Wellness tourism has an important value in serving national strategy, industrial practice and individual health. This paper discusses issues related to the theory, industrial practice and health effects of wellness tourism. The study concludes that: (1) wellness tourism is a multi-industry and multi-dimensional industrial model centered on the health industry, including health, tourism, senior-care, wellness, physical examination, prevention and treatment and it has a unique value in the personal, economic, social and ecological aspects. (2) Wellness tourism consumer group can cover the whole life cycle of the population, and the consumption motives are diversified, yet the mismatch between supply and demand is problematic. (3) Wellness tourism is highly dependent on high-quality ecological resources, thus the transformation of destination image from visual landscape to in-depth experience is the precursor of the transformation of traditional sightseeing to recreation and health resort tourism, and its evaluation and brand construction should concentrate on the tourists. (4) The development of wellness tourism is faced with the concept of inconsistency, homogeneity of products, the lack of quality standards, the shortage of specialized talents and the health effect that cannot be scientifically measured, and other specific problems; meanwhile, it should respond to the social concerns regarding the migration of senior population. (5) Wellness tourism as a linking element for mental health, can enhance the well-being of the individual's life, and realize physiological health effects through the support of environmental perception, physical participation and social interaction, and it is also a preventive tool for mental illnesses. Informed by the national strategy of Healthy China and the development trend of wellness tourism in the new era, academics should strengthen the theoretical and methodological research under the cross-disciplinary perspective, so as to provide scientific support for the practice of wellness tourism and its health effects.

Sports tourism integration is a key approach to promote the coordinated development of the sports and tourism industries, playing a significant role in regional economic growth, the preservation of social and cultural heritage, and meeting the people’s needs for a better quality of life. Based on 690 CNKI-indexed papers (2006-2024) related to sports tourism integration, this study uses ITGInsight software for bibliometric and content analysis to systematically examine the current status, research hotspots, and future trends of sports tourism integration in China. The findings reveal: (1) research on sports tourism integration in China began in 2006 and has progressed through four stages: conceptual exploration, theoretical construction, applied research, and innovative expansion. (2) The research focuses on five key areas: theoretical mechanisms of integration, integration level evaluation, strategic pathways, regional applications, and policy drivers, forming an interdisciplinary theoretical framework centered on industrial integration theory, coupling coordination theory and synergy effect theory.(3) The research trajectory of sports tourism integration in China has evolved from theoretical exploration to diversified development in general, but challenges remain, including insufficient theoretical innovation, limited dynamic data analysis, inadequate adoption of new technologies, and weak research on regional coordination and sustainability. Future research should focus on constructing interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, advancing dynamic and intelligent analytical methodologies, exploring differentiated development through cross-regional collaboration mechanisms, and strengthening sustainability-oriented systemic applications, providing theoretical support and practical guidance for the high-quality development of sports tourism integration.

Rural tourism community governance has been widely recognized as a critical pathway to advance high-quality rural tourism development and facilitate rural revitalization in China. In this article, knowledge graph analysis tools are used to explore the research progress of rural tourism community governance. Research has found that: (1) the findings reveal three distinct evolutionary phases: theoretical application and localized emergence, mechanism deconstruction and practical exploration, system integration and paradigm shift, demonstrating progressive expansion in conceptual depth and disciplinary boundaries. (2) Existing research primarily adopts case-based empirical methods to validate the practical application of community governance theory in rural tourism contexts. (3) Furthermore, the study stematically identifies four key research themes: impacts of residents’ perceptions and behaviors on governance effectiveness, multi-stakeholder participation models, cultural-ecological preservation strategies, and sustainable development objectives, collectively forming an “impact-model-path-objective” empirical research framework. In response to existing limitations in the literature, such as regional biases in research objects, insufficient evaluation of governance effectiveness, and gaps in methodological innovation and interdisciplinary integration, thereby offering insights into research trends and academic innovations pertaining to the topic. Consequently, future research should prioritize the following aspects: (1) strengthening complex governance thinking and overcome regional biases and paradigm limitations, (2) promoting methodological integration and innovation, with a focus on multi-source data utilization and digital ethics, (3) deepening interdisciplinary collaboration mechanisms to construct dynamic knowledge production systems, (4) responding to national strategic needs and refine the theoretical framework for rural governance in China, (5) enhancing global academic dialogue and broaden the civilizational exchange dimension of governance research.

Affected by global warming and the urban heat island effect, the demand for summer tourism among urban residents has grown rapidly. This study focuses on tourists’ subjective perception of the differences in weather comfort between their originating places and summer destinations. Through online questionnaires, tourists’ subjective ratings of meteorological conditions were collected, and five key meteorological factors influencing summer weather comfort daily mean temperature, daily maximum temperature, daily mean relative humidity, daily mean wind speed, and sunshine duration were selected as the core indicators of the model. The coolness level was divided into four grades: very cool, cool, relatively cool, and not cool. An innovative Coolness Index (CI) model for summer tourism was constructed. Using Chongqing as the test area, the summer tourism coolness index of 19 summer resorts in 2022 was analyzed. The results show that: (1) in the very cool level, compared with the central urban area of Chongqing during the same period, the summer resorts had an average daily temperature is 9.9°C lower, a maximum daily temperature is 7.7°C lower, a daily average relative humidity is 21% higher, a daily average wind speed is 0.2 m/s lower, and the number of sunshine hours is 0.5 hours less. (2) With the decrease of coolness level, the differences in meteorological factors gradually narrow. The Coolness Index model can accurately capture and effectively quantify the differences in weather comfort between the tourists’ originating places and summer destinations, overcoming the limitations of traditional models based on historical climate data and ignoring dynamic weather changes. This study advances research methods for tourism comfort and, combined with intelligent grid forecasting technology, provides scientific reference for urban residents in choosing summer destinations.

As the global population ages, retirement sojourning has become a key driver of the silver economy and elderly well-being. This study focuses on Chinese urban elderly aged 55 to 80. Grounded in the Lifespan Developmental Control Theory, a survey of 557 subjects was conducted through questionnaire method to investigate the relationship between the elderly’s balanced time perspective and their demand for retirement tourism, as well as the underlying mechanism. The results indicate that: (1) the balanced time perspective can directly predict the demand for retirement sojourning among the elderly. (2) The balanced time perspective can predict the demand for retirement sojourning by enhancing the elderly’s social support or sense of life meaning independently, and it also exerts an effect through the chain mediation of perceived social support and sense of life meaning on their demand for retirement sojourning. (3) Heterogeneity analysis was carried out by dividing the elderly into two groups based on their working status - retired and on-the-job. It was found that there are significant differences in the internal mechanism of the balanced time perspective on the demand for retirement sojourning. Specifically, the indirect effects of the balanced time perspective, perceived social support, sense of life meaning, and the demand for retirement sojourning are most prominent in the retired group. For the on-the-job group, the positive influence of the balanced time perspective on the demand for retirement sojourning mainly relies on the crucial factor of the individual’s sense of life meaning. This study reveals the internal influencing mechanism of the balanced time perspective on the demand for retirement sojourning, aiming to enrich relevant research on the demand mechanism for retirement sojourning among the elderly and provide a scientific reference for the market segmentation and formulation of differentiated marketing strategies for elderly retirement sojourning products.

