Examining the change in the rurality of rural tourism destinations: evidence from China

作者：Xueting Hong, Zhenfang Huang, Hongmei Zhang, Rui Pan, Jing Jin · 发表于：Current Issues in Tourism · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1080/13683500.2024.2311823 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Rural development and sustainability、Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research、Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

Rural tourism destinations that exhibit rurality can effectively enhance their core competitiveness. This study explores the evolving characteristics of rurality in typical rural tourism destinations near Nanjing City. Employing methodologies such as interviews, questionnaire surveys, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, paired sample t-tests, potential conflict index, and cluster analysis, the study reveals that overall rurality perception has improved with tourism development. However, material and social aspects weakened, contrasting with a substantial improvement in the spiritual dimension. The potential conflict index analysis indicates conflicting post-development perceptions of rurality, with increased differences among individual items. Moreover, cluster analysis categorizes tourists into four groups: (1) rurality perception enhancers, (2) relatively neutral, (3) rational, and (4) rurality perception diminishers. These findings offer valuable insights for rural tourism management.