The high-quality development of culture and tourism is an important path for promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, urban-rural integration and development, and realizing common prosperity. This special issue focuses on the major issue of “rural revitalization and high-quality development of culture and tourism”, and contains 22 academic papers with in-depth discussions on five themes: “Rural revitalization and rural tourism high-quality development”, “rural tourism destination and homestay development”, “tourism environmental behavior and farmers' participation in tourism”, “tourism resilience and tourism risk”, “cultural tourism and tourism high-quality development”. This collection of articles has three characteristics: Rich research areas and diverse research objects; diverse research methods that are inventive, logical, and scientific; and diverse theoretical viewpoints that span several disciplines. Considering the shortcomings of the current research, it puts forward future research directions such as strengthening localized theoretical research, expanding research areas and perspectives, and further deepening and enriching the research contents. In addition to supporting China's efforts to promote high-quality culture and tourism, as well as comprehensive rural revitalization, this special issue can offer theoretical directions and actual experience in these areas.

Digital cultural tourism is an important part of the digital economy and digital China. The development of rural digital cultural tourism is an important engine for implementing the strategy of rural revitalization and leading the high-quality development of China's rural tourism in the new era, which helps to promote the coupling and coordinated development of the high-quality development of rural tourism and common prosperity. This study examines the opportunities and challenges in using digital cultural tourism to promote rural revitalization, discusses the mechanism and model for enabling the common prosperity of the rural digital cultural tourism industry to achieve digital cultural tourism in the promotion of rural revitalization, and finally proposes a development path. The findings indicate that: (1) Digital cultural tourism has emerged as a significant force behind the growth of the rural tourism sector, and is a key route for achieving the objective of rural revitalization. (2) Digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization have mutually beneficial relationships; digital cultural tourism enables rural revitalization, and rural revitalization unlocks digital cultural tourism's development potential, resulting in a positive interaction mechanism. (3) Four models of digital cultural tourism promoting rural revitalization are proposed, considering the rural classification scheme and related research. They are the digital cultural tourism for urban-rural integration and revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for characteristic village revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for agriculture, culture and tourism integration and revitalization model, and the digital cultural tourism for arts revitalization model. (4) To thoroughly promote the development of the rural digital cultural tourist sector, it should adhere to the product as the core, digital technology as the foundation, talent revitalization as the leader, and policy as the guarantee. The findings of this study enrich the research findings in digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization, which can serve as theoretical references and a practical foundation for the development of digital cultural tourism to empower rural revitalization.

Rural tourism plays a crucial role in promoting rural revitalization and offers excellent opportunities for high-quality development. This study presents a coupling coordination model with Hunan Province as a case study. The model utilizes IAHP (Improved Analytic Hierarchy Process) and trophy-weighted TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Solution) to evaluate the dynamic evolution process of the coupling coordination between rural tourism and rural revitalization from 2010 to 2019. Additionally, it explores the dominant factors and driving mechanisms that impact the coupling of this system. The results demonstrate that the rural tourism and rural revitalization indices in Hunan Province increased significantly from 2010 to 2019, whereas the relative priority of tourism gradually declined. The degree of coupling between rural tourism and rural revitalization increased from 0.3 to 0.96 and progressed through three stages: low-level coupling, adjustment, and high-level coupling. The degree of coupling coordination has increased from 0.22 to 0.89. This increase can be divided into four stages: moderately imbalanced with a dual-low index, a transitional stage with a lower index, initial coordination with a moderate index, and relatively good coordination prioritizing revitalization. The relationship between rural tourism and rural revitalization is affected by factors, such as local general public budget revenue, rural tourism satisfaction, road network density, agricultural production conditions, the processing rate of agricultural products, and the Engel coefficient of rural residents. Effective approaches to improve coupling coordination include strengthening financial support, optimizing service facilities, and promoting industrial integration.