Digital transformation has emerged as a pivotal path for the upgrading of rural homestays, holding profound significance for homestays to adapt to technological changes in the digital era, enhance service quality and efficiency, and bolster their market competitiveness. Based on the case investigation of rural homestays in some areas of Zhejiang Province, this paper uses Gioia inductive topic analysis method to analyze the influencing factors and action mechanisms in the digital transformation of rural homestays. The results show that: (1) the impetus of digital transformation, such as ease of digital technology and usefulness of digital technology, is the external technological driving force of homestays’ digital transformation. The ease of technology encourages homestays to judge the usefulness of technology. Digital transformation resistance, such as the high cost of digital platforms and the difficulty of monetizing digital platforms, constitutes external technical obstacles, and the choice of digital transformation is based on rational consideration of pros and cons. (2) In addition to external technical factors, homestays’ digital transformation is also affected by the response of tourists’ demand and the impact of market crisis, which is the external market driving force of the digital transformation. (3) External factors such as technology and market encourage managers to improve their digital capabilities, such as strengthening digital management capabilities and promoting digital marketing capabilities, which become the internal driving force for homestays’ digital transformation. (4) In the process of digital transformation, the talent support force such as digital talent demand and digital talent training, as well as the policy support force such as expecting digital support and giving digital support as internal and external regulatory factors jointly promote homestays’ digital transformation. The conclusions enhance the theoretical explanation of influencing factors of rural homestays’ digital transformation, not only enrich the theoretical achievements of rural homestay and expand the application scenarios of digital transformation, but also provide the practical direction for promoting the digital transformation of rural homestay, and help realize the goal of digital countryside and rural revitalization.

In recent years,the imbalance in the regional distribution of tourist flowscaused byover-tourism at tourist attractions has becomeincreasingly worsened. This paper, based on a multi-agent approach, simulates tourist path choices and spatial movements under scenarios with and without social media intervention, and constructs amicrosimulation system for urban tourism flow (TFS) using Chongqing urban district as an example. It explores how social media intervention shapes the distribution of urban tourism flow and its impacton the polarization of tourist areas. The results show that: (1) under the scenario with social media intervention, tourists are more likely to rapidly converge in specific hotspot areas, leading to a polarization trend. (2) The fundamental reason is that social media accelerates the convergence of tourists' perceptions of “must-visit attractions”, resulting in a surge in visitors at popular sites and a sharp decline in the number of tourists at other locations. (3) This polarization is primarily driven by the personalized recommendations and viral effects of social media. The study not only demonstrates the profound influence of social media on tourist decision-making and spatial behavior, but also provides important insights and practical implications for predicting, intervening in, and optimizing the management strategies of regionaltourism flow.

Red tourism is an experiential learning method that builds red memories and promotes national identity. Based on the theoretical model of tourism learning process, this paper reveals the two paths of “red tourism-positive emotion-reflection-national identity” and “red tourism-negative emotion-reflection-national identity” through three experiments, which improve the mechanism of red tourism in promoting tourists’ sense of national identity. The results show that: (1) Experiment 1 confirms that different types of red tourism can stimulate different emotional responses (H1); (2) Experiment 2 verifies that both positive and negative emotions can positively and significantly affect red tourists’ sense of national identity (H2), and that emotions play a mediating role in this relationship (H3); (3) Experiment 3 introduces reflection as a mediating variable on the basis of the verification of H1 and H2, and verifies the mediating effect of reflection (H4); it also reveals the chain mediating effect of emotion and reflection (H5). The study adds knowledge to the empirical research on red tourism and provides reference for the development and management of red scenic spots.

The digital economy has changed the way of developing and utilizing rural resources, providing new opportunities for the integrative development of agriculture and tourism. The article adopts the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2014 to 2020, and uses the coupled coordination degree model and entropy value method to measure the integrative level of agriculture and tourism, and the level of rural digital economy development in each province respectively, and explores the effect and mechanism of rural digital economy empowering the integration of agriculture and tourism through the mediating effect model and spatial Durbin model. The study found that: (1) rural digital economy positively promotes the integrative development of agriculture and tourism, and the effect is more obvious in the eastern and southern regions, regions with high education level, and regions with low abundance of tourism resources. (2) The rural digital economy realizes the precise matching of the development needs of the agriculture and tourism industry and the innovation of business models by promoting the intermediary mechanism of technological innovation, thus increasing the momentum for the integration of agriculture and tourism. (3) In the spatial dimension, the rural digital economy empowers the integrated development of agriculture and tourism, showing a significant positive spatial correlation. The article puts forward policy recommendations from three aspects, namely, accelerating the construction of digital countryside, facilitating the intermediary mechanism of technological innovation, and strengthening regional collaboration, with a view to providing a reference for promoting the deep integrative development of agriculture and tourism and promoting the revitalization of rural industry.

In the context of the in-depth implimentation of the “Digital China” strategy, artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly become the core engine to drive the high-quality development of tourism. However, at present, the integration of AI and tourism still faces multiple challenges such as the absence of technical ethics, data security risks, and insufficient institutional guarantees, which need to be systematically sorted out and addressed. This paper focuses on the key issues of AI-empowered tourism industry, and systematically analyzes its path mechanism and practical problems in tourism product innovation, service reconstruction, and governance system upgrading. The findings are as follows: (1) AI technology reshapes the operating logic of the tourism industry, promotes the transformation of the industry from element-driven to intelligence-driven, and builds a “data-algorithm-service” loop; (2) As a new production factor, AI is deeply embedded in the function of tourism production, enabling labor enhancement, capital optimization and intelligently resource scheduling through technology; (3) AI drives the integration of culture and tourism into a new stage characterized by digitized resources, immersed experiences, personalized supply and intelligent decision-making, and giving rise to diverse integrated business formats; (4) AI helps build a “government-enterprise-community-tourists” collaborative governance network to promote the transformation of tourism destination governance into an intelligent ecosystem; (5) The risks and challenges in the development of AI are becoming increasingly prominent, and it is necessary to make multidimensional efforts from institutional construction, technical supervision, ethical governance and personnel training to build an inclusive, safe and fair technical governance system. This study helps to clarify the core logic of AI-driven tourism industry transformation, and provides theoretical support and policy suggestions for building a new tourism development model characterized by intelligent co-creation.

