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Review

A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Using CiteSpace: The Perspective of China

by
Jie Chen
1,†,
Zhen Guo
1,†,
Shaogui Xu
1,2,
Rob Law
3,4,
Chenmei Liao
1,
Wenqin He
5 and
Mu Zhang
1,*
1
Shenzhen Tourism College, Jinan University, Shenzhen 518053, China
2
School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China
3
Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
4
Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
5
College of Tourism, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350108, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Land 2022, 11(12), 2298; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122298
Submission received: 16 November 2022 / Revised: 8 December 2022 / Accepted: 12 December 2022 / Published: 14 December 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions)
Browse Figures
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Abstract

:
Tourism development is an effective way to protect intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Research on the relationship between these two factors and related issues is of great significance to promoting the sustainable development of ICH. Based on literatures collected from the CNKI database (381 articles) and the Web of Science core collection (545 articles), this study used CiteSpace analysis software to analyze the published volume of ICH tourism research and extract hot keywords and hotspot research topics. Results showed that the number of articles published in Chinese and foreign journals had three stages, namely, steady development, rapid growth, and fluctuating decline. Judging from the research keywords, “cultural tourism”, “authenticity”, “sustainable development” and “protection (or conservation)” are common topics at home and abroad, whereas “loyalty”, “motivation” “conservation” and “quality” are the emerging keywords of foreign journals in recent years. In terms of content, research on the relationship between ICH protection and tourism development, research on the development model, and stakeholder research in tourism development are the focus of Chinese academic circles. This study systematically summarizes the ICH tourism research under different cultural backgrounds and proposes suggestions for the future development of ICH tourism in China.

1. Introduction

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) symbolizes the national spirit and plays an indispensable role in the excellent traditional culture of a country. Strengthening the protection, inheritance, and utilization of ICH is thus vital for preserving historical contexts, cultivating a sense of national identity, and promoting cultural exchanges and mutual learning [1].
Research on ICH tourism at home and abroad has advanced at different rates, with foreign research starting earlier. The first document related to ICH was drafted as early as 1971. After entering the new century, UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, which stipulated the concept of ICH and the main body of its protection. Since then, scholars have focused on the main body of heritage protection [2,3], protection and development [4,5,6], authenticity [7,8,9,10], and other contents, and related research published in foreign journals continued to increase. In recent years, rethinking the authenticity of ICH has become an important topic in foreign research. ICH tourism research in China started relatively late, and the formulation of relevant policies began in the early 21st century. In 2005, the Chinese government issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, which marked the first time for the Chinese government to formally propose guiding opinions on the protection of ICH. Since the issuance of these opinions, a large number of local studies on ICH have been published. In 2021, the Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage further proposed to promote the integrated development of ICH and tourism. Under the guidance of related policies, both rural revitalization and the integration of culture and tourism have recently become hotspots in the ICH protection and tourism development efforts of China. The revitalization of rural culture determines the effectiveness of a rural revitalization strategy. ICH also plays a significant role in strengthening rural cultural construction and developing the rural economy [11]. The integrated development of ICH and tourism not only effectively preserves the existence of ICH but also provides the “nutrients” for protecting ICH through the development of tourism [12].
Chinese ICH inheritance and protection face several challenges in practice, such as lack of community participation, backward protection and development in minority areas, and absence of any successor to ICH inheritance. Therefore, understanding foreign research progress and comprehensively grasping the relevant research and hotspots in ICH and tourism have great reference significance for promoting the high-quality future development of Chinese ICH tourism.
Judging from existing research, only few scholars have reviewed ICH tourism research in China and abroad [13,14,15], and the majority of the previous reviews have used qualitative approaches [16,17], which are generally weak in systematically summarizing the literature. In addition, these reviews have mainly adopted static descriptive analysis [18], which does not offer a dynamic perspective toward the process and context of ICH tourism research. To address these limitations, this study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct a dynamic visual analysis of Chinese and foreign journals related to ICH tourism via the information visualization software CiteSpace to provide a reference for future research on ICH tourism in China and guide the sustainable development of heritage exploitation and conservation.

2. Methodology

2.1. Selection of Analysis Tool

Citespace focuses on identifying and displaying the new trends and dynamics of scientific development in the scientific literature and offers multiple functions to conceptualize and visualize some basic ideas and phenomena in the discipline [19]. In this study, CiteSpace 6.1 software was used to visualize the progress in ICH literature via publication volume, network, keyword, and clustering analyses.