Metropolitan areas are an inevitable outcome of urbanization development. The countryside is the key problem restricting the quality of urbanization development in such areas. Rural tourism-driven revitalization is of considerable importance for the integrated development of urban and rural areas in metropolitan areas. Based on comprehensive development level and coupling coordination degree models, we used the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to calculate the coupling and coordinated development level of rural tourism and revitalization in the metropolitan area of Xi'an in 2021. Furthermore, we explored the dynamic mechanism of coordinated development in combination with typical cases. The results indicate the following: (1) In 2021, the overall level of rural tourism development was good, and the spatial difference exhibited a decreasing phenomenon from the core circle to the outer circle. (2) The coupling and coordination degree of rural tourism and revitalization is generally in a balanced state, which indicates that the core circle is superior to the peripheral circle in space. (3) The combined effect of “supply-demand-guarantee” is an important driving mechanism for the coordinated development of rural tourism and revitalization in the metropolitan area, in which “supply” is the basic factor for the coordinated development, “demand” is the core factor for the improvement of its coupling coordination level, and “guarantee” is the supporting factor for its sustainable development. This study enriches the theory of rural revitalization in metropolitan areas to a certain extent and provides new insights for improving the quality of urban and rural integrated development in metropolitan areas.

This study constructed the RMPP (Resource-Market-Product-Policy) theory from the perspective of rural revitalization, combined with the concept of intangible cultural heritage (ICH)+tourism to assist rural revitalization. Firstly, the study summarized the current situation of integrated development of ICH resources and tourism in 10 suburban districts of Beijing from four dimensions: Resources, market, product, and policy. Secondly, the study used the Delphi method and Analytic Hierarchy Process to construct an RMPP evaluation index system, determine the weights of the indicators, and score them. Through evaluation and analysis, the development differences of the 10 suburban districts in the four dimensions of RMPP were identified, and the difficulties in integrating development of ICH and tourism were sorted out, such as weak awareness of ICH inheritance, insufficient integration of ICH tourism resources, low level of the development of ICH tourism products, and unclear rights and responsibilities for ICH protection. Finally, the study explored the path of promoting rural revitalization through the integration of ICH and tourism from the four dimensions of RMPP, including scientific integration of ICH resources, innovative market models, product gradient development, and policy targeted implementation.

Location choice and decision-making are the basic and critical issues in economic investment. Given the rapid development of rural tourism, scientific decision-making on rural tourism investment (RTI) plays a vitally important role in local industrial efficiency and achievements. To learn the connotation of RTI and enrich our knowledge on the evolutionary characteristics of its location choice factors in destination phased development, this paper has comprehensively analysed RTI and built a location choice factor system from the perspective of the human-land relationship system based on an empirical study of Zhejiang Province in China. (1) According to human-land relationship theory, RTI is constructed by a systematic content of “investors-factors-objects”, and its location choice is related to the local industrial economy, social and cultural development, and natural environment. (2) Contributions of location choice factors present a clear decreasing trend among the industrial economy, social and cultural conditions, and natural environment to RTI decision-making in the study area, while the industrial economy gradually stands out with rural tourism destination evolution successively from the initial stage, development stage, and rapid expansion stage to the upgrading and efficiency improvement stage. (3) Evolution of RTI location choice is a process of making different investment decisions in various regional rural tourism development stages, as the rural human–land relationship system has a deep influence on RTI earning expectations and “investors-factors-objects”.

Landscape genes and destination image are important concepts in the traditional village tourist destination research. Clarifying their relationship is of great significance for understanding tourists' behavioral characteristics at traditional village sites and promoting the sustainable development of traditional village tourism. This study analyzes the relationship between landscape genes and tourists' image construction in Zhangguying Village. It uses a structural equation model to identify and extract traditional village landscape genes used in tourists' image construction, based on the “cognitive-affective-overall” framework. The results show that: (1) Traditional village landscape genes play important but varying roles in tourists' image construction. The “丰”-shaped zigzag structure architectural gene plays the most important role in tourists' cognitive image construction followed by the filial piety and family style cultural gene and the “回”-shaped courtyard layout gene. The “dragon”-shaped mountain layout environmental gene has the least important role. (2) The mediation effect analysis reveals that tourists' cognitive images mediate the relationship between landscape genes and overall image construction, while cognitive and affective images mediate the relationship between landscape genes and overall images. (3) The multicluster analysis reveals that the results significantly differ according to tourists' gender, age, number of trips, and place of permanent residence. The findings enrich the traditional village landscape image research and promote the sustainable development of traditional village tourism through the practices of cultural landscape protection and inheritance.