In the context of rural revitalization, the modernization of tourism community governance has become a key factor in advancing agricultural and rural modernization and achieving comprehensive revitalization. The governance of rural tourist communities is not only an important part of achieving effective rural governance, but also a core issue for achieving the goal of rural revitalization. In the new era, rural tourist communities governance shows the characteristics of multi-subject participation and multiple value functions. Its significant changes include the prominent position of villagers, the prosperity of rural cultural construction, the prominent concept of green governance, and the intelligent transformation of governance modes. However, the governance of rural tourist communities is facing many challenges, such as the existence of governance gap, the constraints of theoretical difficulties, and the troubles of practical problems, which seriously affect the sustainable development of rural tourist communities. This paper explores the theoretical mechanism and path exploration of the modernization of rural tourist community governance under the perspective of rural revitalization. The research finds that: (1) the construction of the governance system of rural tourist communities is the foundation of governance modernization, covering the integration of governance elements, structural construction, and institutional improvement. (2) Building a governance community and achieving the joint governance of multiple subjects is the essential requirement of rural tourist community governance. (3) The governance of rural tourist communities faces problems in many aspects such as system, culture, fairness, and environmental protection, and effective measures need to be taken to cope with them. (4) The focus and tasks of rural tourist community governance should focus on four aspects: system, technology, culture, and talent, in order to improve the effectiveness of governance and the vitality of community development. Through the research, we can not only further deepen the theoretical explanation of the relevant issues of the modernization of rural tourist community governance under the vision of rural revitalization, but also provide decision - making references for relevant managers to formulate industrial policies and development strategies, and help to effectively promote the rural revitalization strategy and the modernization of the governance system and capacity of rural tourist communities.

Existing tourism experience research primarily adopts anthropocentric, structuralist, and reductionist perspectives, which often overlook the complex generation process of spatial relationships in tourism experiences under the agency of heterogeneous human and non-human elements. In light of this, this paper introduces a post-structuralist assemblage theory perspective to readdress the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of tourism experiences. The findings reveal that: (1) “tourism experience” can be regarded as a relational assemblage dynamically generated by the active co-action of diverse heterogeneous human and non-human elements in the world of life and tourism. (2) The generation of tourism experience assemblages follows a dynamic relational process logic of “territorialization-de-territorialization” driven by “desire”, and this “assemblage” epistemology of tourism experience provides a new active relational perspective for studies on authenticity and representation. (3) The assemblage methodology must adhere to a principle of “object-human” general symmetry and a genesis perspective, integrating multi-disciplinary methods such as new materialist cartography, material ethnography, and metaphor analysis in psycholinguistics, focusing on analyzing why, when, where, and how diverse heterogeneous elements participate in and influence the complex generation process, relationships, and meanings of tourism experiences, that is, the formation, dissolution, recombination, and reshaping of tourism experience assemblage, as well as the value of assemblage. The assemblage perspective, which takes “objects” and “relations” as ontological orientation, can provide an inclusive and critical inspiration from a post-structuralist perspective for tourism experience theory research and the management practice of “human-land” conflict relationships.

Birdwatching tourism, a significant subset of wildlife tourism, plays a vital role in ecological conservation, ecotourism, and the sustainable development of communities. This paper employs CiteSpace 6.2.R4 to analyze the research process, development trends and emerging themes in international research on birdwatching tourism from 2003 to 2023. The findings are as follows: (1) the number of published articles has consistently increased. Based on variations in publication volume and thematic evolution, birdwatching tourism research can be divided into three phases: initial exploration and foundational research, deepening exploration and value assessment, and ongoing development with a focus on sustainability. (2) Research in this field is characterized by significant interdisciplinary engagement, with developed countries, particularly in North America, dominating the field. Several high-output and influential research teams have emerged; however, the collaboration network remains fragmented, and a core group of authors has not yet materialized. (3) Key research topics include the cultural ecosystem services of birdwatching tourism, citizen science and birdwatching behavior, the sustainable development of birdwatching destinations, and the socio-economic impacts of the industry. Recent focal points in the field include cultural ecosystem services, environmental responsibility behaviors, citizen science, human-bird interactions, urban birdwatching tourism, and the ecological and economic value of birdwatching. In China, birdwatching tourism research is still in its early stages, lagging behind industry practices. It is recommended that future studies adopt a macro-meso-micro framework, encompassing four components: birdwatchers (subjects), birdwatching resources (objects), the birdwatching industry (media), and the birdwatching environment (carriers). This approach will facilitate interdisciplinary and international research on topics such as community-based birdwatching, the impact and demand of birdwatchers, and cross-border studies, providing scientific insights for the development of birdwatching tourism and the establishment of bird conservation area systems.

Rural tourism serves as a critical tool for revitalizing the rural economy and addressing the “three rural” issues. This study explores its practical significance on upgrading rural residents’ consumption structure and the underlying mechanisms, particularly in the context of expanding domestic demand and stimulating rural consumption potential. Utilizing data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) conducted in 2015, 2017, and 2019, this research employs the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS), double fixed-effect models, and propensity score matching to empirically examine the impact of rural tourism development on rural residents' consumption patterns. Key findings include: (1) rural tourism significantly promotes overall consumption and consumption structure upgrades among rural residents. (2) The effects of rural tourism on consumption are influenced by individual and household characteristics, with older age, marital status, past hardships, and poor health showing significant negative impacts. (3) Mechanism analysis reveals that rural tourism enhances consumption structure upgrades by increasing income levels and expanding non-agricultural employment opportunities. (4) Heterogeneity tests indicate that the impact of rural tourism is more pronounced in central and western regions compared to eastern regions, reflecting varying regional responses to tourism development. These findings not only elucidate the internal logic of how rural tourism drives consumption upgrades but also provide valuable insights for policy formulation, optimizing the rural consumption environment, and promoting comprehensive rural economic development.

