The rapid development of autonomous driving technology has prompted social science research to explore its potential in reshaping people’s daily life and travel behaviors. This study offers a comprehensive overview of the primary themes in autonomous vehicle research within the fields of transportation and urban planning, and also introduces its practical implications in tourism scenarios. The study concludes that: (1) the research in the social sciences on autonomous vehicles has shifted from technological applications towards considerations of management policies; the research on applications in the field of tourism is still in its infancy, but the research related to public acceptance attitudes and the impact of the physical and social environments offers directions for research in the field of tourism; (2) the utilization of autonomous vehicles in tourism presents dual functionalities in transportation and enhancing the tourism experience; (3) the critical directions encompass three key aspects: tourism demand, tourism response, and tourism effect; specifically, travel decision-making and mobility experience at the demand side, the development of new industries, facility configuration and governance policies at the supply side, and the impact of technology on the environment, economy and social sustainable development at the effect side are the key issues to explore. The potential application of autonomous vehicles in tourism can provide valuable insights for the automotive industry, academic research in tourism, and studies on behavioral decision-making.

The inquiry on the nature of culture and tourism has never been interrupted in the academic communities, but barely from the perspective of extra-disciplinary communication and dialogue. Based on the 4Ss space theory of geography and the 4Ps creativity theory of psychology, the article deconstructs the 8Ps creativity theory into an 8-dimensional intersubjective space, and in this regard integrates a new concept, creativity space, to reinterpret the essence of culture and tourism. It is believed that: (1) creativity space is the space where creativity and space modify and define each other, and jointly form the space of development and evolution; it is the space where creativity is embedded in spatiality and spatiality implies creativity, and the space where subjectivity and objectivity are interacting with each other in a dualistic way and transforming each other into the space of subjectivity or intersubjectivity. (2) Taking creativity space as a prism, problems have been reflected, such as neglecting creativity, insufficient understanding of spatiality, magnified cultural boundaries and narrowed tourism boundaries in the existing knowledge of the nature of culture and tourism. (3) Creativity eliminates the antagonism between tourism and work, pointing to the process of creativity; spatiality gives culture a spatial composition of “4·8” dimensions, pointing to the products and results of creativity; and subject-object interactions and mutual transformations of duality provide the basis for symmetrical analyses of culture and tourism. (4) The essence of culture is spatiality, and the essence of tourism is creativity; the essence of the relationship between culture and tourism is dualistic, and the essence is the formation, development and cyclic evolution of creativity. The concept of creativity space not only provides a self-consistent theoretical explanation for re-understanding the nature of culture and tourism, but also provides new perspectives for their seriousness cognition, disciplinary construction, integration and development, and explanation of working mechanism.

With the development of tourism and information technology, the connotation of tourism landscape is continuously expanding. The “people” in tourist destinations have become tourism landscapes under the gaze of “self” and “others” in the tourism field, achieving a transformation from “physical people” to “landscape people”. Based on the development background of the digital society, this research analyzes the connotation of landscape people based on the gaze theory, constructs a life cycle curve model of the landscaping of people, and discusses its process. The research suggests that: (1) landscape people refer to residents, tourism service personnel, experiential tourists and tourism anchors (bloggers) who are attached to the unique cultural characteristics and symbols of the tourist destination in the tourism scenarios, and can meet the needs of tourist experience and gaze. (2) Landscaping of people is produced by tourism gaze, and with the development of tourist destinations, landscape reconstruction is constantly carried out, showing an “S” type evolutionary path, which is a process from “other construction” to “self-construction”. (3) With the development of the landscaping of people in tourism destinations, the degree of the landscaping of people will ultimately result in three results: positive landscaping, neutral landscaping, and negative landscaping. “Dialogue” is a way of adjusting from negative landscaping to positive landscaping and neutral landscaping. (4) The landscaping of people is the result of the joint action of internal and external factors, driven by multiple stakeholders. The research enriches the theoretical explanation of tourism landscape and tourism gaze, and also provides innovative practical ideas for the sustainable development of tourist destinations in the context of digital society.

It is of great significance to analyze the spatio-temporal behavior characteristics of tourists for the planning and management of tourism in national parks. In this study, the spatio-temporal behavior characteristics of tourists with different travel modes were analyzed by using tourists’ GPS trajectories and marking points data, Open Street Map (OSM) road network and Point of Interest (POI) data of scenic spots in Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, combined with the seasonal intensity index and relevant GIS spatial analysis. The results indicate that: (1) there are distinct seasonal characteristics in the travel time of tourists on foot, by bicycle, and by car. Tourists on foot and by bicycle mostly travel in winter, while tourists by car mainly travel in summer. Moreover, there are differences in the total mileage, total time, number of marking points, and average speed of tourists with different travel modes across different seasons. (2) Influenced by road traffic and scenic spots, the tourist marking points are unevenly distributed in space, and the marking points of tourists on foot are scattered as a whole and gathered locally, while the marking points of tourists by bicycle and car are more concentrated. (3) The trajectories of tourists on foot are the most widely and densely distributed in the national park, while the trajectories of tourists by bicycle and car are mainly distributed in Wuzhishan area with good road construction. Based on the research results, relevant suggestions are put forward for optimization of the pattern and sustainable development of tourism in Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park.

The adaptiveness of tourism economic efficiency and resilience is the core issue to improve the anti-risk ability and operational efficiency of the tourism industry and achieve high-quality development. In this paper, the super-efficiency EBM model and the genetic algorithm projection tracing model were used to measure the tourism economic efficiency and resilience of China’s provincial-level regions from 2006 to 2021, respectively, and the interaction between the two was revealed by the Panel Vector Auto-Regressive (PVAR) model and the random forest regression model. The results show that: (1) the efficiency and resilience of China’s tourism economy show an upward trend, but with different fluctuation characteristics, namely large fluctuations in efficiency and relatively stable resilience. There are obvious differences in the spatial evolution characteristics of the two regions, with the distribution of high-efficiency areas showing the pattern of “random distribution-southwest aggregation”, and the distribution of high-resilience areas showing the characteristics of “point-line distribution-eastern coastal agglomeration”. (2) There is a significant two-way causal relationship between tourism economic efficiency and resilience, and both have a self-reinforcing mechanism. The importance of efficiency to resilience is greater than that of resilience to efficiency, and the improvement of efficiency has a more significant long-term promotion effect on resilience. (3) The market size and informatization level have the greatest impact on the efficiency and resilience of tourism economy. (4) The random forest regression model reveals the nonlinear relationship between tourism economic efficiency and resilience with “smooth-promotion-convergence” pattern. The findings of this study enrich the understanding of the relationship between tourism economic efficiency and resilience, and also provide a decision-making reference for improving the anti-risk ability of the tourism industry and promoting the high-quality development of the tourism industry.

