Poverty feminization has become a major obstacle to the sustainable livelihood development of ethnic minority farmers in China. This study examines the Yao Autonomous County of Liannan in Guangdong Province as a case study. We employ a hierarchical linear model to analyze key factors influencing local women's pro-poor tourism perception at individual, family, and rural community levels. The hierarchical linear model effectively addresses data correlation, imbalance, and missing panel data, resulting in more stable and accurate estimations. Our results reveal that key factors at individual and family levels include women's monthly income, number of family members participating in tourism, and maximum years of education among working family members, all showing positive effects. At the rural community level, key factors affecting pro-poor tourism perception include village poverty, pro-poor tourism project indicators, and whether the village is exclusively Yao. The pro-poor tourism project indicator shows a positive effect, while other indicators demonstrate negative effects. Based on these findings, we present policy recommendations.