Preliminary Study of the Liouduei Area Hakka Industry and Cultural Tourism Using Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

Taiwan is an island of diverse ethnicities, and each ethnic group has maintained its unique traditional industry and culture. The saying “Tung Flower in the North, and Liouduei in the South” is commonly used to describe the Hakka communities in Taiwan. “Liouduei” is not an administrative district that could be found on the map. The term refers to the Kaohsiung and Pingtung Hakka settlement in Southern Taiwan. In recent years, the Council for Hakka Affairs of the Executive Yuan and the local government has made significant efforts to cultivate and support local culture and industry development. They actively marketed the Hakka cultural industry internationally and connected the local Hakka industry with cultural tourism, hoping to raise public awareness of Hakka culture and establish a sustainable Hakka industry in a long run. In this study, key evaluation criteria and literature were collected and reviewed. And there were 5 evaluation component fields, 16 evaluation criterion items drawn-up. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied to conduct the criteria evaluation analysis of the Liouduei area Hakka Industry and cultural tourism with the target groups including the municipal Hakka administrative agencies, social organizations, Hakka Industry Business and experts and scholars. The findings were summarized into a cohesive conclusion and the results of the analysis were provided for government agencies as future references for their work on the preservation of Hakka cultural tourism and promotion of Hakka industry. Overall, the study suggested that the interviewees ranked “Product Quality Assurance”(0.303) as the most critical factor, and ranked the “The Maintenance of Industry and Cultural ”(0.299) as the second factor, and “Government Subsidies and Promotion”(0.232) as the third factor, and followed by “Economic Efficiency Improvement”(0.085) ranked as the fourth factor. Finally, it ranked the “Hakka Industry Business Alliance” (0.081) as the fifth factor.