Short videos have become a crucial tool for publicized tourism destinations, however, quantifying the symbols perception of short videos scientifically remains a challenging research area. In this study, drawing on the Symbolic Interaction Theory and focusing on the context of ethnic villages tourism, we develop a measurement scale for symbols perception through a combination of content analysis and quasi-experimental methods. The results show that: (1) Symbols in tourism short videos of ethnic villages can be divided into three categories: characters, images, and sounds. (2) The symbols perception in tourism short videos of ethnic villages can be measured across eight dimensions, including blogger symbols, village residents’ symbols, tourist symbols, ethnic cultural symbols, landscape symbols, textual symbols, music symbols and language symbols. (3) Symbols perception related to village residents and ethnic culture have the greatest impact, and the predictive validity of character symbols perception on tourism intention is significantly higher than that of image and sound symbol perception. Empirical research on symbol perception in the field of tourism short videos clarifies the dimensions of symbol perception in the context of ethnic village tourism, deepening the understanding of audience symbols perception, and providing important theoretical basis for marketing communication of ethnic village destinations on short video platforms.

The identification of desert tourism suitable area (DTSA) is the primary condition and basis for site selection to promote the development of desert tourism. The study established a DTSA evaluation index system by comprehensively integrating regional tourism development support conditions, ecological constraints, and the maximum marginal benefits of economic and social development. Taking Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) as a case study, the paper carries out the grading optimization of evaluation factors based on the regional conditions, thus realizing the construction of the DTSA model and conducting the spatial identification and empirical test. The results show that: natural factors, transportation accessibility, elemental support and industrial promotion are the four dimensions constituting the DTSA; among which natural factors and transportation accessibility have greater influence weights. The periphery of low altitude and low slope desert, along with the sufficient water sources, developed transportation road network and rich source markets are the distribution areas with high suitability for desert tourism in Xinjiang, and the identification results coincide with the selection of sites for 77.78% of the established national desert parks in Xinjiang. The DTSA evaluation system and identification method proposed in the study can provide some reference for desert tourism resource development.

Awe is a psychological emotion experienced by individuals when confronting vast and sacred objects, while tourism awe refers to the special awe experience in tourism environment. Compared with daily environment, there exist more awe elicitors in tourism environment, which not only makes a difference to tourists’ physical experiences, but serves as a bridge between tourists and destinations to promote ecological civilization awareness and cultural confidence, and consequently helps to implement the practical education value of tourism. By analyzing the relevant literature, we propose the concept and research framework of tourism awe, analyze its nature and dimensions, and construct a general framework for the study, aiming to call attention to tourism awe. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Tourism awe is an immersive experience with multiple elements including perceived vastness and need for accommodation, which is triggered by tourism resources and its related imageries in real tourism environment, and interactive generation, physical and mental presence, dynamic diversity are the main characteristics of tourism awe; (2) Aesthetics, rationality, and faith are the three dimensions of tourism awe; (3) Cohesion of common values, cultivation of cultural self-confidence, and practice of ecological civilization are the three major functions of tourism awe; (4) Generation, assessment, effect, and mechanism of tourism awe is the main direction of future research, while identification of the induced sources, dimensions, results, and influencing factors of tourism awe is one of the key issues, and the logical relationship among the four constitutes the research framework of tourism awe. However, the participation of tourism studies in awe research is still insufficient, thus in the demand for further activation of tourism education function through tourism awe in practice cannot be effectively released. In the future, tourism awe should be further investigated in order to better understand and apply the realization path of tourism education function to promote the high-quality development of tourism industry.

The analysis of the complex structure evolution of regional tourism economic spatial networks in existing studies is insufficient, and the joint influence of endogenous and exogenous factors on network evolution has not been analyzed. Taking the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as an case, this paper selects the years 2000, 2010 and 2019 as time cross-sections, and uses complex network method and Stochastic Actor-oriented Model (SAOM) to reveal the structural evolution and endogenous and exogenous factors of the tourism economic spatial network in the YRD. The results show that: (1) the spatial network of tourism economy in the YRD does not exhibit scale-free characteristics in 2000 and 2019, but shows scale-free nature in 2010. The small-world characteristics of the network remain unchanged over time, demonstrating a certain degree of stability. (2) The network forms four communities across all three time sections, and the spatial relative positions of communities remain largely unchanged. (3) The formation and evolution of the tourism economic spatial network in the YRD are the result of the synergistic influence of endogenous and exogenous driving factors. In terms of endogenous network structure, it is significantly influenced by the transitive triads configura-tions, with tourism economic relations between cities evolving towards a triad closure. (4) In terms of node attributes, cities with high levels of transportation, economies development, and superior tourism resources are more likely to establish tourism economic connections with other cities. (5) In terms of inter-node relationship attributes, geographical and organizational proximity have a significant driving effect on the tourism economic connections between cities, while institutional and cultural proximity have a negative impact. This paper has great significance in providing supplementary insights into the impact of endogenous structural dynamics on spatial networks of tourism economy.

The enhancement of household human capital has driven diversified needs in consumers’ travel experiences. This paper delves into the impact of household human capital on the consumption of intangible cultural heritage tourism and examines the variability of this influence at different stages of family life cycle. The research indicates that: (1) the enhancement of household human capital, encompassing the educational levels, health status, and financial income of family members, has a significant and positive affect on the consumption of intangible cultural heritage tourism. (2) Family life cycle serves as a crucial moderator in how household human capital impacts intangible cultural heritage tourism consumption. Particularly in families at the full nest II stage, the positive influence of household human capital on such tourism consumption is markedly more pronounced compared to families in the nesting and empty nest stages, where the impact is less significant. (3) Preferences for intangible cultural heritage tourism models also differ among members of families in various life cycle stages. For instance, families in the nesting stage show a greater preference for homestay and cultural creative tourism projects, families in the full nest stage lean towards educational tours and cultural creative projects, and families in the empty nest stage have a stronger inclination towards festivals and cultural creative experiences. Accordingly, it is suggested that the promotion and development of intangible cultural heritage tourism should concentrate on families with higher levels of human capital and tailor suitable intangible cultural heritage tourism projects for families in different life cycle stages. This paper not only contributes to the existing body of research on factors influencing family tourism consumption but also offers theoretical foundation and practical direction for the establishment of market strategies and innovation in intangible cultural heritage tourism products.