The research on the daily living space of residents in rural tourist destinations focuses on the spatial change and functional transformation at the regional level; however, it dedicates insufficient attention to the daily behavior and emotional changes of “individuals” in the human-land relationship. This study proposes the analysis framework of residents' daily living space constructed by a material-behavioral-emotional ternary space, and expands the application of the cognitive map from the large scale urban-structure spatial image to the small-scale daily living space of rural residents; thus, it aims to enhance the visualization and effectiveness of the research. The study observed the following: (1) In the cognitive map, for the residents' of Naobao Village, the cognition pertaining to the material space changes of their daily life has shifted from road-oriented to area-oriented; In the behavioral space, the residential space has shifted from scattered to focused, the employment space has shifted from the “circular focus + extended sector” structure to the “circular focus” structure, the consumption space has shifted from explicit space to implicit space, and the leisure space has shifted from the “point set” mode to “circle layer” mode. In the emotional space, the pattern of “one ring, one network and four centers” has shifted to the “single ring type” pattern. (2) Based on the findings of the interviews, natural conditions, policies, and institutions, self-organizations and other organizations jointly form the “driving system-pattern evolution-spatial representation” driving mechanism, which promotes the evolution of the daily living space of Naobao Village. This research provides relevant reference for the construction and development of residents' living space in the development of rural tourism; meanwhile, it also attempts to analyze the change pertaining to residents' living space form and spatial cognition using a new method.

Promoting rural tourism development is an important way to achieve rural revitalisation and common prosperity. Tourists are facilitators and participants of rural tourism, whose participation in value co-creation is of great significance. However, previous research on tourists' value co-creation behaviors mostly explored the linear relationship between variables, with the complex mechanisms being insufficiently examined. Based on complexity theory, this study created a theoretical framework, where destination support (information support, emotional support), personal psychological driving forces (self-efficacy, outcome expectation) and destination emotion (place identity, destination trust) are treated as condition variables and the value co-creation behaviors of rural tourists as outcome variable, and empirical tests were carried out using a survey questionnaire with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) analysis being employed. It finds that none of the six conditional variables can constitute a sufficiently necessary condition for tourists' value co-creation behavior; Six conditional variables together generate 64 path combinations, resulting in five paths that drive tourist participation in value co-creation behavior through three modes. These modes include perceived outcome value-driven, people-place emotional connection and people-place-environment integration driven. Among them, emotional support plays a significant role in influencing tourist value co-creation behavior. The study expands the research on value co-creation behavior, revealing the complex mechanisms of tourists value co-creation behaviors and provides a theoretical basis for promoting tourists' engagement in value co-creation behavior that enhance the tourist experience and promote rural tourism high-quality development.

The integrated and synergistic development of the region of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) is a major national strategy for China to maintain complementary advantages and mutual benefits. The integrated development strategy offers opportunities and challenges for Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs) in guest sharing, resource sharing, competition and cooperation, branding, and industrial upgrading. Therefore, optimizing resource allocation, enhancing user experience, and assisting in urban planning become particularly crucial for B&Bs development. Therefore, this study utilized the theoretical nearest neighbor distance and Kernel Density Estimation to explore the distribution of B&Bs in the BTH region, and utilized Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) thematic model and regression analysis to analyze the influencing factors from both government and market perspectives and the extent of their influence. The results indicated that significant aggregation characteristics and spatial variability exists in the factors influencing the distribution of B&Bs. All nine factors analyzed based on LDA exerted a significant effect on the distribution of B&Bs, of which the significance of ice and snow activities was at a critical value, mainly because they were limited by specific geographic requirements. Therefore we proposed the following: B&Bs should develop boutique rural B&Bs and community B&Bs around local cultural and tourism characteristics and realize the differentiated and innovative development of the shared B&B industry.