Value co-creation is an effective means to promote the establishment of trust, feedback and co-operation mechanisms between endogenous actors such as government and residents, and exogenous entities such as tourists and enterprises in rural tourism community governance. Taking Huanglongxian Village and Longxiang Shuangfan Village in Jiangning District, Nanjing, as case studies, this paper explores the process and mechanisms of value co-creation between endogenous actors and exogenous entities in rural tourism community governance by using qualitative research and content analysis. The results show that: (1) innovative concepts such as information, platforms, and services from traditional value co-creation theories have entered the governance process of rural tourism communities through the interaction between endogenous actors and exogenous entities, and innovate the tourism village governance model in the process of value chain formation and value delivery. (2) The value delivery axis of “co-anticipation - co-construction - co-enjoyment” exists in the process of value co-creation of community residents, consumers and enterprises, which is reflected in the interaction of spatial strategies, co-creation needs and governance results of different value subjects, as well as the identification and practice of transforming the use of rural resources for tourism. (3) The mechanism of value co-creation between endogenous actors and exogenous entities lies in the participatory transmission of value chain and the innovation of governance models within rural tourism communities during the rural revitalization process. This promotes spatial production with high-quality in rural tourism. Tourists, as new participants in community governance, inherit and develop the value connotations of the tourism community. Thus, rural tourism initiatives should concentrate on value transformation capacity of tourists and community residents, digital marketing and platform construction, and encourage more subjects to spontaneously participate in governance.

As a significant demographic group engaged in social media sharing, women have garnered considerable research attention. However, there has been limited exploration into whether and what differences exist in the influencing mechanisms of women's willingness and behavior to share online at different stages of their family life cycle. This study integrates the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Social Exchange Theory (SET) to develop a research model, uses structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group analysis (MGA) to test the model using a sample of 628 participants, and further compares the model differences among three groups, namely, single (empty nest stage), married without children (nesting stage), and married with children (full nest stage). The findings reveal that: (1) in terms of non-functional factors, single women value perceived interaction, women that married without children emphasize perceived enjoyment and interaction, while perceived flaunt appeal significantly influences the sharing willingness and behaviors across all groups. (2) Regarding functional factors, single women and women that married without childernfocus on perceived ease of use, while married women with children prioritize perceived usefulness. (3) Online sharing willingness positively influences both sharing behaviors and tourism decision-making in all three groups. This paper contributes to the literature on women’s online sharing behavior, expands the application of family life cycle theory in tourism studies, and provides theoretical insights and empirical support for targeted marketing strategies and personalized services for tourism enterprises and social media platforms.

Under the external disturbances of tourism activities, traditional villages constantly adjust their resilience to achieve a new dynamic balance in society, economy, culture, and ecology. Based on the adaptive cycle theory and the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC), this study takes Wulin traditional village in Jinjiang city as an example, and employs literature analysis, field investigation, weighted TOPSIS and other methods to explore the cyclical differences in the resilience level and response mechanism of the social-ecological system of tourism-oriented traditional villages. The results show that: (1) there are significant cyclical differences in the resilience level of social-ecological system of traditional villages, and the overall resilience level shows a stepwise upward trend, which is consistent with the characteristics and stage curves of resilience evolution and development from the perspective of adaptive cycle theory. (2) The growth rate of resilience in various dimensions of traditional villages varies at different stages of their life cycle. The growth of resilience shows a trend of slow first and then fast, while adaptability shows a constant upward trend. Therefore, the transformation ability has the fastest growth rate and the largest change in magnitude. (3) The resilience response mechanism of villages at different life-cycle stages is also different, presenting characteristics of “exploration stage-resistance ability”,“initiation stage-adaptability” and “development stage-transform ability”. This study enriches the explanation of disturbance-state-response theory, initially reveals the evolutionary process of traditional village’ adaptation, and provides strategic references for the sustainable development of traditional villages.

The evolution of tourist destinations is an important proposition and practical hotspot of tourism geography research. Taking Huangshan City as an example, this paper explores the mechanism of tourism destination evolution in Huangshan City from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography, combining the path-dependence and path-creation effects, and using logistic model and multiple linear regression model. It is found that: (1) the tourism destinations evolution in Huangshan City has experienced four stages: path introduction, path transformation, path promotion and path innovation. (2) Its evolution process presents the characteristics from externally driven to internally driven, point agglomeration to network agglomeration, and from single to composite. (3) The evolution stage is generally influenced by the positive influence of multiple factors such as resource endowment, policy environment, capital conditions, and consumer demand, and the degree of effect varies at different stages. (4) Under the iterative cycle of path dependence and path creation, the tourism destinations in Huangshan City has formed a non-linear and complex adaptive system evolution mechanism through the dynamic adjustment of the relationship between the government and the market, the complex changes in the macro-context, and the synergistic effect of multiple subjects. The theoretical and practical research of this paper can provide some theoretical reference and decision-making reference for the transformation and development of tourism destinations.

. Tourism development in ethnic areas promotes the interaction and exchange and intermingling between communities and the outside world. Taking Skula Town in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan as a case area, the study uses gounded theory and fsQCA (Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis) to construct an analytical model of tourism promoting the ‘three connections’ of ethnicity (interaction, communication and integration), and to reveal the configuration of various factors affecting the perceptions of ethnic integration. The results discovered that the antecedent conditions show significant complexity and heterogeneity. (1) Women with low education, young and high income hold a positive attitude towards ethnic integration; (2) High-quality tourism activities and benefits significantly improve residents’ perception of ethnic integration; (3) When men with low education level achieve higher income and actively participate in tourism activities, they hold a positive attitude towards the benefits brought by tourism, maintain high-quality interaction with tourists, and form a positive perception of ethnic integration. The results of this study emphasize that the positive output of tourism activities and tourism benefits is an essential basis for promoting ethnic interaction, communication, and integration and helps to build an interactive system based on cultural sharing, material sharing, and a sense of Chinese national community. It provides a new perspective and empirical support for deepening tourism development in ethnic areas and promoting ethnic integration.

Ecological experience activities are an important practical pathway for ecological conservation and sustainable development in national parks, and their impact assessment provides significant guidance for optimizing management strategies. This study takes the Yellow River Source Area of Sanjiangyuan National Park as a case study, constructing an impact assessment system for ecological experience activities based on the "Pressure-State-Response (PSR)" model and the DEMATEL analysis method, revealing the multi-dimensional mechanisms of ecological experience activities on ecosystem health. The research findings are as follows: (1) the ecosystem health of Yellow River Source Area is in an alert state, characterized by "low pressure, medium state, and high response". (2) In the pressure dimension, eco-experience activities have less impact on ecosystem health, and eco-experience facilities are the main source of pressure; in the state dimension, the ecological service capacity and ecological resilience of the Yellow River Source Park are weak, and the impact of eco-experience activity brands is more significant; in the response dimension, the economic benefits are the most prominent, followed by the public response. (3)The analysis of influencing factors shows that ecological rangers, the increase in herders’income, and the improvement of residents’ quality of life are the key factors for the ecosystem health of the Yellow River Source Park; necessary reception facilities, ecological vitality,ecological service capacity and other factors play an important supporting role in the stability of the ecosystem.Finally, this study proposes the construction of a collaborative governance system of "pressure regulation, state optimization, and response enhancement", providing practical pathways for optimizing the management of ecological experience activities in national parks.