Employment is the first priority of the livelihood projects. The digital economy has accelerated the digital transformation of the cultural & tourism industry, which has continuously generated new employment forms and flexible employment methods. This paper analyzes the mechanism by which the digital economic development affects the scale and structure of cultural & tourism employment from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. The results show that: (1) the creation effect of digital economic development is greater than the substitution effect of that on cultural & tourism employment; (2) the digital economy not only expands the scale of cultural & tourism employment by enhancing the attractiveness of the cultural & tourism market, but also prompts an increase in the proportion of cultural & tourism employees with higher digital skills and human capital content, which in turn improves the matching rate of the cultural & tourism labor market and promotes the optimization of the cultural & tourism employment structure; (3) there are differences in the effects generated by different levels of the digital economy on the scale of cultural & tourism employment, with the greatest impact of the digital foundation layer, the less impact of the digital application layer, and the least impact of digital technology layer; (4) in terms of the differences in the effects of the digital economy on regions and skill groups at different stages of development, the development of the digital economy is conducive to the optimization of the cultural & tourism employment structure in regions with low digital economic development level and low-skilled groups. This research helps to deepen the understanding of the intrinsic relationship between the digital economy and cultural & tourism employment, and better promote the high-quality development of culture & tourism.

The pursuit of well-being is an important element of people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. With the increasing weight of ecological environment in people’s life well-being index, it is of great significance to pay attention to the well-being of tourists in eco-tourism destinations. However, at present, there are limited relevant studies on well-being involving eco-tourism and eco-tourists. Based on the content analysis method, this study takes Wuyishan Scenery District, a world cultural and natural heritage site, as a case to explore the influencing factors and action paths of tourists’ well-being in eco-tourism destinations, so as to provide reference for the research on the correlation between eco-tourism and tourists’ well-being. The findings are as follows: (1) From the perspective of objective factors, the aesthetic quality of natural landscape and the management ability of tourist destination play an important role in improving tourist satisfaction and positive emotion, and they jointly promote the formation of tourists’ well-being in eco-tourism destinations; (2) From the perspective of subjective factors, the formation of tourist well-being is mainly achieved through the acquisition of subjective experience elements such as active tourism emotion, positive inter-subjective relationship, subjective environment control, subjective potential stimulation, subjective meaning pursuit, subjective physical and mental input, and subjective activity participation; (3) The formation path of tourists’ well-being in eco-tourism destinations includes three action paths: positive emotion type with obtaining positive emotion as the core, environmental control type with selecting suitable environment as the core, and meaning acquisition type with achieving life purpose and meaning as the core. The study suggested that eco-tourism destinations should strengthen ecological protection, improve management services and enrich eco-tourism products to enhance tourists’ well-being, so as to promote the coordinated development of supply and demand between ecotourism products and ecotourists.

The complexity of urban functions and structure brings new challenges to the spatial layout of tourism industry factors. This study focuses on the main urban area of Fuzhou City and examines the spatial distribution of the six factors of the tourism industry: catering, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, and entertainment. Bivariate Ripley’s K function is introduced to reveal the “distance-agglomeration” correlation pattern among these factors. The results show that: (1) the spatial distribution density of the six factors of the tourism industry has a strong correlation with the urban functional zoning, and the pattern of the six factors shows the distribution characteristics of “along the river, large agglomeration and small dispersion”, and forms multiple spatial clusters. (2) The agglomeration hotspots distribution of the six factors of tourism industry has spatial commonality and heterogeneity. The hotspots of catering, shopping, and entertainment factors demonstrate strong spatial correlations, while sightseeing hotspots tend to have a mono-core distribution. Transportation hotspots have a broader distribution range, and accommodation hotspots have a strong tourist flow and transportation orientation. (3) The study identifies four types of “distance-agglomeration” spatial correlation patterns among the six factors of the tourism industry. The patterns include “close distance-strong agglomeration” and “close distance-weak agglomeration”, with the shopping factors at the center. The “long distance-weak agglomeration” pattern is associated with transportation and sightseeing factors, while the “long distance-strong agglomeration” model is centered on entertainment factors. This analysis offers a deepen spatial understanding of the relationships between different factors of the tourism industry.

Environmental justice is an important indicator for evaluating the effectiveness of ecological civilization construction and a key to unlocking sustainable management of ecosystem services. This paper uses the CiteSpace, the knowledge graph analysis tool, to systematically review the research progress on environmental justice in ecosystem service management at home and abroad. The main findings are: (1) Research on environmental justice in ecosystem service management has obvious stage characteristics, with international research in a rapidly developing stage and domestic research still in its early stages; (2) Both domestic and international research are mainly case-study based, with relatively few theoretical and comprehensive studies, emphasizing the application of environmental justice concepts in ecosystem service management practices; (3) The research mainly focuses on the concept model, evaluation, practice, and influencing factors of environmental justice in ecosystem service management. However, there are still problems such as insufficient exploration of perspectives from different stakeholders, lack of comparative studies on multiple cases and scales, and weak quantitative expression. Finally, this article constructs an environmental justice research framework for ecosystem service management, focusing on key issues such as the internal logic and mechanism of the relationship between ecosystem services and environmental justice, defining environmental justice standards in different social and ecological environments, identifying the needs and power differences of different stakeholders, and the implementation path of integrating environmental justice into ecosystem service management.

Ancient roads are important linear tourist destinations and typical cultural memory space. It is of great significance to clarify the process and internal mechanism of tourists’ cultural memory perception of the ancient road for promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism and revitalizing the ancient road tourism destinations. Based on the theory of cultural memory and from the perspective of tourists, this article explores the dimensions, characteristics, and paths of cultural memory perception in ancient tourist destinations along the Hui-Hang Ancient Road. The study concludes that: (1) the cultural memory perception of Hui-Hang Ancient Road consists of five parts, namely, time dimension, space dimension, cultural dimension, emotional dimension and body dimension, among which the body dimension is a necessary component of memory perception, and the body, emotion and cultural memory are inextricably linked to each other, and there exists a “body and emotion-cultural memory” transformation mechanism. (2) The cultural memory perception of Hui-Hang Ancient Road is characterized by significant spatial and temporal differences, body and emotion interaction, and cultural coupling. (3) The cultural perception path of Hui-Hang Ancient Road includes text system, intention system and ritual system, and the tourists form a multi-dimensional and circular cultural memory perception path under the stimulation of these three types of systems.