Under the strategy of rural revitalization, it is urgent to analyze the performance mechanism of rural guesthouse entrepreneurship. This paper has constructed a theoretical model of the relationship among place identity, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial performance of rural guesthouses, collected 355 sample data of guesthouse entrepreneurship in Beijing, and used Mplus software to empirically verify the theoretical model through path analysis and mediation effect test. The results show that place identity has a positive effect on guesthouse entrepreneurial performance, which is significantly and positively influenced by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between place identity and entrepreneurial performance. This study has provided a theoretical basis for improving the entrepreneurial performance of guesthouses against the backdrop of rural revitalization, with certain practical significance for management.

Backpacking has become increasingly popular as an ecotourism activity in China in recent years. To promote sustainable development of tourist sites and to direct and regulate environmentally responsible behaviors, travelers must behave responsibly. This study used the “attribution theory” and “norm-activation model” to create a theoretical relationship model between personal norms, group identification, and the willingness of backpackers to act responsibly to investigate the factors that influence their willingness to behave in an eco-friendly manner. The study empirically tested the model using data from a sample of 309 backpacking tourists. The study investigates the internal and external mechanisms influencing the environmentally friendly behavior of backpackers. The findings show that (1) Backpackers' “personal norms” significantly increased their willingness to behave in an environmentally friendly manner. (2) These “personal norms” are influenced by two cognitive factors: tourists' “awareness of consequences” and “attribution of responsibility”. (3) The “group identity” plays a positive moderating role in the influence of “ascription of responsibility” on “personal norms”, while it plays a negative moderating role in the influence of “awareness of consequences” on “personal norms”. (4) Meanwhile, this study explores and compared tourists, an exceptional group of tourists, and concludes that, within an environmentally conscious tourist group, group identity plays a significant role in forcing tourists to take high-quality environmental protection actions. The findings of this study investigated the norm-activation model at the group level, enhanced the micro cases and theoretical knowledge of the model to examine the willingness of backpackers to engage in environmentally responsible behaviors, and offered some practical insights on managing destination tourists.

Camping tourism is a relatively new form of travel and leisure, it has left many traces of consumption in the natural environment that cannot be restored. In order to assist consumers in camping in a polite, environmentally conscious, and traceless manner, this study begins with consumption motivation, consider leisure involvement and place attachment as dual intermediary variables, and investigates the mechanisms that influence the pro-environmental behaviour of leisure and camping tourists. The research findings are derived from the motivation-oriented behavior mechanism. (1) Consumption motivation has a significant positive impact on pro-environmental behavior. (2) Leisure involvement plays a mediating role between consumption motivation and pro-environmental behavior. (3) Place attachment plays a mediating role between consumption motivation and pro-environmental behavior. (4) Leisure involvement has a significantly positive impact on place attachment.

While rural tourism contributes to both economic and social benefits, its impact on the environment is a crucial issue requiring attention. This study aimed to explore the factors influencing tourists' environmentally responsible behavior in rural tourism contexts. To this end, environmentally responsible behavior is categorized into self-restraint and protective-promotion dimensions, taking the Longji Terrace Scenic Area in Guangxi as a case study. From the perspective of tourists, a structural equation model is constructed with tourists' perception of rural tourism quality as an antecedent variable and place attachment as a mediating variable. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) Both tourists' perception of rural tourism quality and place attachment positively influence tourists' environmentally responsible behavior, with a more significant impact on their self-restraint behavior. (2) Tourists' perception of rural tourism quality has a significant positive influence on place attachment. (3) Place attachment and place identity play a mediating role in the relationship between tourists' perception of rural tourism quality and tourists' environmentally responsible behavior. In enhancing tourism quality, rural destinations should focus on visitors' perceptual experiences, reinforce their place attachment, and stimulate environmental responsibility to alleviate ecological burdens.