2.2. Data Collection Procedure

This study began on 1 October 2022. The keywords considered during the retrieval of Chinese literature include “tourism”, “intangible cultural heritage”, and the 10 categories of representative items of ICH. Through the Chinese core sub-library of the CNKI database, Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD), and Chinese Core Journals Index, a total of 384 related works were obtained. Similarly, in retrieving foreign literature, the subject headings were limited to “intangible cultural heritage” and “tourism”. A total of 575 foreign works were retrieved from the core collection of Web of Science. According to the results of the previous analysis, the number of related articles published in China in 2005 and in foreign countries before 2007 was relatively small, and the correlation was poor. Therefore, this paper only collects those papers related to ICH tourism that were published at home and abroad after 2007. After eliminating duplicate and irrelevant documents, a total of 381 and 545 valid documents were obtained from domestic and foreign journals, respectively, all of which were exported in Refworks format for the subsequent analysis.

3. Findings and Discussion

3.1. Analysis of Research Trends

Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the number of journal articles on ICH tourism research published in China and abroad. Due to the significant influence of national policies and the cultural tourism consumption market, research on ICH tourism in China and abroad has shown three stages of steady development, rapid growth, and fluctuating decline.
China went through a stage of steady development from 2005 to 2007. During this stage, given that relevant studies were not yet fully carried out, the number of published papers was relatively small, and the average number of papers published in core journals only amounted to 4 per year. The few studies published at this stage were also lacking in terms of theoretical development and practical research. Meanwhile, China advanced to a period of rapid growth from 2008 to 2014, during which a large number of ICH studies have emerged and have steadily increased in number. The second, third, and fourth batches of national ICH lists in China were promulgated in 2008, 2011, and 2014, respectively. In 2011, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Intangible Cultural Heritage was promulgated, which resulted in a boom in the number of published ICH papers. However, the years 2015 to 2022 saw a fluctuating decline in the number of ICH tourism research published in China. At this stage, research on ICH tourism research gradually decreased, but the overall level remained stable (i.e., more than 20 articles per year).
Foreign ICH studies entered the stage of steady development from 2007 to 2011, during which related ICH studies started to take off. The average annual publication volume at the time was only 6, which was lower than that reported in China. In 2003, the UNESCO issued the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. As more countries joined the convention, ICH quickly received attention from foreign cultural heritage tourism scholars. The years 2012 to 2020 marked a period of rapid growth, during which foreign ICH research produced rich results, whereas theoretical and practical research made significant progress. The number of ICH papers published also rapidly increased from 15 to 89, which far exceeded the number of papers published in China. In 2015, the Ethical Principles for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage was published, which clearly highlights the authenticity and exclusivity of ICH. The sustainable development and utilization of ICH has also inspired scholars to rethink the direction of their research. Therefore, a relatively large number of studies were published at this stage. The years 2021 to 2022 marked a period of fluctuating decline, during which the number of foreign publications showed a significant downward trend, but the number of published articles remained relatively high, even significantly higher than that reported in China.
In sum, the growth in the volume of ICH publications has decelerated in recent years. However, given the rapid development of the cultural industry and the in-depth integration of culture and tourism, ICH tourism is expected to remain an important research topic in the future both at home and abroad.

3.2. Main Research Hotspots in the Field of ICH

Chen [20] proposed that keyword analysis is an appropriate method for identifying popular research domains and for examining the evolution of relevant research hotspots and frontiers. Therefore, CiteSpace was used for keyword analysis in this study, and three maps were generated, namely, the co-occurrence knowledge map, the cluster knowledge map, and the top keywords with the strongest bursts map. Given that the clustering results of foreign ICH tourism research are scattered and that the clustering theme is unclear, the clustering analysis in this study did not use the results related to foreign countries and instead utilized keyword burst to understand the foreign related fields and grasp the dynamic characteristics of research hotspot development.