This paper aims to deal with the limitations of data preprocessing methods in the comprehensive evaluation of complex index system, especially for the evaluation of complex fields such as the culture and tourism integration, and regional innovation. To further improve the benchmarking method, we study the applicability of discursive benchmarking method, follow the general principles of comprehensive index evaluation, and propose taking the benchmarking value as the basis of weight allocation to determine the benchmarking coefficient, and construct the “benchmarking coefficient·benchmarking value” assessment method. Taking the old revolutionary base areas of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou as the case study, our research included 80 counties (cities, districts). Using the improvement method, the paper empirical measures the level of the integration effects of red culture and tourism from 2013 to 2022, and compares the evaluation results with the established methods. The results confirm the superiority of the improvement methods in the evaluation of the integration effects of red culture and tourism. It is mainly reflected in the rationality of the index weights, the consistency of the evaluation results with the reality, and the comparability and stability of the evaluation results. The “benchmarking coefficient·benchmarking value” approach enriches comprehensive evaluations, offering novel insights for accurately assessing complex systems like the integration of culture and tourism and regional innovation.

With diverse types of tourism resources, the current national standards for resource classification are difficult to fully apply to all specific scenarios. Taking marine tourism resources as an example, this study explores the classification system construction ideas and methods for theme-oriented tourism resources, and empirically tests them in Penglai District in Yantai City, which is a coastal tourist destination and the Changdao Marine Ecological Civilization Comprehensive Experimental Area, an island tourist destination. The study finds that: (1) the construction of a theme-oriented tourism resources classification system can be achieved based on the idea of “attribute cognition, knowledge acquisition, relationship construction”. Attribute cognition, through the differentiation of the heterogeneity of conceptual connotation and spatial range, can define the type category of theme-oriented tourism resources. Knowledge acquisition, through the extraction of type concepts and their relationships, can provide a knowledge base for the construction of theme-oriented tourism resources classification. Relationship building, based on the “line-surface” combined classification method, establishes the hierarchical and inter-layer relationships of types, thereby constructing a classification system for theme-oriented tourism resources. (2) The classification methods for theme-oriented tourism resources can be summarized as: the classification of major categories based on the cognition of resource heterogeneity, the classification of main categories based on three methods of national standard citation, national standard recombination, and characteristic improvement. The classification of subcategories introduces the faceted classification, and the classification of basic categories based on the multidimensional attributes of types. (3) The case study empirically constructs a classification system for marine tourism resources composed of four levels, and the verification confirms that the proposed ideas and methods have strong scientific and applicability in constructing a theme-oriented tourism resources classification system. This study enriches the cognition and methods of tourism resource classification system, which can provide scientific reference for the research and practice of tourism resources protection and utilization.

Waterfront space is an important place that reflects the quality of urban space and carries the function of urban recreation. Promoting the production of waterfront recreation space is an important issue in urban regeneration. The paper introduces the affordance theory and uses grounded theory to analyze the human-environment interaction mechanism in the production of urban waterfront recreation space. The results show that: (1) the human-environment interaction elements of urban waterfront recreation space include basic conditions, infrastructure, recreation environment, landscape quality, recreation facilities, and recreation services. (2) There are three stages of human-environment interaction. In the image recognition stage, basic conditions and infrastructure elements stimulate potential recreation subjects to form spatial cognition; in the on-site experience stage, recreation environment and landscape quality elements trigger recreation subjects to form place perception, and recreation facilities and recreation service elements support recreation subjects to form usage experience during activities; in the recollection and feedback stage, recreation subjects integrate their perceived interaction elements to form recreation feedback, which in turn affects the spatial cognition and spatial practice of other subjects. (3) Progressive and staged human-environment interaction achieves cognitive affordability, place affordability, functional affordability, and interactive affordability, which in turn promotes the circular reproduction of the meaning and function of urban waterfront recreation space. The study provides a new case for research related to spatial production and can be used as a reference for decision-making on the regeneration of urban waterfront recreation space and the improvement of spatial experience quality.

With the increasing emphasis on ecological environmental protection and sustainable development objectives in the world, the advancement of green tourism not only facilitates the green transformation of the tourism sector but also holds significant implications for fostering harmonious coexistence between human and nature within specific regions. This study undertakes a comprehensive analysis of pertinent research literature on green tourism both domestically and internationally, articulating a definition and elucidating the connotations of green tourism. It synthesizes research themes from various perspectives, including green tourism products, supply chains, industries, destinations, tourist behaviors, as well as certification and policy frameworks related to green tourism. Furthermore, it sorts out the fundamental theories and applied technical methods for green tourism research. The study argues that current research in green tourism exhibits characteristics indicative of interdisciplinary integration; thus necessitating an enhancement in systematic content alongside diversified theoretical approaches in future research. Accordingly, the article puts forward seven research prospects: innovating the theoretical framework for green tourism system, constructing and assessing a green tourism product system, revealing the structure and operational mechanism of the green tourism supply chain along with its evolutionary patterns, exploring the development strategies and paths of the green tourism industry, optimizing the development model of green tourism destinations, clarifying behavioral patterns among eco-conscious tourists alongside strategies for their guidance, and enhancing the green tourism evaluation standards and certification system. This study offers scientific guidance and practical references for fostering both ecological transition within the tourism sector and its high-quality development.

Heritagization is an important cultural process and means of generating, constructing and deconstructing heritage identity. Elucidating its influence mechanismon the heritage identity of residents of different generations is conducive to realize the intergenerational inheritance of cultural heritage. Based on the theory of heritage identity, this paper aims to analyze the influence of heritagization on the heritage identity of residents from different generations in the Hani Terraces heritage site in Yuanyang through field research and qualitative text analysis. The results show that: (1) Heritagization affects residents’ heritage identity of different generations, including value identity, subject identity and space identity. (2) In terms of value identity, heritagization positively affects the identity of aesthetic, scientific and socio-economic values of heritage among different residents, but it has a more significant impact on identity of scientific and socio-economic values of terraces landscape among older generations. (3) In terms of subjective identity, there is no difference in the impact of heritagization on the subjective identity and self-identity of community residents of different generations. (4) In terms of space identity, heritagization significantly enhances the local identity of heritage among different generations of community residents, but has no significant impacts on the national scale identity of the heritage. In view of this, the active cultivation of heritage identity among community residents should not only disseminate the holistic heritage values, but also build an inclusive heritage identity system covering multiple subjects and spatial scales.