Farmers' self-organized participation in collective actions is critical to optimize governance efficiency and ensure positive outcomes of rural tourism. To identify the underlying mechanisms, the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) intellectual decision extension model is selected. A mixed method approach is adopted with a questionnaire survey of 239 households and 20 semi-structured interviews in the suburban of Changsha City, Hunan Province of China. Household livelihood capital, characteristics of household head, tourism market environment, institutional rules as entry and exit rules, cognitive reform and level of land consolidation are found with significant effects. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and future research directions are put forward.

Achieving resilient development is an important way for tourist attractions to cope with the negative impacts of major public health events, and an accurate assessment of the existing resilience level is the basis for improving the resilience of tourist attractions. Based on resilience theory, the impacts of major public health events on tourist attractions and the relationship between the impacts and the development resilience of the tourist attractions, this study uses the composite index method and DEMATEL method to construct an index system for evaluating the development resilience of tourist attractions. This evaluation index includes 20 indicators in the four dimensions of prevention ability, resistance ability, recovery ability and renewal ability, and the weight of each indicator was determined. The results show three important aspects of tourist attraction resilience. (1) Resistance ability is the most important dimension that reflects the resilience level of tourist attractions, followed by renewal ability and recovery ability, while prevention ability is relatively less important. (2) Tourism revenue reconstruction, mechanism innovation, marketing flexibility and financing ability have large positive correlations with the resilience level of tourist attractions. (3) Market flexibility, management decision-making level, financing ability and intelligent construction level are susceptible to other indicators, so that more attention should be paid to them in the process of improving the resilience level of tourist attractions. The index system developed in this study can provide scientifically valid guidance and a useful reference for tourist attractions to accurately examine their own issues and improve their development resilience.

Study travel has dual positive effects of education and tourism, and safety is the most concerning issue. In order to determine the resilience of study travel safety and carry out resilience construction in a targeted way, this paper constructs an evaluation index system of study travel safety resilience from four dimensions—that is, economy, society, infrastructure and ecological environment—combining factors such as earthquake prevention and disaster reduction, emergency recovery and learning improvement. It constructs a safety resilience evaluation model, using the entropy weight method and normal cloud model for data processing, and taking Dujiangyan City as an example to verify the effectiveness of the model. The results show that the comprehensive resilience level of study travel safety in Dujiangyan City is relatively high: its ecological and environmental security is at a high level of resilience, its economic and social security is also at a high level of resilience, and its infrastructure security is at a medium level of resilience. This study shows that the ecological environment system plays an important role in the security of research travel, but it is also necessary to strengthen the construction of infrastructure to enhance the diversity and safety of facilities.

Studying the vulnerability of rural settlements is necessary for their revitalization and sustainable development. In this study, a basic organizational framework and evaluation system that considers the natural environment, social development, and other factors in terms of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability were developed for the vulnerability of rural settlements. Qixingguan District of Bijie City was considered as a case study, and a geographic information system spatial analysis function and geographic probe model were applied to determine the spatial distribution and characteristics of rural settlement vulnerability in karst mountains and their influencing factors. The results demonstrated that rural settlements here have a multicore distribution pattern where the vulnerability is moderately low overall but has significant spatial heterogeneity. There is a considerable positive spatial correlation between vulnerable rural settlements and weakly negative correlations between exposure and adaptability and between sensitivity and adaptability, which can be attributed to the interaction among natural, human-made, and social factors. The primary factors influencing the vulnerability of rural settlements here are stone desertification and soil erosion. These results have important theoretical and practical value for enhancing the stability of rural human-land systems in karst mountains and their long-term protection.

