Scientific measurement and examination of the “spatial equilibrium” evolution of tourism ecosystem has important theoretical and practical value for promoting the coordinated and sustainable development of tourism economy and ecological environment in world natural heritage sites. Based on the paradigm of system science and axiomatic thinking, this study attempts to construct the connotation, characteristics and axiomatic definition of “spatial equilibrium” evolution of tourism ecosystem. Taking four world natural heritage sites in Guizhou as research samples, the evolution and influencing factors of “spatial equilibrium” of tourism ecosystem were analyzed by using system dynamics (SD) model, pressure-state-response (PSR) model, entropy weight method and geographical detector. The study found that: (1) The evolution of " spatial equilibrium " of tourism ecosystem refers to the ideal state in which the regional tourism ecosystem acts on the whole through its own positive and negative feedback when it is disturbed by local and affordable disturbances, and regulates and compensates through the system regulation mechanism, and finally forms a benign interaction between tourism development and regional nature, culture and human living environment. (2) The basic characteristics of “spatial equilibrium” of tourism ecosystem are relativity and dynamics, short-term “oscillation” and long-term “cycle”. (3) Through the improved axiomatic definition of tourism ecosystem “spatial equilibrium” evolution, three evolutionary states of tourism ecosystem “spatial equilibrium” can be deduced, including equilibrium state, overload state and lag state. (4) From 2000 to 2020, the evolution and development of “spatial equilibrium” of tourism ecosystem in the four case areas showed different spatial and temporal evolution characteristics, regional differences and patterns. (5) The level of tourism pressure, the level of tourism economy, the state of tourism environment and the regulation of tourism policy are the common influencing factors of the evolution of “spatial equilibrium” of tourism ecosystem. Among them, the level of tourism economy is the primary factor in each case and year. The level of tourism pressure and the state of tourism environment have decreased their influence over time, and the influence of tourism policy regulation has gradually increased.

Transportation infrastructure plays a crucial role in the development of integrated regional tourism, significantly influencing the formation and optimization of the agglomeration pattern of tourism towns. By employing composite location entropy and weighted average travel time, the study measures the agglomeration level and transport accessibility of tourist towns in the Xiangxi region from 2000 to 2019. Utilizing an improved gravity model and spatial econometric model, the research explores the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing mechanisms of agglomeration intensity in typical regions of tourism development. The results show that: (1) During the study period, the agglomeration intensity and transport accessibility in the Xiangxi region exhibited a continuous upward trend, with the optimal transport radiation range within 1.6 hours. (2) The spatial pattern of agglomeration intensity in tourism towns underwent a dynamic transformation from a “unidirectional dominance” to a “bidirectional interactive” pattern, manifested by the emergence of three major high-intensity areas led by Wulingyuan, Yongding, and Fenghuang, shifting away from the dominance of Fenghuang. Meanwhile, transport accessibility demonstrated an irregular concentric structure spreading along the north-south axis, with the central region as the center. (3) Under the comprehensive influence of resource endowment, industrial structure, and living environment conditions, the improvement of transportation conditions brings about the compression effect of space and time, facilitating the agglomeration of population, land, and industries in tourist towns. This, in turn, enhances local tourism economic efficiency and increases the opportunity cost of resource utilization, leading to a spatial structural transformation from “monocentric” to “polycentric” pattern.

Building high standard protection system of cultural heritage is necessary to implement the Strategy of Building China into a strong Socialist Culture Country. The birth of the National Cultural Park provides an opportunity to optimize cultural heritage protection system. Based on the current development of cultural heritage protection system, this paper analyzes the key causes and mechanisms of its dysfunction role through literature review, and explores the reform path of the cultural heritage protection system based on domestic and foreign experience. The findings are as follows: (1) The development process of our cultural heritage protection system can be divided into three stages: cultural relics preservation centered stage, multi-type protection system forming stage, and upgrading and reform stage. (2) Due to the lack of unified top-level design, the cultural heritage protection system has some limitations in the protection concept, type system, management system and guarantee mechanism, which seriously affects the protection effect. (3) In order to improve the governance efficiency of the cultural heritage protection system, four reform paths are proposed: Reshape the protection concept based on the principles of integrity protection and compatibility; Reconstructing classification system with the National Cultural Park as the leader; Optimize the management system on the premise of unifying the organization; Upgrade the protection system with the support of professional talents, finance and law. This paper provides the direction and suggestions for improving the top-level design of the cultural heritage protection system.

One of the purposes of national culture parks in China is to construct national identity. Based on the concepts of superorganism culture and organism culture, in conjunction with Heidegger’s concept of “Entbergung”, this paper analyzes how people’s identities on cultural heritages in the Grand Canal National Culture Park transform into their national identities by using the method of focus group and phenomenological reflection. Two conclusions are drawn from this study. Firstly, the national identity in the promotion of Grand Canal Cultural Heritages is a holistic culture, super-organic culture. Because of the “absence” of history and the “absence” of life, people are in the situations of “Verborgenheit”, and are obscured from understanding the cultural significance of cultural heritage. Secondly, this framework based on phenomenology can guide people to connect the superorganistic national identities with themselves in two ways: introspection based on body, and introspection based on rationality. On the basis of the two kinds of introspection, and by the processes of “Entbergung”, people can derive national cultural symbols that can be understood and identified. The finding of this paper provides implications for how to shape national identities in the constructions of national culture parks.