“Food” is one of the special types of attraction at tourist destinations and an essential part of tourist reception service. In this study, 169 representative national-level intangible cultural heritage items of food were used as data sources, and geospatial analysis method was applied to analyze their spatial characteristics and influencing factors. The study shows that: (1) the national-level intangible cultural heritage items of food show a spatial pattern of “clustering”, and the spatial pattern was “more in the south and less in the north, more in the east and less in the west”, with a high degree of clustering in Beijing, Sichuan, Shanxi and Zhejiang. (2) There are significant differences in the distribution of national-level intangible cultural heritage items of food. Tea is mainly distributed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui regions. Wine is mainly distributed in Sichuan-Guizhou region, Beijing-Hebei region and Jiangsu-Zhejiang region. Flour and pasta are clustered in Zhejiang and Guangxi-Guangdong region, and in the belt of Eastern Gansu, Southern Ningxia, Shaanxi and Shanxi, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Sichuan-Chongqing-Guizhou region and Eastern Shanxi region are the main distribution areas of sauces and spices. Dishes are mainly distributed in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Dessert and snacks are concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the north of Beijing-Hebei, southwest of Guangdong and other regions. (3) Natural geographical environment factors indirectly affect the formation of national-level intangible cultural heritage items of food by affecting the natural distribution of crops, national intangible cultural heritage inheritors; tourism development and cultural financial support are the main human geographical environment factors affecting the spatial differentiation of national intangible cultural heritage items of food; and historical and cultural factors provide a good cultural ecosystem for the inheritance and agglomeration of intangible cultural heritage. The study contributes theoretically to the protection and inheritance of national-level intangible cultural heritage items of food and the deep integration and development of culture and tourism.

Nature education is an important function of Chinese national parks. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) analysis framework, a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) of the influence of nature education form perception-behavioral intentions in the Fujian area of Wuyishan National Park is constructed to analyze the influence of visitors' nature education form perception on their behavioral intentions. The results of the research show that: (1) the overall SEM model of the influence path is well adapted, the structural validity is well-established, and the path relationship between the variables is applicable to the analysis of the influence mechanism of the role of nature education in the national parks. (2) Nature education in the form of plant and animal tours, science exhibitions and themed outdoor classes have been well responded by visitors, and the Qinglong, Tianyoufeng, and the Dahongpao are the areas that are better perceived by the visitors. (3) The S-O-R process significantly affects visitors' revisit intention mainly through educational perception, functional cognition, which are the three most important path relationships; the S-R process is manifested in the direct positive effect of educational perception on revisit intention, and the nature education results of national parks have the composite effect of S-O-R and S-R at the same time, and the partially mediating effect is significant between the perception of nature education and revisit intention. Finally, the paper suggests that nature education in national parks should consider the level of public perception in the form of education, and should emphasize the content of nature education, improve the design of suitability for visitors, and explore the cultural significance of nature education.

Clarifying the symbiotic relationship between tourism and ecology in border provinces, as well as assessing the state of tourism ecological security, has great significance for promoting the coordinated development of the tourism industry and ecological security in border areas. The evaluation index system of tourism & ecology symbiosis in border provinces was established through DPSIR model, the Lotka-Volterra symbiosis model was introduced to analyze the symbiotic relationship between the tourism industry and the ecological environment and the tourism ecological security status, and the influencing factors were analyzed by the obstacle degree model and the gray correlation degree model. The results show that: (1) the indexes of tourism development potential, resource and environment capacity, and the ecological environment level in border provinces show a rapid increase, basic stability, and fluctuating upward trend, respectively. The index of tourist environmental pressure and the index of resource and environment response are the main obstacle factors for tourism development potential and resource and environment capacity, and the main obstacle factors for ecological environment level are wetland coverage rate, nature reserve area ratio, and greening coverage rate of urban built-up area. (2) The symbiotic relationship between tourism and ecology in border provinces is good, symbiosis patterns are dominated by mutually beneficial symbiosis, while the non-mutually beneficial patterns are dominated by tourism parasitism, indicating that tourism is in a strong position in the symbiotic relationship. (3) The tourism ecological security status in border provinces is generally safe, and the security status of each province shows a favorable trend, and the tourism ecological security status in the western, northeastern and southwestern border areas is dangerous, complex and safe, respectively, Jilin and Guangxi have a good state of tourism ecological security, Xinjiang and Xizang are poor. (4) The main factors influencing the tourism ecological security encompass the growth rate of tourist arrival, the growth rate of tourist income, the per capita water reserves, the direct economic losses of natural disasters, and the excellence rate of air quality.

Tourists’ eco-emotions promote environmental responsibility behaviors, which is beneficial to the sustainable development of natural tourist destinations. Based on the deductive path of cognitive-affective-behavioral theory, this paper introduces tourism motivation as a mediating variable, establishes a structural equation model, conducts an in-depth study on the relationship between tourists’ eco-emotions and environmental responsibility behaviors in natural tourist destinations, and explores the differences between the internal and external cognitive world. The results show that: (1) the external cognitive world is more effective than the internal cognitive world in promoting tourists’ eco-emotions and environmental responsibility behaviors; (2) the mediating effect of tourism motivation on the influence path of tourists’ eco-emotions on low-effort environmental responsibility behaviors has been verified, and it plays a partially mediating role in the influence path of high-effort environmental responsibility behaviors. Therefore, natural tourist destinations should play a leading role in ecology, enhance their educational attributes related to ecological functions, enrich the ways of experiencing ecological emotions, provide ecological services while paying attention to the conveyance of sustainable concepts, in order to achieve long-term sustainable development.