Forest tourism is an important path to to promote the transformation of regional “green mountains” into “golden mountains”. Based on panel data from 60 key cities in China from 2009 to 2022, the approval of Fuzhou as a national forest tourism demonstration city is designed as a quasi-natural experiment to promote regional forest tourism development, and adopts the synthetic control method and the mediation effect test model to explore the profound impact of forest tourism development on the transformation of regional “green mountains” into “golden mountains”. Research has found that: (1) the construction of a national forest tourism demonstration city in Fuzhou can significantly increase the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita GDP, indicating that the development of forest tourism can transform the region’s “green mountains” into “invaluable assets”. (2) The effect of forest tourism policy has a one-year policy expectation for promoting the regional transformation of the “two mountains”, and this effect strengthens year by year. (3) Empirical tests have found that forest tourism can promote regional economic growth by the multiplier effect of employment income, upgrading effect of industrial structure, supply chain effect of green tourism and value release effect of ecological service, thereby assisting in the transformation of the regional “green mountains” into “golden mountains”. Accordingly, the article proposes management countermeasures to enhance the impact of forest tourism policies on the regional “two mountains” transformation effect, such as leveraging the leading role of demonstration areas, promoting employment and income generation for residents, facilitating industrial structure upgrading, improving the green tourism supply chain, and driving the release of ecological value.

Health and wellness activities are a form of temporary settlement behavior, and the selection those destinations is significantly influenced by the long-term climate characteristics of the area. This study utilized meteorological data from 54 grid nodes in Anhui Province from 1991 to 2020, processed into typical meteorological data for Solar Terms, to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of the wellness climate in Anhui Province. The study also conducted a zoning analysis of the suitability of the wellness climate using clustering methods. Additionally, data from 8 grid nodes outside Anhui Province were selected for comparative analysis. The results indicate: (1) Spring and autumn are the most suitable seasons for health and wellness in Anhui Province, with some areas suitable for summer retreats, while the winter comfort level throughout the province is relatively low; (2) Yuxi and Shexian County have the highest suitability for health and wellness, while southwestern and southern Anhui generally perform well; (3) Anhui Province can be divided into four climate characteristic zones suitable for wellness, which intuitively reflect the impact of latitude and local geography on the variability of health and wellness climate resources; (4) Compared to some northern cities, a few areas in northern Anhui have health and wellness advantages; compared to the eastern and southern neighboring regions of Anhui Province, southwestern and southern Anhui have health and wellness advantages; compared to southern cities, Anhui Province has a longer period of suitability for health and wellness, with southwestern Anhui having potential for off-peak development; (5) Under the backdrop of climate change, the suitable zones for health and wellness climate are generally shifting northward. The study innovatively proposed the use of typical meteorological data from solar terms for evaluating the suitability of the health and wellness climate, systematically revealing the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of the suitability of the health and wellness climate, addressing the issue of temporal roughness in traditional mean or threshold evaluations, and is of significant importance for the scientific evaluation of health and wellness climate resources and the development of the health and wellness tourism industry.

As an important part of the revitalization and development plan of the old revolutionary areas, tourism development, especially red tourism, is of great significance to the realization of common prosperity in those regions. Based on the five development concepts, this paper constructs an evaluation index system of tourism development level in the old revolutionary area, measures the level of common prosperity from the three dimensions of development, sharing and sustainability, analyzes the spatial characteristics of tourism development and common prosperity based on the county panel data of the old revolutionary areas in Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou from 2012 to 2022, and empirically analyzes the impact of tourism development on common prosperity by using methods such as fixed effect, threshold model and spatial Durbin model. The results show that: (1) county tourism development can significantly increase the level of common wealth, but the impact of tourism development on common wealth shows an obvious non-linear relationship, with the existence of a single threshold effect of “significant increase-slowdown growth”. (2) In terms of spatial effect, the economic benefits generated by tourism development have a significant positive effect on local common prosperity, while negative spatial spillover effect on the development of those neighboring areas. (3) The impact of tourism development on common prosperity is manifested in the dimension of direct effect, with the positive promotion effect on sharing being the largest, and the negative impact on sustainability in the spillover effect is significant. Regionally, the tourism development in Hubei has a significant positive effect on the common prosperity development of the local area and neighboring places, and the positive effect in Guizhou and Hunan areas is weak. However, the tourism development in Chongqing area has a significant negative effect on the common prosperity of the local area and neighboring places.

The frequent occurrence of extreme rainfall events due to climate change poses significant challenges for rural areas. Tourism-oriented rural communities are usually located in mountainous regions or near water and face greater natural disaster risks and potential economic losses in the event of extreme rainfall. This paper takes S Village, a tourism-oriented rural community in Mentougou, Beijing, which was seriously affected by the Haihe “23·7” basin-wide extreme flood, as an example, and conducts a case study using qualitative research methods such as questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews, and field surveys to explore the response of the tourism-oriented rural community to the extreme rainfall event and its implications. The results show that: (1) S Village prepared for the disaster through disaster prevention and publicity drills before the disaster, completed rescue and relief work and transported materials through effective organization during the disaster, and promoted comprehensive reconstruction and optimized disaster prevention plans after the disaster in line with the needs of tourism transformation and development, forming a more systematic community disaster response model. However, the original flood prevention efforts were inadequate, which is reflected in the insufficient cooperation of the main parties involved in the preliminary flood prevention work, the existence of hidden dangers in the infrastructure, the ineffective protection of tourism resources, as well as the weak awareness of disaster prevention among residents. After the disaster, the residents’ flood prevention knowledge reserve and disaster perception were significantly improved. (2) From the experience of Village S, tourism-oriented rural communities should take measures according to the stage of disaster development, give full play to the disaster response roles of different subjects, promote the collaboration of multiple subjects, ensure the disaster-bearing capacity of infrastructure, and achieve effective response. It is necessary to carry out targeted protection of special tourism resources, focus on the social capital and self-organization base formed in the development of the tourism industry into a collaborative advantage in disaster response, and grasp the reconstruction opportunities after the disaster to enhance community resilience and achieve sustainable development of rural tourism communities and industries. (3) The probability of extreme rainfall events will increase in the future, and it is still necessary to further strengthen the theoretical and empirical research on disaster response in tourism-based villages, so as to provide scientific support for the effective enhancement of their ability to withstand disasters.

