How Are Rural Homestays Achieving Sustainable Development in the Post-COVID-19 Period: Value Co-Creation by Operators, Tourists, and Government

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript provides insights into the "mental fatigue" of the homestay operators, which is a meaningful topic. It is well-written, with a clear conceptual framework and straightforward content. I would suggest the author also comment on the relatively small sample size (201 questionnaires) and how they developed the questionnaire. For instance, Cuadrado's (2021) scale was adopted but was not mentioned in the literature review section. I hope the comments are helpful for you to improve the quality of this paper. Good luck!

Some of the long sentences could be rewritten to make the meaning more clear. For example, "This emphasizes that value is defined by beneficiaries according to phenomenology, value is jointly created by multiple stakeholders, service is the primary exchange content, and product is only the distribution mechanism of service exchange."

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author,

Thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript. It's a really well-structured and visually informative piece that still needs some improvements:

1. After reading the abstract, I didn't understand why the title says about a harmonious pletra. Because of handwheel one of the conclusions about mental fatigue has a negative effect on the performance of rural homestays.

2. In the text itself, the word sustainable is mentioned maybe five times. I would recommend taking inspiration from this article: Burksiene, V., Dvorak, J., & Burbulyte-Tsiskarishvili, G. (2018). Sustainability and sustainability marketing in competing for the title of European Capital of Culture. Organization, 51(1), 66-78.

3. It is not very clear what the purpose of the research is and what the research questions are, what research gap the authors are trying to close.

4. The research review is qualitatively done, but only Chinese authors dominate, and since the journal is international, it is necessary to add more positions of authors from other countries. For example, 2.4 could be improved by adding information about Dvorak, J. (2021). Response of the Lithuanian municipalities to the First Wave of COVID-19. Baltic Region, 13(1), 70-88.; Brzyska, J., & Szamrej-Baran, I. (2023). The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals: The EU Perspective. Sustainability, 15(18), 13503.

5. It is not very clear why the case of China was chosen. Selection criteria need to be presented as to why it is of interest to the world, especially the perspective of rural China;

6. Wanting to know more about the survey, why it was chosen, how it was conducted, when it was conducted, what were the difficulties and the like.

7. Since it seems that the number of respondents is not representative, an explanation/limitations is needed as to why this should be read now, maybe the survey should be extended and try to collect more respondents or maybe another method of data collection should be chosen.

8. The year of the sources in the bibliography is in bold.

9. Who is the author of pictures 1 and 2?

All the best

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This article is based on the theory of value co-creation. This methodological approach allows the authors to examine how mental fatigue among rural homestay operators affects their productivity under the constraining effects of government support and tourist participation.

This study includes data from a sociological survey that showed that the mental fatigue of rural family home operators has a negative impact on the respondent. These studies reveal the problematic side of social development and show the relevance of the article for the topic of sustainable development.

The authors need to clarify and improve the following points.

1. What is meant by “mental fatigue”, this point should be disclosed in the Abstract. Despite the fact that this concept is disclosed in paragraph 2.2., emphasis needs to be placed in the Abstract. The authors must also show whether a similar phenomenon existed before the pandemic.

2. In conclusion, it is necessary to focus on the hypotheses and show how they were continued in connection with the study.

3. The list of key terms can be expanded to demonstrate the uniqueness of the study.

4. In paragraph 3.3. the questionnaire is discussed. However, it is not clear how the survey itself was conducted - through an Internet platform or in person during a meeting, respondents answered the questions. This is a question of methodology, the answer to which entails highlighting the nuances of the research process itself.

5. To understand the specifics of the study, it is necessary to show what questions are included in the second section of the questionnaire, which contained the measurement scale consisting of four modules: Mental fatigue, government support, tourist participation, and the performance of homestays. The authors are in research and for them this point is obvious. However, this information is very lacking for the reader. It might be worth putting the questionnaire in the Appendix.

6. The authors should show whether similar studies exist in world practice.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for providing an updated manuscript. You implemented all recommendations and I hope your manuscript will be accepted to the Sustainability journal.

Kind regards