Capability deprivation is one of the fundamental reasons for poverty relapse among residents who have previously escaped from poverty. Based on Amartya Sen’s capability deprivation theory, this study constructs an index system of risk factors for poverty relapse by capability deprivation. Utilizing survey data on the perceived risk of poverty relapse among residents in rural tourism areas of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, binary logistic regression and variance analysis methods are employed to explore the risk factors of capability deprivation for poverty relapse and the impact of residents’ characteristics on their perceived risk of poverty relapse. The findings indicate that: (1) Seven factors, including the residents’ ability to obtain assistance, to invest in tourism development, to learn autonomously, to participate and accept tourism skills training, to promote tourism to external communities, and to save family property, are the main perceived risk factors for poverty relapse among residents. (2) Personal and family characteristics, such as occupation, education level, physical health, and tourism participation methods, significantly affect residents’ perceived risk of poverty relapse. (3) Residents who are frontline service workers in tourism and those who participate in tourism through individual or family self-employment have a stronger perception of poverty relapse risk. Residents with higher education levels correlate with stronger perceptions of poverty relapse risk. Compared to residents with no sick family members or multiple sick family members, those with only one sick family member are more sensitive to the risk of poverty relapse. The study suggests that, while maintaining the current assistance policies, it is crucial to uphold the primary role of ethnic rural tourism residents, cultivate their sustainable poverty alleviation capabilities, and conduct targeted monitoring and interventions for different resident characteristics, so as to help the local anti-poverty relapse work to be conducted effectively.

Government websites are an important channel connecting the government and the public and a core tool for digital government construction. The sustainable development of its service ecosystem is a guarantee for breaking through the information barriers and enhancing the public users’ willingness to use. Based on the information ecosystem theory, this paper tries to construct a service ecosystem evaluation framework for government websites based on DEWEM and UTAUT models from the perspectives of websites and users, and uses the system dynamics approach to empirically test the website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The paper concludes that: (1) In the government website service ecosystem evaluation framework constructed according to the information ecosystem theory, public users’ perception and expectation of use jointly contribute to the satisfaction of use, which in turn affects the users’ willingness to continue to use and ultimately determines the sustainable development of the government website service ecosystem; (2) The government website service ecosystem evaluation index system includes two parts: website usage perception and user expectation, of which, website usage perception includes 5 evaluation dimensions of transparency, appropriateness of information, convenience of service, security and public participation, and 12 representative indicators; and user expectation includes 2 evaluation dimensions, namely user demand and social impact, and 8 representative indicators; (3) The validity test of the government website service ecosystem evaluation index system finds that the two single indicators, namely, the number of natural person cases and the number of legal person cases, have the greatest impact on the sustainable development of the service ecosystem of tourism government websites; and the combination of the indicators such as the number of public disclosures in accordance with the application, the number of website security tests and evaluations, and the number of periods for soliciting surveys has a significant impact. It is recommended that tourism government websites follow the idea of synergistic development in the future, and pay more attention to the construction and development of online business processing functions, so as to ensure the sustainable development of the website service ecosystem.

Community elites play crucial roles in the development of rural tourism. This paper takes four villages in Huangpi District of Wuhan City as case studies and using text data collected through sampling, in-depth interviews and online recordings to analyze the roles of community elites and their influencing factors through grounded theory. The results show that: (1) according to the criteria of "achieving success through tourism participation, making contributions to the community development, having impacts on community decision-making and receiving recognition by most villagers”, five community elites were identified in the case area and they are in four categories, i.e. social, economic, cultural and political elites. (2) Community elites have not only promoted the transformation of villagers’ livelihoods and attracted the migrant workers coming back, but also revitalized the idle rural assets and promoted industrial restructuring; moreover, they have inherited outstanding traditional culture and established civilized rural customs; they have improved the human habitat environment; at the same time, they have also brought negative impacts, such as uneven distribution of benefits, land requisition conflicts, and increased living cost for the residents. Different types of community elites have played some common roles but have differences. For example, the economic elites have played a relatively weak role in cultural inheritance while the cultural and social elites contribute to economic development indirectly, and only the political elites have a balanced role. (3) At the early stage of participating in tourism, the role of community elites is influenced by both inside and outside factors such as entrepreneurial motivation and government support; while at the middle and late stages of participating in tourism, it was affected by their personal characteristics and social capital.

Toponymy is an important cultural tourism resource, not only as spatial symbols but also as cultural symbols, carrying collective memory and local identity. In the context of the deep integration of culture and tourism, the construction, dissemination and experience of toponymic symbols are crucial to the full use of toponymic cultural tourism resources. The paper systematically reviews the relevant results of domestic and foreign research on tourism symbols and toponymic tourism, based on the semiotic perspective, takes the semiotic ternary framework of “representamen-object-interpretant” proposed by Peirce as the theoretical basis and combines it with the characteristics of symbols to explore the relationship among the meaning of toponymic, destinations, and toponymic symbols, and construct the toponymic cultural tourism research framework. Through symbolic derivation, the openness, dynamism and diversity of toponymic meanings in tourism activities are further ensured, and the symbolic meanings of toponyms are continuously enriched. The paper summarizes the main research contents of tourism symbols of toponymic culture from the three dimensions of “representamen”, “object” and “interpretant”: construction of toponymic symbols, dissemination of toponymic symbols, and experience of toponymic symbols. Combined with the closed-loop logic of constructing, disseminating, experiencing and reconstructing toponymic symbols, the future research direction and research significance from the level of tourism destination, tourism media and tourists are elaborated, so as to push forward the practice of tourism symbolization of toponymy, and provide a comprehensive theoretical cognitive framework and analytical system for the future research.