This study examined the relationship between perceived COVID-19 susceptibility, health risk perception, risk avoidance, and travel intentions, and explored the moderating role of government trust. The study data were collected through both Tencent Questionnaire (113) and field research (507) methods. The results showed that perceived susceptibility significantly influenced health risk perception and risk avoidance, which in turn significantly influenced travel intentions. Health risk perception and risk aversion partially mediated the effect of perceived susceptibility on travel intentions, respectively, and the chain mediation relationship between them was supported. Government trust had a significant moderating effect between perceived susceptibility affecting health risk perception, and health risk perception and travel intentions. This study provides new insights into the factors influencing tourists' travel intentions in a global public health context and contributes to the recovery of the tourism economy and the development of marketing strategies for destinations in the post-pandemic era.

Cultural heritage tourism is gaining more and more attention for the characteristics of cultural heritage. However, developing cultural heritage tourism needs local people's support. This paper introduces the Stimulus-Organism-Response theory and proposes a research model about the relationships between subjective norms, personal norms, local people's perceptions (i.e., economic, sociocultural, environmental perceptions), and their support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism. The results show that the subjective norms significantly affect local people's perceptions and the individual's support intention toward cultural heritage tourism. In addition, local people's perceptions and personal norms positively influence their support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism. The results help us understand the influence factors of local people's support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism and the influence mechanism. Thus this paper has provided some valuable theoretical and practical implications.

This study systematically explored the spatial evolution characteristics and influencing factors of China's educational tourism resources using a system of spatial analysis techniques. The results show that educational tourism resources can be divided into four types: historical sites, museums, science museums and technology venues, former residences of celebrities, and cultural and educational venues. Among them, former residences of celebrities account for the highest proportion at about 35%, while museums, science museums and technology venues account for the lowest proportion at only about 15%. Educational tourism resources present a condensed distribution trend, forming a “dual-core structure” with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration as high-density cores. The probability distribution of educational tourism resources is spatially uneven, with distinct fractal characteristics. Hot spots gradually spread from the Yangtze River Delta to the western provinces, and the number of hot spots is increasing. Cold spots are mainly distributed in the southwest of China, and the number remains unchanged, while the phenomenon of polarization is becoming increasingly more prominent. The main factors affecting the distribution of educational tourism resources are as follows, listed in order of their intensity of influence: policy orientation > traffic conditions > tourism resource endowment > source market > social and cultural factors > natural factors. The findings will help in the high-quality development of China's educational tourism.

Promoting the high-quality development of the tourism economy has become an important challenge. Based on panel data on 31 provinces in China during 2009–2019, this study uses spatial econometric and threshold regression models to analyze the spatial spillover effects and threshold characteristics of tourism industry agglomeration on the high-quality development of the tourism economy. The results show that the overall level of high-quality development of China's tourism economy shows an upward trend, with differences between different regions. The agglomeration of tourism industry has a significant positive impact on the high-quality development of the tourism economy and shows strong spatial spillover effects. Further, the level of agglomeration has a double-threshold effect on the high-quality development of the tourism economy. Based on these results, we propose countermeasures to promote the coordinated and linked development of the tourism industry in different regions, providing important insights for further enhancing the high-quality development of the tourism economy in China.

The tourism industry, as a happiness-oriented industry, has great significance for enhancing the happiness of tourists. In the era of Happiness 2.0, tourists have shifted their focus from shallow needs for pleasure to deep needs for self-realization. Therefore, studying the relationship between tourism and happiness is indispensable. Based on the constructive-developmental theory, the mechanism of the impact of tourist involvement on the tourists' authentic happiness was analyzed using the PERMA scale. The results show that: (1) Tourist involvement has a significant positive impact on tourist satisfaction and authentic happiness; (2) Tourist satisfaction has a significant positive impact on the tourists' authentic happiness; (3) Tourist satisfaction plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between tourist involvement and authentic happiness. The research conclusions clarify the impact mechanism between tourist involvement, tourist satisfaction, and authentic happiness, which enriches our understanding of the impact of tourist activities on individual post-travel happiness. Furthermore, this study provides theoretical reference and practical suggestions for the self-development of tourists, as well as for guiding relevant enterprises and government departments to better enhance the tourists' authentic happiness.