Abstract: Culture is the inner motive power of tourism development. Experiencing other cultures is a motivation of many tourists. As the demand for cultural experience has increased, cultural tourism has become a tourism development trend and development models for ethnic tourism have become an important research topic. This paper summarizes domestic and international research on cultural tourism, the development of cultural tourism, impacts on minority communities and aspects of research methods. Kashgar City is then taken as a case study to examine development models for ethnic cultural tourism. Kashgar City of south Xinjiang is the centre and typical representative of Uyghur culture. However, the products of cultural tourism are in an early stage of development and are unable to satisfy the demands of the tourist market. Hence development models for ethnic cultural tourism should be selected, modified and implemented in order to promote the development of Kashgar tourism. Six development models for cultural tourism through are examined through literature assessment and consultation with experts. Then a system of evaluation to evaluate the development models for Kashgar ethnic cultural tourism is established, consisting of 6 primary indices and 18 secondary indexes. The former are composed of six models of development: cultural heritage protection, the reconstruction of heritage, national cultural performance, cultural theme park, commercial operation of bazaars and creative ethnic culture. The weights of each index are obtained through application of a hierarchical analytical process. The method is then applied to 14 scenic spots of “Kashgar Golden Triangle” in the region of Kashgar City, Shufu and Shule County to select the optimal development model. From quantitative analysis, it is concluded that five scenic spots should develop cultural theme parks, four should be developed through the reconstruction of heritage, two should emphasize cultural heritage protection and the remaining three models each should be applied in one of the remaining sites. From quantitative analysis, the integrated evaluations of development models vary from different grades of scenic spots. The evaluating value of Folk Houses, Aitiduer Mosque and Imperial Concubine Mausoleum are 1.578, 1.460 and 1.411. Three of them are typically representative scenic spots in Xinjiang. It is concluded that the better quality grade of scenic spots, the higher integrated evaluation of the optimal development model. The research results show that there is a strong correlation between the optimal development model and characteristics of the cultural tourism scenic spots. Finally, six models of development are discussed and suggestions are made for each scenic spot according to the results of the evaluation. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are combined in order to improve the research results, to explore the theory of ethnic cultural tourism and to provide references for selecting a development model for ethnic cultural tourism in Kashgar. It is suggested that Kashgar City should be the development core and Shufu and Shule County should be nodes in the development of cultural tourism in the “golden triangle”. Kashgar City should play a leading role in the branding of cultural heritage in the region.

Key words: ethnic cultural tourism, analytic hierarchy process, development models, Kashgar City