Since the 20th century, art-based construction has become one of the important means of global rural development. The article, based on the BERTopic algorithm and literature analysis, deeply excavates the evolution of Chinese and English research themes on art-based rural construction and looks forward to future research trends. The results show that: (1) both Chinese and English research themes revolve around creativity and tourism based on rural culture and art as a means, with Chinese research mainly focusing on themes such as creative tourism, public art, traditional culture, locality, and subjectivity, while English research mainly focuses on themes such as creative industries, rural commodification, social participation, tourism communities, and sustainability. (2) In recent years, both Chinese and English research have emphasized issues such as the construction of subjectivity in art-based rural construction, exploration of paths and models, evaluation of benefits and impacts, analysis of cultural production mechanisms, and maintenance of cultural sustainability, but English research places more emphasis on empirical research and critical thinking. (3) From the research trend, the mechanism of collaborative participation of multiple stakeholders in art-based rural construction and the transformation of endogenous-driven sustainable development paradigms will be future focuses. Future research on art-based rural construction in China needs to aim at telling good stories of Chinese rural culture, using a research paradigm that combines general narratives with micro-case studies to reveal the dynamic process and mechanism of multi-stakeholder positive interaction, and apply multidisciplinary methods to optimize the assessment system, thereby improving the localization of art-based rural construction research system and providing scientific references for the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Development entities play a significant role in rural tourism, but the divergent interests among stakeholders can lead to different decisions and behaviors, potentially challenging the sustainable development of rural tourism. This study constructs an evolutionary game model to simulate and analyze the tripartite game process among grassroots governments, rural elites, and community residents. The findings reveal that: (1) in the decision-making process of rural tourism development, all three parties demonstrate an intention of maximizing benefits while reducing their own cost inputs, which may result in strategic discrepancies. (2) During rural tourism development, grassroots governments decisions are primarily influenced by reward cost, governance benefit, and reputation loss. Rural elites’ decisions are mainly affected by additional project cost, return from rural tourism projects, and benefit or loss from speculative behavior. Community residents’ participation decisions primarily depend on participation cost. High input cost coupled with low return are identified as core factors diminishing the enthusiasm of all parties for rural tourism development. (3) In the initial stages of development, various preliminary investments increase fiscal burdens, reducing grassroots governments’ willingness to actively support rural tourism and leading to speculative behavior of rural elites. In the middle and late stages of development, as policy reward thresholds increase, projects become homogenized, and income decreases, community residents’ willingness to participate is limited. Consequently, rural elites may give up the strategy of developing rural tourism projects in favor of speculative benefits. By analyzing the influencing factors of each party’s behavior, this study proposes strategic adjustment recommendations for different stages of rural tourism, aiming to optimize rural tourism project development and management, and promote sustainable development.

Historical districts are important spaces for urban memory, culture, and consumption. Enhancing tourists’scene perception is a crucial issue for the deep integration of cultural and tourism development in historical districts. This study is based on the scene theory and uses three historical districts in Macau, China, as examples. We utilize online review text data and Points of Interest (POI) data from Baidu Maps. Through word frequency analysis, semantic network analysis, axial coding, kernel density estimation, amenity scoring, and scene measurement calculations, we explore the impact of cultural scene amenities on tourist perception. The study finds that: (1) tourists’scene perception in historic districts mainly includes eight elements, including historical sites, architectural style, local characteristics, art exhibitions, activities, spatial atmosphere, leisure consumption, and culinary experiences. These elements can be categorized into three main types of cultural scene amenities: heritage buildings, cultural displays, and consumption experiences. (2) Heritage buildings form the foundation of tourists’scene perception, while consumption experiences and cultural displays have a more significant impact on tourists’perception. (3) Tourists’subjective perception is positively influenced by the density of amenities in the objective scene, but it is also affected by the complex relationship between amenity types and spatial distribution. While high-density amenities typically enhance perception, low-density distribution does not necessarily lead to reduced attention. (4) The three types of amenities are closely related to the dimensions of “authenticity” “theatricality” and “legitimacy” with a one-to-one manner. Deficiencies in the expression of the dimensions can diminish the subjective perception of tourists and the overall appeal of the cultural scene. The study enriches the application of the scene theory with case examples and provides valuable insights for the sustainable protection and development of historical districts.

“Special Forces-style Tourism”, as an emerging form of tourism, is favored by specific groups for its extreme challenges, high-intensity experiences, and ultimate tests of physical and mental abilities. Based on embodied cognition theory, the study conducts a grounded theory analysis by collecting online textual data to explore the mental dilemmas and the formation pathways of escape compensation behaviors in “Special Forces-style Tourism”. The results show that: (1) the formation of tourist “Special Forces-style Tourism” behavior is spatially manifested as a process from living space to tourism space to emotional space, in which tourists develop a sense of disequilibrium from their living space, which then trigger their embodied experiential behavior in the tourism space, and ultimately fulfill their emotional needs; (2) The source market group tends to choose “Special Forces-style Tourism” mostly due to the disturbances of mental dilemmas in real life, with the roots of these mental dilemmas being an imbalanced perception jointly caused by regret compensation, approval seeking, relationship deepening, and the feeling between emptiness and fulfillment; (3) In the tourism space, tourists cope with the imbalanced perception in their living space through escape compensation behaviors such as self-exploration, physical embedding, and benign self-mutilation; (4) The perception of pain makes a positive contribution to the “Special Forces-style Tourism” experience, where tourists can obtain pleasure, a sense of achievement, and a sense of fulfillment by safely trying stimulating physical pain, and the essence of this choice tendency is benign self-mutilation. The exploration of the behavioral pathway of “Special Forces-style Tourism” not only enriches the applicability of embodied cognition theory in different tourism situations but also provides customized services and experience design ideas for the tourism industry.

Family tourism can enhance individual well-being and family cohesion; however, the mechanisms by which intergenerational family interactions contribute to the subjective well-being of participants during travel have not been extensively explored. Drawing on family systems theory, conservation of resources theory, and cultural adaptation theory, this paper introduces family functioning as a mediating variable and cultural intelligence as a moderating variable. It constructs a correlational test model to examine the formation of subjective well-being through intergenerational interactions during family tourism. The results show that: (1) intergenerational interactions are closely linked to the subjective well-being of tourists and positively promote the subjective well-being of tourists. (2) Communication and interaction among family members is a key factor in the health of family functioning, and family functioning plays a key mediating role in intergenerational interaction and tourists' subjective well-being. (3) The cultural intelligence level of travelers can effectively enhance the positive associations of intergenerational interactions on subjective well-being. These findings provide new perspectives on the willingness and motivation of Chinese-style families to travel, expand the application of cultural intelligence in the field of tourism from the level of cultural adaptation, and provide new ideas for the high-quality development of the intergenerational tourism market.

Strengthening tourists’ cultural perception is an important way to strengthen their cultural identity in the process of tourism practice. Based on the perspective of cultural IP decoding, using text mining and grounded theory, the paper identified the multiple dimensions of cultural perception of tourists in the Yangtze River National Cultural Park, constructed a theoretical model of cultural perception affecting cultural identity, and explored the mechanism of cultural perception affecting cultural identity. The results show that: (1) tourists’ cultural perception has multiple representations such as cultural symbol perception, cultural scenes perception, historical relics perception, and service facility perception, which are logically corresponding to the decoding of cultural connotations, cultural values, cultural spirits, and cultural spaces in the process of cultural IP decoding hierarchy, respectively. (2) Tourists’ cultural perception and cultural identity are highly correlated. The explanatory variables for tourist cultural perception can be subdivided into six dimensions: ethnic and folk culture, landscape architecture, cultural atmosphere, scene interaction, historical events, and historical ruins, and the indicators of each dimension have a significant impact on tourist cultural identity. (3) Tourists’ cultural perception is generated through four procedural stages: motivation index, sensory experience, situational integration, and perceptual sublimation. Cultural identity is specifically manifested as value recognition and identity recognition, which is the result of interaction between tourists and culture. The research has supplemented the analytical perspective of cultural perception, deepened the theoretical understanding of the cultural perception identity mechanism, and provided reference for promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism development and strengthening the sense of community of the Chinese nation.

