1. Introduction
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that, by 2030, all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Our common future should be committed to a mode that combines environmental protection with economic development. In order to better protect the earth, many national forest ecological protection policies have been tightened in recent years; within which the use of forest resources has been so restricted that farmers depending on them have been affected to a certain extent, resulting in a “short board” of regional poverty alleviation [
1]. In the process of forest tourism development, if the relationship between humans and the forest is not properly handled, the natural ecosystem may be affected, thus affecting the sustainable development of the forest, which reflects the important role of humans in forests. Therefore, whether the development of forests is sustainable depends entirely on the relationship between people and forests. In this context, the development of forest tourism has become an important choice for the rational utilization of resources in forest areas, reforming the traditional livelihoods of forest farmers. This has become a new growth area of the forestry economy and plays an important role in increasing the forms of employment of farmers and improving their incomes.
Tourism is one of the world’s largest economic sectors, its importance to the global economy is undeniable, and it has been an important contributor to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [
2]. Tourism, as practiced in developed countries, is essentially an economic endeavor; whereas, in developing countries it is mainly developed as leisure consumption [
3,
4]. Pablo-Romero and Molina [
5] concluded, in their literature review about the relationship between tourism and economic growth since 2002, that it is inconclusive and certainly open to discussion; however, there is evidence of a bidirectional causality, both in the short term and long term [
6].
In striving to prevent a disordered development in forests and successfully overcome the daily changes that occur in turbulent surroundings, sustainability is increasingly becoming a priority issue in tourism development in the modern world, due to its environmental, social, and economic impacts [
7]. Numerous studies have discussed sustainable tourism from various aspects, offering a variety of interpretations. Regardless the level of inter-dependency, it was concluded that it is essential to understand this principle on the relationship, in order to ensure the development of sustainable tourism [
8,
9,
10]. Sustainable tourism is an important strategy in ensuring the future well-being of local communities, while making rational use of natural resources and preserving nature [
11]. A proper understanding of the interrelationships between tourism, the underlying economy, and the social and natural environment is critical when formulating effective sustainable tourism policies that aim at maximizing the economic benefits from tourists, while minimizing the associated adverse impacts on the environment. By means of ecological restoration and natural landscape reconstruction, afforestation and the construction of forest parks should be promoted, to create a good tourism environment and provide favorable conditions for the sustainable development of forests and their tourism [
12].
Most importantly, the success of sustainable development rests, in part, on support from and the participation of the parties involved in the business of tourism. While not all stakeholders need be equally involved in the decision making process associated with sustainable development, all their interests should be identified and understood [
13]. If the interests of a key group of stakeholders are not recognized, then the work may fail [
14]. Tourism yields many benefits for local communities experiencing an influx of visitors, while also affecting their quality of life. With the transformation of the historical functions of local communities, the analysis of the interactions between tourism and community life has become increasingly important, and the “quality of life” of local communities has been given more attention and respect [
15]. Carrying capacities are regarded as key sustainability indicators in the tourism research community, which was also supported by the Delphi panel of tourism experts in the study by Tsaur et al. [
16,
17].
A very large amount of literature exists on sustainable development. Its application to tourism is a fairly new trend, only dating back to the late 1980s, in a variety of different contexts [
18,
19]. It is frequently argued that sustainable tourism can considerably contribute to a country’s economic and environmental income, and they should receive the main focus, while more attention is needed in the areas of social engagement and development [
20], mostly for the support of community members [
21]. Forest tourism has become a new growth area for forest economies and plays an important role in increasing the employment and income of peasant households. The role of local community engagement and the need to engage such communities in the process of tourism sector development have been analyzed [
22], and the discrepancies between the idea of sustainable tourism development and its practical implementation were also focused on. The rate of progress in sustainable tourism development has slowed down in recent years [
23]; however, in the literature, the fact that the local community must be involved in the planning process and the development of tourism, especially when it comes to the development of those segments of tourism that will bring benefits for the community, has been discussed. For example, the predictive effect and degree of influence of four dimensions of sustainability on farmers’ satisfaction [
24]; as well as farmers’ perceptions and attitudes, affected by a variety of factors, including social demographic characteristics, the degree of dependence on tourism, community interpersonal relations, community belonging, the degree of tourism destination development, and the leading forces of development, spatial factors, etc. have been considered [
25]. This is particularly so in the context of rural economies, because they are essential building blocks for long-term sustainable global development, poverty alleviation, and the global transition to a green economy (FAO, 2011). Climatically vulnerable, but naturally attractive, rural and mountainous forestry destinations have become popular for international tourism and are also essential for global sustainable development as bearers of crucial ecosystem goods and services; however, serious socioeconomic and environmental side effects undermine the development potential associated with tourism [
26]. Therefore, it is critically important to understand the influence and implications of tourism for the economy and the environment, if tourism is to be established as a low-impact, non-consumptive development option in forest areas.