In the context of efficiency change and economic transformation, promoting the coordinated development of cultural industry and tourism industry efficiency has become crucial for achieving cultural and tourism integration and high-quality development. This study establishes an analytical framework for the synergistic growth of the efficiency, and systematically investigate the characteristics of cultural-tourism efficiency coordination and its influencing factors in China by employing the methods of the Super-EBM model, Haken model, non-parametric kernel density estimation, Theil index, and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The study finds: (1) both cultural industry efficiency and tourism industry efficiency exhibit positive feedback effects on the synergistic growth system between cultural and tourism industries, yet the cultural industry efficiency dominates the evolution system. (2) During the study period, the synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and the tourism industries in general shows the diffusion characteristic of gradually decreasing from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, forming a regional hierarchy of “Central China > Eastern China > Western China”. (3) Kernel density estimation identifies a persistent “single-peak” distribution pattern across national and regional levels, while Theil index decomposition reveals an overall “U-shaped” evolutionary trajectory primarily attributable to inter-regional disparities. (4)The synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and tourism industries is influenced by multiple factors, and fsQCA identifies four distinct configuration paths: digital economy-human capital synergy, government-resource synergy, market-transportation synergy, and a compound “government-resource+market-transportation” model. The article reveals the complex grouping causes of the synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and tourism industries, enriches the research on the relationship between culture and tourism, and.offers theoretical references, in-depth integration and high-quality development of culture and tourism.

The conventional path of promoting regional cooperation as a leading strategy often fails to meet the developmental needs of cross-border tourist destinations. This study explores the characteristics and development paths of cross-border tourist destinations by examining their developmental and governance background. Based on the theory of path dependence, an evolutionary model is constructed to analyze the risks of development path’s rigidity. Using an empirical analysis of the development models and governance systems of the Maoshan Scenic Area, the study summarizes its evolutionary characteristics and proposes optimization strategies. The findings reveal: (1) the development paths of cross-border tourist destinations are driven by multiple factors, including resource endowments, key events at critical moments, and regional governance models. These destinations exhibit significant path dependence due to limited resource integration, fragmented governance models, and administrative boundary divisions. (2) The evolution of development paths demonstrates clear heterogeneity, shaped jointly by initial conditions and key events at critical moments. While some cross-border tourist destinations achieve positive path locking through resource optimization and governance innovation, others fall into negative path locking due to insufficient resource integration and poor interregional coordination. (3) In terms of evolutionary mechanisms, initial conditions, such as tourism resource endowments, reinforce path dependence through increasing returns to scale, laying the foundation for development. Meanwhile, random events act as external disturbances to promote path adjustments and transformations. Based on these findings, the study proposes three optimization strategies: strengthening top-level design, exploring differentiated development paths, and establishing innovative coordination and management systems. These strategies aim to mitigate homogeneous competition among cross-border tourist destinations and achieve unified planning and benefit-sharing as core objectives.

Women are the main force to inherit the farming civilization and participate in the community governance of agricultural heritage sites, but they are also the most neglected party in the discourse system. Taking the dry-farming Shiyan terrace system in Shexian, Hebei Province, a globally important agricultural cultural heritage site, as an example, as an example, the paper analyzes how women in agricultural heritage sites achieve their place identity construction in the process of participating in social participation, under the cognitive-emotional-behavioural framework by means of field research and grounded theory. The study found that: (1) The generation of the ambient field is a direct factor that promotes women’s participation in social organizations in agricultural heritage sites. (2) Through the re-understanding of heritage values and the re-expression of local meanings, heritageisation becomes a key force driving the generation of women's place identities in agricultural heritage sites. (3) Place identity is internalized in women’s self-identity, which is manifested in the re-recognition of women’s value and the awakening of gender consciousness. (4) Behavioural feedback of women’s place identity in agricultural heritage sites includes ecological interaction and heritage inheritance. Place identity is emotionally driven by women’s participation in community governance in agricultural heritage areas, and community participation shapes the process of constructing women’s place identity.

In the protection and utilization of dietary cultural resources, the implementation of new-era environmental policies is highly prone to conflict with resource perceptions, ownership concepts, and cultural habits inherent in local knowledge systems, potentially triggering collective incidents. This study examines the case of the prohibition of private curing of preserved meat in the urban area of T County, Sichuan Province. Using an expanded policy implementation interaction model and the grounded theory method, it explores the interaction processes among key stakeholders—such as the public, government, and media—during the execution of environmental policies. The findings reveal that: (1) divergence in stakeholders' interest demands is the primary cause of policy implementation blockages, the government seeks to achieve dual objectives through implementing environmental policies: fulfilling administrative tasks and safeguarding public interests, while the public primarily focuses on protecting personal economic benefits, avoiding time and energy costs, mitigating risks of cultural heritage disruption, and addressing governmental administrative errors, and the media acts as an intermediary factor, continuously mediating the relationship between the two parties. (2) Stakeholder interactions manifest two types of ralations, i.e., adversarial and collaborative relations, when governmental errors escalate social conflicts, these tensions negatively impact administrative operations, institutional credibility, cultural preservation, and resource governance, yet after the apologies, tripartite cooperation emerges through accountability realignment, enabling timely containment of public interest losses. (3) Solutions to policy implementation obstruction and mass incidents include theoretical adjustment mechanism and realistic development path, which cover two dimensions of government governance and coordination and public participation and coordination; the former includes the establishment of structural contradiction resolution pathways, two-way information communication mode and policy evaluation mechanism, while the latter includes cultural inheritance and tourism utilization path. This study expands the interaction model, deepens the theoretical basis for the protection and utilization of traditional food culture resources,, and also puts forward systematic suggestions for the government to resolve collective incidents, introduce environmental pollution control policies, and protect and utilize traditional cultural resources.

The scientific distribution of digital tourism signage has become a critical issue in enhancing urban tourism experiences and the efficiency of public information services. However, most existing site selection approaches still rely heavily on empirical judgment, often resulting in uneven information distribution and unbalanced signage density, which negatively impacts tourists’ access to attraction information and overall satisfaction. To address this problem, this study proposes a location optimization model for digital tourism signage based on the objectives of maximal coverage, and introduces deep reinforcement learning to solve the model with support from multi-source spatiotemporal data. The research includes a detailed process of data collection and preprocessing, integrates the Geo-detector and attention mechanism to identify key influencing factors, and constructs the state space and decision strategy through deep reinforcement learning. Additionally, the proposed method is systematically compared with classical solvers and heuristic algorithms in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. Using the Beijing Fifth Ring Road Area as the experimental case, the results show that: (1) existing digital tourism signs are primarily concentrated in the eastern and northeastern regions, highly correlated with the spatial distribution of tourist attractions; (2) Tourism heat, visitor activity, and public transportation accessibility significantly influence the signage distribution; (3) All three optimization methods prioritize the layout of signage in Xicheng District and its surrounding areas, with the deep reinforcement learning approach achieving better computational efficiency while ensuring layout effectiveness. This study innovatively applies deep reinforcement learning to the digital tourism signage location problem, promoting the transformation of location strategy from experience-driven to data-driven, and from static deployment to intelligent optimization. It provides both a technical foundation and practical reference for the smart planning of tourism information infrastructure.