Enhancing the safety of cruise tourism is crucial for preserving the reputation of cruise ships, safeguarding the healthy development of the industry, preventing accidents, and enhancing public confidence. Based on data from 3 376 global cruise accidents from 2000 to 2024, this paper employs chi-square tests and categorical regression methods to statistically analyze the types and consequences of worldwide cruise tourism accidents. It further examines the correlation among catastrophic accidents, social security incidents, public health emergencies, natural disasters and other contributing factors. The findings indicate that: (1) the number of cruise accidents aligns closely with the growth trajectory of the cruise industry; accident probabilities are elevated in busy maritime areas and ports; catastrophic incidents represent the most prevalent category of cruise-related mishaps with a wide array of subclasses exhibiting their complexity and diversity. (2) There exist variations in both nature and severity regarding accident outcomes across different incident types; public health emergencies and natural disasters tend to cause higher casualty rates. (3) Significant disparities are observed in the causative factors behind cruise tourism accidents. Personnel factors are closely related to the occurrence of catastrophic accidents, public health accidents and social security accidents; equipment factors are also important triggers of catastrophic accidents; environmental elements predominantly drive natural disasters as well as numerous catastrophic events; management factors have a great impact on the development of public health accidents. Accordingly, this paper proposes several suggestions on risk control measures for cruise tourism to serve as guidance for effective safety management and sustainable development of cruise tourism.

Residents within a province are an important market group for the high-quality development of red tourism, and also an important force in promoting the “internal circulation” of the tourism economy. Based on the Baidu Tourism Scenic Area Index as the basic data, the paper measures online attention and explores the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics and driving factors of residents’ online attention to red classic scenic spots in Hunan Province from 2011 to 2019. The results show that: (1) in terms of time, the network attention of residents to classic red scenic spots in the province has been increasing year by year during the study period, and the seasonal concentration index showed an inverted “V” shaped change. Monthly change of red classic scenic spots can be classified into single-peak, double-peak, and multi-peak types. For the single-peak type, the online attention to red classic scenic spots peaks in the summer; for the double-peak and the multi-peak types, the online attention forms several peak periods from July to October. (2) At the end of the research period, the online attention of Hunan residents to red classic scenic spots shows a trend of increasing gradually from the western part to the central and eastern parts of the province, with specific regional differences manifested as Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan region> Great Southern Hunan region> Pan-Dongting Lake region> Western Hunan region, forming a spatial pattern with Mao Zedong’s former residence and Liu Shaoqi’s former residence as the core, Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan region as the hinterland in a belt-like spatial diffusion pattern. (3) The core driving factors for the residents online attention to red classic scenic spots include per capita GDP, per capita disposable income, urbanization level, number of Internet users, number of hotels rated above two stars, number of tourists, number of public buses, and number of red scenic spots above 4A level; the important driving factor is the year-end population, and the general driving factors include the number of employees, Engel’s coefficient of urban residents, passenger turnover quantity, the number of national patriotic education bases, and climate comfort level.

Improving the level of digital infrastructure construction is an important measure to strengthen the resilience of the tourism economy, release the multiplier effect of the tourism industry chain, and enhance the high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry. Based on the panel data of 31 provincial-level regions in China from 2011 to 2022, this paper uses the entropy method to measure the resilience of tourism economy and the level of digital infrastructure construction. The benchmark regression model, threshold model and spatial Durbin model are used to reveal the direct, non-linear and spatial spillover effects of digital infrastructure construction on the resilience of tourism economy. The results show that: (1) the construction of digitial infrastructure has effectively enhanced the resilience of the tourism economy and passed a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. (2) There is a non-linear increasing effect based on the intensity of financial supervison regarding the impact of the construction of digital infrastructure on the resilience of the tourism economy. (3) The construction of digital infrastructure has a positive spatial spillover effect on the resilience of the tourism economy. In view of this, the paper puts forward policy suggestions to further enhance the role of digital infrastructure construction in promoting the resilience of tourism economy from three aspects: formulating differentiated development strategies, giving a full play to financial regulation and improving the level of cross-provincial cooperation.

The rapid development of cruise tourism has made it one of the most competitive sectors in the modern tourism industry. Seasonality is a primary characteristic of tourism activities, significantly shaping cruise tourism operations and development. However, existing research on the seasonality of cruise tourism continues to follow traditional paradigms, often neglecting the distinctive nature of cruise tourism compared to other types of tourism, particularly the crucial influence of shipping factors on cruise tourism seasonality. In addition, current literature often on seasonal characteristics of the measurement method is also relatively one-sided. In light of this, this study examines the Mediterranean region, integrating seasonal types, seasonal concentration, and seasonal variation structure to depict the seasonal characteristics of cruise ports. It further analyzes how shipping factors shape port seasonality from the perspectives of interregional complementary cruising, port hierarchy, and shipping functions. The results show that: (1) three primary seasonality types characterize Mediterranean cruise ports: multi-season operation-relative concentration-bimodal pattern in summer and autumn, year-round operation-relative balanced-bimodal pattern in summer and autumn, year-round operation-relative concentration-bimodal pattern in summer and autumn. (2) Year-round and multi-season ports are predominantly located around the Apennine Peninsula; the spatial distribution of seasonal concentration shows a basic pattern of “low in the west and high in the east”; and the spatial pattern of port seasonality show a “dual-peak in center, single or no peak in the east and west” spatial pattern. (3) The unique locational condition of market centrality underpins geographic clustering of ports offering multi-regional complementary cruising during specific seasons. Port market positioning in competitive contexts shapes distinctive seasonal preferences by port hierarchy. Dual-functionality as both transport hubs and tourism destinations distinguish the seasonal traits of home ports and hub ports from transit ports. This study analyzes the seasonal characteristics and spatial distribution of cruise ports, clarifies the significant influence of shipping factors such as complementary cruising, port hierarchy, and shipping functions on port seasonality, and provides theoretical guidance for cruise tourism planning, route allocation, fleet deployment, and development strategies in China.