3.2.1. Main Research Hotspots in the Field of ICH: Keywords Co-Occurrence Analysis

Keywords summarize the content of the literature, and high-frequency keywords can reflect the research hotspots in a field of study during a certain period [21]. Using the keyword co-occurrence analysis function of CiteSpace, a keyword knowledge map of ICH tourism research in Chinese and foreign journals was drawn, and the top 18 keywords were ranked according to their co-linear frequency and betweenness centrality. As shown in Figure 3, the Chinese journal graph contains 452 nodes and 665 lines, has a network density of 0.0065, and has a moderate network structure. The first 18 high-frequency keywords were extracted and arranged in a descending order based on word frequency (Table 1). “Intangible cultural heritage (272, 0.76)”, “tourism development (73, 0.35)”, and “protection (41, 0.18)” emerged as the top three high-frequency words in China. Meanwhile, the graph of foreign journals contains 426 nodes and 1617 connections, has a network density of 0.0179, and has a good network structure (Figure 4). “Intangible cultural heritage (128, 0.16)”, “cultural heritage (82, 0.13)”, and “tourism (70, 0.06)” emerged as the top three keywords in the foreign journal map (Table 2), all of which fit the subject of this research. A comparison of the Chinese and foreign maps reveals that the frequency of keywords “cultural tourism”, “authenticity”, “sustainable development”, “protection”, and “cultural space” were all ≥5, thereby cementing their status as hotposts in ICH tourism research.