The reconstruction of the tourism discipline driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is a core issue in aligning tourism education with China’s national strategy of building a strong education system and supporting the intelligent transformation of the cultural and tourism industries. However, systematic research on how AI can be deeply integrated into the development of the tourism discipline remains limited. This underscores a knowledge gap and the urgent need to integrate AI into tourism education. This paper explores the emerging opportunities, challenges, and paradigms in the AI-driven reconstruction of tourism education. The findings reveal that: (1) AI is reshaping the theoretical foundations of the tourism discipline, fostering interdisciplinary integration and knowledge system reconstruction, thereby catalyzing novel theoretical paradigms that extend tourism research boundaries. (2) AI technologies are expediting the integration of AI into educational practices, leading to profound transformations in curriculum design, instructional methods, and assessment frameworks, in turn redefining teaching roles and enabling more personalized learning experiences. (3) Tourism discipline faces multiple challenges during this transformation, including cognitive misalignment, difficulties in technological implementation, and lagging ethical governance, highlighting the need for unified understanding, robust support for implementation, and updated ethical guidelines. (4) Future discipline development should prioritize technological governance, institutional innovation, and cultural guidance to facilitate intelligent advancement and value recreation in tourism education, ensuring responsible AI adoption, institutional adaptability, and preservation of core cultural values. This study enriches framework for tourism discipline development in the AI era from the theoretical and practical perspective and offers actionable policy recommendations for decisionmakers and educational administrators, contributing to the modernization of a tourism discipline system with Chinese characteristics.

Digital economy serves as a powerful driving force for the green development of cultural and tourism industries. Exploring the relationship between digital economy and green technological progress can provide guidance for the sustainable development of cultural and tourism industries. This study takes the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2021 as a sample to analyze the impact mechanism of digital economy on green technological progress in China’s cultural and tourism industries. The results show that: (1) during the study period, the Digital Economy Development Index and the Green Technological Progress Index of the Cultural and Tourism Industries exhibited an overall upward trajectory. However, the digital divide continued to widen, while the Green Technological Progress Index of the Cultural and Tourism Industries is significantly influenced by external environmental shocks; (2) The digital economy exerts a significant and sustained promoting effect on the green technological progress of the cultural and tourism industries; (3) The digital economy promotes the green technological progress of cultural and tourism industries by enhancing the activeness of tourism market entities and increasing the labor input in the tertiary industry; (4) The development level of digital economy and the level of labor skills have heterogeneous impacts on the green technological progress of cultural and tourism industries, and this promoting effect is more obvious in regions with backward digital economy and low labor skill levels. Based on this, the study puts forward relevant suggestions for promoting the green development of cultural and tourism industries from the aspects of giving play to the characteristics of digital economy, strengthening talent training, stimulating the vitality of cultural and tourism markets, and implementing differentiated development strategies.

In the context of China’s aging population and the growing emphasis on comprehensive health, maintaining and improving health has become a critical issue for the elderly. Seasonal retired tourism and serious leisure have reshaped the health lifestyles of senior sojourners, with the mobility of these populations leading to both new opportunities and challenges. This study, from the perspective of mobility and the relational approach, investigates the relationship between serious leisure and the health of senior sojourners, using Yunnan Yuxi Luchong Scenic Area as a case study. It analyzes how senior sojourners construct multi-dimensional and dynamic human-environment relations with their hometowns and various tourism destinations, which, in turn, influence their health. The findings reveal that the serious leisure activities of senior sojourners exhibit characteristics of skill development, social engagement, and long-term participation. Through enhancing physical and cognitive function, promoting social participation, and demonstrating perseverance in serious leisure activities, senior sojourners establish dynamic physical, social, and emotional connections between their hometowns and tourism destinations. Ultimately, senior sojourners develop serious leisure activities dynamically to achieve differentiated experiences of physical, social, and mental health. The study theoretically delves into the mechanisms through which serious leisure influences elderly health in the context of senior sojourners’ mobilities, from the perspective of mobility and the relational approach. It also provides implications for improving serious leisure and enhancing multi-dimensional health for senior sojourners through serious leisure.

Rural residents, as the target group and key participants in the governance of tourism destinations, play a crucial role in the sustainable development of local tourism through their support for policies. Taking the well-known ancient town Huangyao as an example, this study integrates social exchange theory to unveil the mechanism of rural residents’ support for tourism policies through qualitative research methods. The results indicated that: (1) six variables influence how rural residents support tourism policies: exogenous variables include policy interpretation; endogenous variables include past experiences, policy participation, and perceptions of the benefits of tourism; and policy conditions include stability and adaptability. There are three components of rural residents’ support for tourism policies, including policy cognition, policy emotion and policy behavior intention. (2) The generating process of rural residents’ support for tourism policies can be divided into three stages, including risk assessment, attempted exchange and order stabilization. After a collision and integration of interests, the exchange relationship between local inhabitants and government departments is rebuilt. (3) The mechanism of rural residents’ support for tourism policies shows a cross-stage transition from “resistance- attempted cooperation-rational gaming”, with each stage following the logic of “policy cognition-policy emotion-policy behavioral intention-new policy cognition”. The study suggests taking into account the significance of rural residents' objections to the policies, and advocates policy-implementing organizations to shift their focus from simply completing policies to tackling the real challenges faced by tourism destinations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a representative technology of the fourth technological revolution, has become a significant driver for promoting Tourism Total Factor Productivity (TTFP) advancement. The study employs the Malmquist index model to measure tourism industry TFP across 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2024, and combines the methods such as Lorenz curves and Getis-Ord Gi* statistical index to compare regional differences in AI technology and explore its impact on TTFP. The results indicate: (1) both AI technology and tourism TFP showed growth trends during 2011-2024, but with notable spatial disparities with AI development in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and southeastern coastal areas being significantly stronger than the national average, while TTFP in central and northeastern regions is higher than that in eastern and western regions. (2) AI technology has a significant positive impact on tourism technological progress and TTFP enhancement, but its effect on technical efficiency is not evident, but the quantile regression results show that the marginal utility of AI on TTFP first decreases then increases. (3) Regional heterogeneity analysis reveals that eastern, central, and northeastern regions display positive correlations between AI technology and tourism TFP, while effects in western regions have yet to appear. For future development, the tourism industry should: leverage AI technology to develop AI-Generated Content (AIGC) scenarios and enhance interactive experiences with emphasis on “emotional” and “humanistic” orientations; draw from successful experiences in other fields by establishing user profiles and constructing digital twin scenic areas to break low-level cycles; strengthen regional cooperation to promote talent mobility and technology transfer, thereby narrowing regional development gaps and improving TTFP.

