Abstract
Faced with scores of external and internal economic impacts, Taiwan fishing industry’s growth has slowed down in the last few years. To a worse extent, the fishing industry is likely to decline in the years ahead because fishing grounds are shrinking, catches are decreasing, oceans are polluted, aquaculture is endangered, fishing boats have hard time finding suitable crews, funds are decreasing, and fishing boat owners are unable to expand their operations, Taiwan joined WTO, and sales dropped due to the untruthful news coverage. Consequently, fishing industry’s productivity decreased, employment market shrank, and the fishing economy declined.
Beimen tidal land, a fishing village in southern Taiwan, is renowned as the hometown to the milkfish. Long time ago, traditional fishing industry played an important role for Beimen's economy. Unfortunately, Beimen declined after many changes took place. To revitalize Beimen’s fishing industry and arouse people’s memory of the splendid sunset view, this study is eager to see Beimen tidal land to be built into a unique and attractive tourist destination highlighted by leisure activities, tourism, and fishing industry, allowing Beimen to become southern Taiwan’s leading tourist attraction and fishing village in which local industrial features and fishing village are combined into a sightseeing program with emphasis on leisure activities and fishing village’s daily life in order to energize the multicultural Beimen and its picturesque fishing village.
This study identified Beimen’s status quo using interview and site exploration methods, and designed questionnaires accordingly. Next, this study identified local residents’ opinions of the transitional fishing industry and then presented its findings and recommendations to the competent authority for reference.
Based on the research results, this study concluded that Beimen is an ideal relay station connecting to northern and southern Taiwan’s sightseeing spots. With its fascinating Salt County cultural heritage and abundant ecological resources, Beimen has unlimited potential to develop its tourism industry under the guideline – substantial tourism, local sightseeing, exquisite sightseeing, and tourism economics – in order to attract tourists and conserve its ecology at the same time.
Key words: Beimen tidal land, aquaculture production area, fishing village community, leisure fishing industry, tourism and leisure.