3.2.2. Main Research Hotspots in the Field of ICH: Cluster Timeline Knowledge Map Analysis

The evolution and development of cluster keywords and the relationship between clusters can be intuitively displayed through the timeline view. Figure 5 presents a clustering diagram of keywords in ICH tourism and conservation research in China. Figure 5 and Table 3 shows that for Chinese ICH tourism research, the keywords of cluster #0 to cluster #6 are related in time, thereby indicating that the research interest in these clusters has remained unabated for some time and that their keywords have demonstrated some persistence. Meanwhile, the temporal relationship between the keywords in clusters #7, #12, and #14 are not obvious, thereby indicating that these clusters are only periodic research hotspots. From the position of keywords in each timeline, the earliest keywords of clusters #0, #1, and #6 have appeared in 2005, whereas those of clusters #2, #5, #7, #12, and #14 have appeared in 2020, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2009, respectively. Clusters develop at different speeds and at different times when attention decreases and ends. For example, the keyword “tourism development” first appeared in cluster #0, which is located at the left end of the timeline, and was identified as the earliest keyword, thereby indicating the gradual formation of this cluster. Over time, other keywords emerged in the cluster, including “tourism value” (2008), “development countermeasures” (2010), and “experience economy” (2017). The development speed of this cluster was relatively stable between 2005 and 2015 before slightly slowing down. However, in in general, the development of clustering was relatively stable. Although its popularity has declined slightly since 2011, this cluster has received much attention from the academic community for many years. From these trends, Chinese ICH tourism research can be divided into research on the relationship between ICH protection and tourism development, ICH tourism development model research, and ICH tourism development stakeholder research.
(1)
Research on the relationship between ICH protection and tourism development
The relationship between ICH protection and tourism development has always been a hot topic among academic circles, and two opposing viewpoints have gradually formed as represented by “development destruction theory” and “protection shackles theory” [22]. Those who hold the view of “development destruction theory” believe that tourism development destroys the authenticity of ICH, distorts its original appearance and essential connotation, and accelerates its demise. For example, replacing the cultural connotation of “intangible” with a single “material” product, the utilitarian phenomenon of “profit” in the name of “protection” [23], and the development theories based on “commercialization” and “stagnation” lead to a development phenomenon where authenticity is degraded [24]. Meanwhile, proponents of “protection shackles theory” argued that a mechanized and dogmatic protection does not change and innovate with the development of society. If heritage remains unchanged for a certain period, then protection becomes a “shackle” of ICH. However, tourism development should be supported as it can ensure the modern survival and provide the development environment and necessary funds for ICH [25]. Due to the contradiction between protection and development, scholars hold a dialectical attitude toward the tourism development of ICH and believe that the concept of protective development should be adhered to, that is, tourism development should be carried out based on protecting the connotation of ICH, and a mutual promotion and integration of cultural protection and tourism development should be realized [26]. From the perspective of the ICH protection model, Yu argued that the development of national festival tourism can promote the development of protection subjects in a diversified direction and realize a shift in direction from passive protection to active, static, and dynamic protection, all of which are conducive to the formation of a virtuous interaction cycle between development and protection [27]. From the perspective of heritage protection and inheritance, Liu and Wu argued that tourism development can make ICH tangible and popular, optimize the genetic matrix on which cultural genes depend, and achieve mutual benefits for heritage protection and inheritance [28].
In ICH protection and development research, authenticity, which serves as an important principle of ICH protection, has become a center of academic debates [29]. Conservatives insist on maintaining the “objective truth” of the “original state” of the ICH and believe that the root cause of “distortion” lies in commercial, staged, and fragmented developments as well as the lack of the main body of heritage protection [30,31]. However, the pure “original state” exists in a contradictory state where theory and reality deviate from reality [30], and the “authenticity” of absolute ICH is not desirable because the connotation has gradually shifted from emphasizing the eternity of matter to focusing on the meaning of human beings, that is, from an objective to a subjective concern [32]. Therefore, some scholars have proposed that ICH tourism development is a construction process that involves the mutual construction of the authenticity of the tourism subject’s experience and the authenticity of the tourism object. At the same time, through multi-dimensional and multi-level cultural displays, the authentic experience of tourism subjects can be satisfied, and the dissemination, continuation, integration, and innovation of intangible cultural heritage can be realized [33]. When understanding and demonstrating the authenticity of ICH, further research should re-examine this topic from the perspectives of residents and other hosts, and the interpretation of the authenticity of heritage should return the autonomy to the owners of cultural heritage [34].
(2)
Research on the ICH tourism development model
Due to the variety of ICH, its rich content, and diverse forms of expression, many Chinese scholars have recently explored the tourism development model from two perspectives. One of such perspectives is to design various types of tourism development models according to the local conditions from the perspective of ICH in different categories, projects, and regions. Sun et al. summed up five modes of ICH tourism development in Inner Mongolia, including museum static display mode, tourism festival mode, eco-museum mode, performance display mode, and tourism commodity mode [35]. Cao and Lu proposed some ideas for the development of ICH tourism, such as performing arts, arts and crafts, and folk customs, by analyzing the adaptability of ICH tourism development [36]. According to the ICH classification methods proposed at home and abroad, Lei and Hu divided tourism development into five categories and proposed the corresponding development models for each type of project [37]. Tao et al. took the Guangxi Yao nationality Pan Wang brothers as research objects and, based on the relationship among intangible cultural heritage protection, cultural ecology, and tourism development, proposed a “dual-core” development model of “intangible cultural heritage theme park + eco-museum” [38].
Different tourism development models have also been proposed from the perspective of ICH protection. Taking Danuohei Village, Shilin County, Yunnan Province as an example, Huang argued that the eco-museum model is a feasible way to develop ICH tourism [39]. Based on a combination of the degrees of ICH protection and ICH tourism development value, Zhang divided the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in Yunnan into the H-H, H-L, L-H, and L-L types and proposed four benign interaction models of government supervision model, tourism enhancement model, protection enhancement model, and two-pronged model according to the characteristics of the above four types; he added that for a certain Yunnan ethnic minority ICH, its type is not static but dynamic [40]. Yang proposed an open-air museum model for the development of ICH, in which the intangible cultural heritage in the region is displayed in a “tangible” manner with the local gathering of human settlements and historical buildings as the main carriers. This model combines heritage protection and display with the integrated development of tourism and experience functions [41].
In recent years, digital protection has become a common ICH protection approach. For example, scholars have used digital animation technology to reproduce Riverside Scene at the Qingming Festival, which has attracted the attention of a large number of young tourists [42]. Building a digital museum is another important way of digitizing ICH [43]. Another topic worthy of attention is the development and protection of ICH in different areas. Some scholars believe that the development of scattered heritages in various regions not only helps the government implement direct management but also improves the accessibility of resident tourism [44]. However, other scholars have refuted this suggestion, arguing that offsite development causes ICH to leave its original cultural space and the original ecological cultural soil on which its survival depends, thereby contradicting the basic laws of ICH protection [45].
(3)
Research on stakeholders of ICH tourism development
Various stakeholders play different roles and hold different interests in the ICH tourism development process. Accordingly, coordinating the interests of different subjects has received much scholarly attention. At present, the stakeholders of Chinese ICH tourism mainly include inheritors, governments, communities, developers, tourists, experts, and non-governmental organizations.
At present, government power and developer capital power occupy a strong dominant position in ICH tourism development, whereas in heritage interpretation and interest expression, local inheritors and communities often lack the right to speak, and their value and cultural rights and interests are difficult to realize and protect [46]. Duan and Sun believed that the previous intangible cultural heritage protection policy lacks cultural holders [47]. Therefore, scholars have proposed that the right to know and decision-making rights of community residents should be appropriately expanded [48]. Given that the key to effectively mitigating conflicts of interest is to lower the power of the government and enterprises and weaken their absolute dominance, the participation of heritage inheritors and community owners in ICH tourism development has increased, whereas the discourse system for all parties to equally express their interests and appeals has further improved.
The contradiction between the representative and non-representative inheritors of the ICH project is also a prominent topic in Chinese ICH research. In China, the representative inheritor of an ICH item refers to the inheritor who undertakes the responsibility for the inheritance and protection of the national ICH list item and officially recognizes its representative, authoritative, and influential status. Therefore, the market is more inclined to praise and spread this item. In China, the representative inheritor of an ICH item undertakes the responsibility for the inheritance and protection of the national ICH list item, whose representative, authoritative, and influential status is officially recognized by the government. Therefore, the market is also more inclined to respect and spread this item. By contrast, non-representative heirs miss the opportunity to be rated as representative heirs due to lack of social capital, information asymmetry, and other reasons. They may also have superior skills, no less than or even more than the ability of the representative inheritors. However, given that they cannot be recognized and cannot be favored by the public or the market, the enthusiasm of non-representative inheritors to inherit heritage has been subtly suppressed. Therefore, in essence, the interests of non-representative inheritors are not sufficiently guaranteed [49]. Giving full play to the role of the government and establishing and improving the access and supervision mechanism for non-genetic inheritors are thus the only ways to ensure the rights of the inheritors [50]. In the development of ICH tourism, the interests of tourists mainly focus on the differences in their perceptions and the analysis of tourism demand. Therefore, the future, people need to focus on improving tourists’ perceptions [51]. In addition, experts, civil organizations, and other stakeholders generally have a strong sense of social responsibility and play a decisive role in social supervision, which can curb excessive commercialization and the spread of vulgarization [52].
Accordingly, scholars have also explored how to coordinate the interests of different subjects. From a macro perspective, the government is in a dominant position in the protection and development of intangible cultural heritage and plays an irreplaceable role [53]. However, some scholars believe that cultural owners are the main players in ICH protection and development [54]. Zhao and Shi argued that the development of heritage tourism should form a comprehensive protection and development system with inheritors at the core, with legal and policy support coming from the government, investment from developers, active participation from the community, and voluntary maintenance from tourists, and has diversified publicity on social media [52]. Sun et al. established the interest balance model of five types of stakeholders based on empirical evidence. According to their respective interest demands, they divided the relationship among stakeholders into close, intermediate, and distant relationships [55]. Shi and Sun argued that the government should play a role in balancing the needs of various stakeholders, formulate a reasonable interest mechanism to encourage all stakeholders, and guide them to actively invest in the protection and inheritance of ICH on the premise of properly pursuing their interests [56].