The digital transformation of the tourism industry has changed the operational mode of tourist destinations and provided local residents the opportunities to participate in tourism and challenges to their pro-tourism behaviors Based on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) theory, this study employs Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze 297 questionnaires from residents of Pingyao Ancient City, revealing the impacts of digital literacy (digital technology, digital cognition, digital social emotion) and perceptions of economic, environmental, and socio-cultural benefits on pro-tourism behavior in configuration path analysis. The study finds that:(1) no single factor constitutes a necessary condition for pro-tourism behavior, with environmental benefit perception being the first bottleneck factor. (2) Pro-tourism behavior exhibits “multiple concurrency” and “different means but same result” effects, with four high pro-tourism behavior patterns (pure digital-driven, technology-economic-emotion, digital-economic, and comprehensive types) and four non-high pro-tourism behavior patterns (environment-emotion constrained, environment constrained, digital technology deficient, and digital social emotion insufficient types). (3) The antecedent conditions influencing high and non-high pro-tourism behavior have heterogeneity and certain substitutability. The study clarifies the multiple antecedent relationships, causal asymmetry, and multiple equivalent pathways of residents’ pro-tourism behavior, providing theoretical support for the sustainable development of tourism destinations and practical guidance for policymaking and resource allocation.

Under the background of rural revitalisation strategy, the soundscapes of traditional villages serve as a critical dimension for perceiving spatial contexts and reflecting the efficacy of scenic benefits. This plays a paramount role in driving rural revitalization efforts. Focusing on Huangdu Village, this study employs a robust methodology, including method of semantic differential, questionnaire surveys, and factor analysis, constructs a research framework for studying soundscapes in tourism-oriented traditional villages, aiming at exploring their roles in enhancing the attractiveness of tourism and promoting the sustainable development of the villages. The findings indicate that Huangdu Village’s soundscapes is a unique local culture, exemplified by life sounds that create a sense of place, ecological sounds embodying therapeutic qualities, the production sounds encapsulating associative connotations, and complex sounds that transmit harmonious scenarios while delineating the spatial environment. Nevertheless, challenges exist within the village, such as the homogenization of local sentiments in life sounds, the deterioration of therapeutic sensations in ecological sounds, the formalization of associative sentiments in production sounds, and the ambiguity of spatial and harmonious perceptions in complex sounds. The study proposes targeted strategies to address these issues, including sound borrowing, sound masking adjustment, sound supplementation enrichment, and comprehensive utilization for diverse soundscapes, with a view to achieving effective protection and optimization of the acoustic landscape of Huangdu Village, thus promoting the comprehensive enhancement of traditional village landscapes and the profound integration of the cultural tourism industry and supporting rural revitalization endeavors.

This study investigates the New Quality Productive Forces (NQPF) and tourism industrial competitiveness across 272 Chinese cities based on the entropy weight TOPSIS method to measure the coupling degree and the coordination degree between new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness, and to explore the dynamic mechanism of the coordination degree using the panel data. The findings reveal that: (1) the level of NQPF is lower than the level of tourism industrial competitiveness, but the growth of the former is higher than that of the latter. Significant disparities exist among cities, with the eastern region leading in both NQPF and tourism industrial competitiveness, though growth trends remain similar across regions. (2) The overall level of coupling and coupling coordination between NQPF and tourism industrial competitiveness is moderate but shows an increasing trend year by year. There is no significant difference in the level of coupling between eastern, central and western cities, but the coupling coordination degree of eastern cities is higher than that of central and western cities. (3) Digital innovation, fiscal expenditure, urbanization, marketization, and resident consumption are the fundamental drivers for the coupled and coordinated development of new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness. Digital innovation is the core driving mechanism for the coordinated development of new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness in eastern, central and western cities, with eastern cities relying mainly on market power, central cities relying on the dual power of government and market, and western cities being driven by both government power and market power. In addition, high-innovation cities rely on endogenous and market dynamics, low-innovation cities are significantly influenced by exogenous dynamics, while tourism-dependent cities have a single driving mechanism, and non-tourism-dependent cities show diversified driving characteristics. These findings expand application scenarios of the theoretical framework of NQPF, deepen the understanding of its interplay with tourism development, and provide references for the synergistic enhancement of the competitiveness of new quality productivity and tourism as well as the promotion of the construction of the emerging strategic pillar industry of tourism.

Scientific analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamic coupling mechanism between cultural heritage conservation-utilization and tourism development is a key driver for collaborative transformation of cultural resources in ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Taking the nine provinces (autonomous regions) along the Yellow River as the research area, this study constructs a dynamic coupling model between cultural heritage conservation-utilization and tourism development. A three-stage analytical framework encompassing entropy weight method, coupling coordination degree and obstacle diagnosis was applied to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of the two systems from 2013 to 2022. The findings reveal: (1) the comprehensive development levels of the two systems exhibit asynchronous periodic fluctuations temporally, while spatially demonstrating gradient-decreasing and pyramid-shaped hierarchical structures respectively; (2) The overall coupling coordination degree of the two systems remains suboptimal (near-maladjustment stage), transitioning through three-phase evolutionary paths temporally, and the spatial pattern evolution exhibits a “local increase, overall decrease” characteristic, with the center of gravity continuously shifting toward the northwest; (3) At the system level, Cultural heritage is the primary obstacle factor; with bidirectional constraints identified between heritage conservation practices and tourism market scale at the indicator level.

A favorable ecological environment is the most inclusive well-being of people’s livelihood, and the quality of the ecological environment has become an important parameter affecting the national happiness index. Based on the theory of environmental fit, this study takes the Qilian Mountain National Park (Qinghai region) as the case study area, and used structural equation modelling to explore the impact of tourists’ environmental fit on subjective well-being. The findings are as follows: (1) the total effect of tourists’ environmental fit on subjective well-being is significant, among which environmental resources and environmental functions constitute the core driving factors; (2) Tourists’ environmental fit has a significant positive effect on subjective well-being, place attachment, and natural empathy, especially on positive emotions in tourists’ well-being; (3) Tourists’ environmental fit indirectly affects their well-beling through place attachment and natural empathy, and the indirect effect of place attachment is greater than that of natural empathy, which further emphasizes the importance of emotional factors in tourists’ well-being. The study suggests that managers of ecotourism destinations should rely on their ecological advantages that promote human-land interaction, actively promote the transformation of ecological value into public welfare, and thereby facilitate the ecological protection and sustainable development of the destinations.