new arrivals and original residents. For the heritage site community, the excellent local culture, art, and traditional living customs are not only the charm to attract tourists but also the bond of building community cultural consensus and connecting the emotions of new and old residents. Although many traditional customs have been impacted or even replaced by commercial operations after the development of tourism, many new residents and some local residents gradually ignore cultural inheritance. Therefore, it is necessary to establish and improve the protection mechanism of community traditional culture, including residential architecture, intangible cultural heritage art, civilized village customs, characteristic festivals, etc., to encourage residents’ participation and increase enthusiasm and appeal for culture.

(5) Strengthen environmental protection and enhance residents’ awareness of environmental protection and community responsibility. The development of tourism inevitably causes environmental pollution problems such as vegetation destruction, noise pollution, water and soil pollution, air pollution, and other environmental pollution problems, which not only affect the quality of community life but also lead to conflict between new and old residents in environmental cognition and responsibility. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the responsibility of community residents in environmental protection, improve the compensation system for the use of community resources, impose punitive charges on tourism businesses for environmental pollution, and explore the establishment of environmental protection funds for heritage sites, so as to cultivate community residents’ sense of ownership and improve the efficiency of environmental governance.

6. Limitations and Further Development

6.1. Limitations

Based on interviews and grounded theory, this paper mainly focuses on the following three groups: enterprise staff, farmers, and individual industrial and commercial enterprises, but lacks in-depth discussions and analysis of the attitude and practices of the local government. How to deal with the relationship between new arrivals and original residents in the process of community reorganization of heritage sites is a complex social problem. Interpersonal conflicts between local residents and enterprises and individual businesses caused by simple, profit-seeking, or even violent production and management directly threaten the ecological environment’s protection and harmonious development of the economic society of heritage site communities. In the improvement of the interpersonal relationship between the new and old residents in the whole heritage site community, the government, as the public service agency, often plays a very important role in how to eliminate the potential conflict between the new and old residents and meanwhile satisfy the development of the urban tourism economy. Because in the process of developing a tourism economy in heritage communities, their diversified and complex social problems cannot be solved by a single subject but must be considered comprehensively by a third party that transcends material interests and provides public services to deal with them at the decision-making level of the whole social economy. Therefore, in the current situation of poor mechanisms for residents’ participation in tourism development and community governance, less qualified community staff, and the obvious tendency toward profit-oriented tourism, the lack of attention paid to the government’s role in guiding the interpersonal relationship between new and old residents and formulating responsible and sustainable development policies is one of the limitations of this paper.

In addition, this paper only selects one case of Tangkou Town in Huangshan City as the research object. Although it can better analyze the deep reasons for the conflict mechanism of interpersonal relationships between new arrivals and original residents brought by community reorganization in the tourism economic development of heritage sites, the reference significance for other heritage sites in China needs to be further considered. Because individual case studies can only help us to have a deeper understanding of the internal mechanism of a common problem, the overall understanding and analysis of a transaction is slightly insufficient, and individual case studies are only applicable to other similar phenomena in relevant fields, it is difficult to summarize the universal law with a wide range of applications. Therefore, the lack of a comparative study of multiple cases is another limitation of this paper.

6.2. Further Development

With the recovery of the tourism economy in the world’s cultural and natural heritage sites after the epidemic, it is believed that in the future, there will be more and more in-depth studies on the interpersonal conflicts between new arrivals and original residents in the process of tourism economy development in the heritage sites, and the research structure will be more perfect. In order to build a theoretical framework for analyzing the coordination mechanism of interpersonal relationship conflicts between new arrivals and original residents in the process of community reorganization of heritage sites, future researchers will also pay more attention to the role of the government of heritage sites, regard the government as an important third party to deal with interpersonal relationship conflicts among residents, and conduct an all-round analysis of benefit gambling among heritage sites.

In addition, the rise of the tourism economy in many heritage sites will draw the attention of more scholars to the current situation of interpersonal relations between new arrivals and original residents in the process of development, so that there will be more heritage communities for study as case choices and also a greater possibility of multi-case comparative study, so as to further make up for the limitations brought by a single case. It can comprehensively study and summarize all aspects of problems and conflicts between new arrivals and original residents in heritage sites caused by the development of the tourism economy and strive to provide a more meaningful coordination mechanism for resolving such conflicts.