Major projects are the key to building and utilizing National Cultural Park well, and also the core carrier of building important symbols of Chinese culture. This paper focuses on the perspective of major projects that are less concerned in the current study of National Cultural Park, analyzes their spatial distribution characteristics by using mathematical statistics and GIS spatial analysis methods, and examines the influencing factors of spatial distribution in combination with Geodetector. The results show that: (1) Major projects of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park show the characteristics of point-axis distribution, with over 80% within the 10 kilometer buffer zone of the canal. (2) The spatial distribution of the project shows the characteristics of “core agglomeration, connected into areas, and belt-shaped distribution”, including the high-density concentration area in Tianjin, the sub-density core area at the southwest border of Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, and three banded distribution areas, namely Hebei District, Tianjin—Rencheng District, Jining City, Shandong Province, Nanle County, Puyang City, Henan Province—Chanhe Hui District, Luoyang City, Henan Province—Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province—Xiuzhou District, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. (3) The spatial distribution of the projects is affected by multiple factors, and the explanatory power is ranked as follows: the proximity of canal cultural heritage > the proportion of tertiary industry > the proximity of canal water system > policy support > the proximity of traffic roads > the level of fiscal revenue > resident population scale. The interactive influence of different influencing factors is greater than that of single influencing factor, and the interaction between the proximity of canal cultural heritage and the proportion of tertiary industry is the strongest. This paper studies major projects from a spatial perspective, exploring the overall spatial layout of National Cultural Park projects and the spatial factors involved in project selection. It deepens the current research on the project system of giant linear cultural heritage management, which is of great significance for optimizing the overall layout of national cultural park projects and promoting coordinated development.

Tourists are important witnesses and experiencers in the process of inscribing a destination as a world cultural heritage. Based on cognitive-emotional theory, user generated content (UGC) web text data in Quanzhou, content analysis methods were used to explore the differences in tourists’ perceptions of the images of World Heritage Sites before and after the successful inscription, and to reveal the impact mechanism of the inscription on tourists’ perceived images. The study found that: compared with the pre-inscription period, tourists’ perceptions of cultural values such as history, religion and art deepened after the inscription, yet their perceptions of natural attractions weakened; tourists’ perception of the image of World Heritage Sites became clearer, and the original brand and status of World Heritage Sites are more recognized; though tourists’ emotional attitudes toward World Heritage Sites has changed not much in general after the inscription, they have higher expectations for the cultural status, service quality, tourism environment, urban development of the World Heritage Sites. Cultural destinations can trigger the media’s external drive and cultural internal drive through the application, which can promote the change of tourists’ cognitive image and emotional image of the destination, and then promote the strengthening of tourists’ brand identity, service value identity, cultural identity, local identity and emotional identity. The analysis of the impact of the successful inscription on tourists' perceived image can provide a reference for the construction and enhancement of tourism images of similar destinations.

Vernacular crafts contain the adaptation characteristics of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, which have multiple values for the present and future social development. This study is based on the environmental adaptation theory of bio-morphology, analyzing the morphological evolution of typical traditional farming implements in the upper Yellow River reaches in an ephemeral and co-evolutionary fashion. From the concept of anthropology and bio-morphological adaptation to the environment, the evolutionary process of the Yellow River waterwheel has been sorted out chronologically, the regional causes have been analyzed co-temporally, and discuss the characteristics of vernacular crafts, as well as their design inheritance, evolution, and development. This study indicated that: (1) Morphology is the result of regional adaptation. The form of the waterwheel in the upper reaches of the Yellow River has passed through the southwest traditional Chinese noria, the Lanzhou Water Wheel, upper reaches of the Yellow River waterwheel, and the spokes of the waterwheel, production materials, shape structure, and other morphological characteristics have undergone significant changes; (2) The natural environment, including Loess Plateau topography and geomorphology, arid and semi-arid climate, and the cultural environment, including Loess culture and arid and semi-arid farming culture in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia, are the main motive factors for the evolution of the adaptation of the Yellow River waterwheel morphology; the natural environment is a direct factor and the cultural environment is an indirect factor. (3) The regional adaptation system of vernacular craft consists of both human and natural factors, and its "unity of man and nature" contains both ecological theoretical and tourism implementation values. (4) By retaining their symbolic traits, transforming their functional roles, and modernizing their materials and techniques, vernacular crafts can be passed down in a variety of ways.