Understanding the perceptions and attitudes of farmers means understanding if they are supportive or exert opposition towards tourism development projects, which can allow the adoption of an adequate responsive mechanism to the negative influences that arise from tourist exchange. Past literature works, in previous decades [
27,
28,
29], had a tendency to examine the factors that were likely to be influential, and partly deviated from the perception of impacts, taking into account both the dependent variables and the independent variables. The various studies that examined resident attitudes and the factors that are likely to be influential found that the locals tend to have positive attitudes, because they see tourism as an economic development tool. Comprehending local farmers’ attitudes toward sustainable development is crucial for its success. An individual’s attitude toward a certain behavior is mainly derived from two aspects of motivation: perception and the social norm. Attitude is the inner psychological state produced by the individual’s evaluation of people or things, including cognitive components, emotional components, and behavioral components. Social norms refer to the expectations of how individuals should behave in certain social situations [
30], in which individual cognition is influenced by social norms and finally forms individual behaviors.
In China, with a continuous deepening of the reform of the system of collective forest rights, there are obvious differences in the depth and breadth of farmers’ participation in forest tourism, due to their different conditions, which has led to serious income disparities and is not conducive to stable regional development. A national forest park is a complex with sightseeing, holiday entertainment, ecotourism, education, scientific, and other functions, being an important representative of the tourist resources of nature. This paper hopes to provide a worthy addition to the literature, by analyzing how farmer’s perceptions of sustainable tourism development in forest parks, from the perspective of citizen behavior, as expressed through economic, social, environmental, and institutional aspects, can affect their intention to support tourism. Another purpose is to determine the influencing factors on their perceptions and willingness to accept decision-making, using computing variables.
5. Discussion
The results highlighted that the perceived values of tourism were important for evaluating how tourism is developed, whether it is sustainable for the forest, and how it affects the farmers. The study provided a better understanding of the factors that can have an impact on farmers’ attitudes to tourism and highlighted the importance of paying attention to the local community, as a significant player for sustainable development, especially in forests, as this boosts the economy. Forests, as a tourist destination of long-standing tourism products, depend on the active participation of local farmers, so that only in fully knowing the farmers’ perception and behaviors towards forest tourism can promote a harmonious relationship between them and tourism. Further efforts are needed to understand the sustainable development of forests.
(1) In the process of forest tourism development, farmers’ personal income should first be improved, which is the primary concern of farmers, and they should strive to protect their legitimate rights and interests. Therefore, the benefits brought by forest tourism should be implemented as soon as possible, and the cognition and skill level of farmers in adapting to forest tourism should be improved through grassroots training, so as to guide farmers to fully understand its importance and enhance the enthusiasm of farmers to adopt it.
(2) The government should increase the support for farmers to adapt to forest tourism; establish relevant interest coordination mechanisms, such as various associations and share cooperation system; and take various actions that would promote the mutual exchange and communication between farmers and various departments, so as to consolidate farmers’ willingness to adapt, and to form a virtuous cycle of capital investment and return.
(3) The rapid development of forest tourism has brought both opportunities and challenges for farmers. Farmers should adapt themselves to livelihood activities related to forest tourism as soon as possible, based on their own resources. In order to improve their adaptability, farmers should constantly improve themselves, to better cope with possible risks and challenges.
More importantly, it should be noted that the difference in farmers’ tourism perception is only a side index reflecting the tourism development effect of national forest parks and the economic development difference between communities. Therefore, to comprehensively examine the practical effects of tourism development in pilot areas of China’s national forest park system, other aspects should be considered, such as the driving effect of tourism on the local economy and society, the effect of ecological protection, and resource development, etc.; and an in-depth exploration should be made from multiple perspectives, in order to scientifically judge and reveal the role of tourism development in the construction of the national forest park system. First of all, the adaptive willingness of farmers is also affected by other individual factors and social factors, and the results are also unavoidably limited by the models and methods used. Moreover, the particularity of the development background and land source form in each region, especially in forests, means that the universality of these results needs to be further verified. Second, the research on the mechanism of spatial differentiation of farmers’ sustainable perception was not sufficiently in-depth. In the future, visual monitoring can be used to fully reveal these mechanisms and increase the reliability of results. Most importantly, because the formation of “cognition”, “adaptation”, and “decision-making” of farmers is a relatively dynamic changeable process, it should be carried out over a long period of time. Only by the comparison of different scenarios in different periods can we better highlight the adaptation effect. Limited by the survey time, these results reflect the adaptation of farmers in a short period of time. Therefore, the data and analysis results obtained have certain limitations, and more longitudinal data are needed to explore this diachronic process.