Abstract: Three poverty alleviation plans have been conducted in the World Cultural Heritage Site of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces in Yunnan Province, taking tourism-based poverty reduction as a governance approach. The implementation mechanism and process of the poverty alleviation plans are analyzed and traced, and the effects of tourism-based poverty alleviation in the rural heritage sites are observed and compared. As the study demonstrates, tourism-based poverty alleviation is a form of heritage site management, a dynamic system consisting of the governance subject, the governance technology, the public response and the discourse and knowledge produced in the process of governance; and in this system, a stable structure is formed among the powers and an interactive relation among the multiple subjects in the process of heritage site governance. In addition, the governance of heritage sites can be divided into the tool type, the object type and the conjugate type according to the rationality of the governance subject and the role of heritage tourism industry. Finally, under the background of "strong government but weak society", the governance of Chinese heritage sites presents the trend of cultural power "recentralization". The government's presence and the third-party supervision are the core for ensuring the governance efficiency of Chinese heritage sites in the authoritative governance system. Combining "world heritage culture" with local culture and using governance techniques that suit the heritage sites can give better play to the efficacy of cultural governance.