Public education is an essential obligation of nature reserves. However, nature reserves in China are facing an insufficiency in the development of educational tourism products. A qualitative research method is used to explore the production mechanism of educational tourism product in Danxia Mountain, Guangdong Province. The research shows that: (1) The procedure of producing educational tourism products are divided into four steps: knowledge production, knowledge transformation, curriculum arrangement and design and operation of the educational tourism products. The formulation of this procedure is based on multiple internal and external factors such as the resources of the nature reserves, the internal logic of knowledge production and transformation, market demand and various policies and standards. (2) Under the guidance of public education, a production pattern has formed in Danxia Mountain, which dominated with the production of educational tourism products related to natural science knowledge and facilitated with the production of educational tourism products related to practical knowledge. (3) A structure of “core-surrounding-periphery” is formed in educational tourism industry. The interaction and cooperation among the different circles support the production of higher quality products, and contribute to the sustainable improvement of local educational tourism industry. The research shows that the logic of knowledge production and transformation, relevant policy standards, and the ability of the participants make the educational tourism product unique from other kinds of tourism products, Such uniqueness are the inner forces for the formation of the production mechanism of educational tourism products. This study systematically summarizes the practice of the educational tourism in Danxia Mountain. It helps to reveal the interactive relationship between various elements in the production process, based on the perspective of participants. Futhermore, this artical clarifies the specificity of educational tourism and its structural impact on the tourism industry in the nature reserves.

Nature education is an effective method for people to get a better understanding of nature. To ensure that people can deeply understand nature and participate in natural education activities in an orderly manner, a natural education curriculum model is constructed. Based on the analysis of Li Ziqi’s “Lifetime” series of video commentary texts, and based on the theory of learning advancement, this article explores the construction of an advanced nature education curriculum model through the analysis of 3 000 comment texts in case videos. This model starts from the elements and phenomena of rural natural resources, covering advanced dimensions, achievement levels, evaluation tools, and advanced endpoints. The advanced dimension of natural education curriculum is to gradually recognize rural natural resources through audience experience, mapping, correlation, system and integration. The achievement level of nature education curriculum includes the audience’s memory, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation, and creative level. The questionnaire test is an effective evaluation tool, and the test results assist in natural education courses. The improvement of audience ecological concepts and optimization of behavior patterns are the ultimate goals of advancing nature education curriculum. At the same time, there is a corresponding relationship between the advanced dimension in the pattern and the level of achievement. It is suggested that nature education courses should strengthen the natural value of the course theme, strengthen the connection between course content and life, optimize the setting of course scenes, in order to enhance the audience’s recognition of natural values, solve the current dilemma of “natural deficiency” among young people, and promote the high-quality development of nature education courses.

Museum study tourisms are an important tourism business format as well as a teaching and learning structure. Using semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observations, and significant network text analysis, this article examines the teaching and learning mechanisms in museum study tourism from the perspective of situated cognition and learning theory. According to research, museum study tourism can provide authentic, multi-type, time-space-crossed, and integrative knowledge. The character of museum study tourism allows experiencers to enjoy the full-body experience in composite spatiotemporal contexts and group interaction. These characters will create cognitive channels for the experiencers. Following that, the experiencers of museum study tourism will be initiated with educational intentionality, encouraged to engage in self-constructive learning, promote the generative development of the self, and ultimately optimize cognition and behaviour. This article seeks to examine the internal logic of teaching and learning in museum study tourism, develop a situational teaching and learning mechanism model for museum study tourism, and provide references for the development of museum study tourism products.

Based on the theory of attitude-behavior-context, this paper divides the environ- mental attitude into two levels: preservation and utilization, on this basis, we introduce subjective happiness variables, and focus on the mediating effects of environmental behavior on the relationship between natural connectedness and environmental attitude. The results of 332 valid questionnaires analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between children’s attitude to environment utilization and their natural connectedness, environmental behavior and happiness. Natural connectedness and environmental behavior are all precursor factors of children’s happiness. Environmental behavior plays a partial mediating role between natural connectedness and children’s happiness, and environmental behavior plays a complete mediating role between environmental preservation attitude and children’s happiness. Environmental protection attitudes and environmental behavior play a chain mediating role between natural connectedness and children’s happiness. Based on the above conclusions, society, schools and parents should increase the time and opportunities for children’s contact with nature and outdoor activities through environmental education courses and study tours for children, cultivate children’s attitude of environmental protection, enrich children’s ways of contact with nature, enhance children’s sense of happiness. The model and related conclusions in this paper enrich and expand the study of children’s environmental psychology, especially in promoting the study of children’s environmental behavior and children’s wellbeing.

Zoo is an important tourism space in urban society, as well as a key base for animal protection and nature education. In recent years, animal welfare and ethical issues in zoos have attracted a wide social attention. Taking Guangzhou Zoo as a case study, this paper uses both field survey and textual analysis to explore the evolution of animal landscapes and nature education practices in urban zoos, using “animal landscape” as a theoretical framework. The study finds that urban zoos have evolved from ornamental animal landscapes of curiosity and mobility, to recreational animal landscapes of expansion and intimacy, and to ecological animal landscapes of enrichment and science, which was driven by the remarkable trend of humans’ increasing appreciation and respect for the nature and affordance of animals. Humans are not the only producers of animal landscapes, dynamic and subjective nature of animals was presented throughout the evolution. Animals participate in the production of animal landscapes according to the conditions of existence set by humans, and their bodies, habits and behaviors profoundly influence the form and level of nature education. The valuing of animal conservation and ethical issues are conducive to the production of higher order animal landscapes, thus contributing to the further development of nature education.