3.2.3. Main Research Hotspots in the Field of ICH: Keywords Burst Map Analysis

The keyword burst of foreign journal keywords was analyzed by CiteSpace, and the results are shown in Figure 6. Foreign research can also be divided into three stages. The burst keywords in the first stage (2007 to 2016) mainly focused on “tourism development” and “sustainable development”. At this stage, scholars focused on the impact of tourism development and ICH on sustainable tourism development. Sustainable tourism development plays a key role in forming a harmonious whole among tourism, culture, nature, and the environment on which human beings depend. Chhabra and Zhao examined heritage representation in America’s megacities with a modern-centered dialogue, charted the level of dissonance with major ethnic groups and mainstream perceptions, and launched active dialogue initiatives to enhance the sustainability of heritage tourism [57]. Taking Huaiyin Village in China as a case, Huo and Han regarded tourism development as the most suitable sustainable development model and established an interactive cycle mechanism of protection, management, and renovation. Specific development techniques include ICH protection, cultural value management, public space, and building renovation. Results show that these measures contribute to the realization of the core of the sustainable development model, that is, the “symbiosis” of the spirit, form, and ecology of historic villages [58].
The burst keywords during the second stage (2017 to 2019) include “intangible heritage”, “cultural heritage”, and “rethinking authenticity”, thereby suggesting that scholars at this stage focused on clarifying the connotation of ICH and thinking about authenticity. Foreign scholars agree that authenticity is the soul of ICH, which is crucial to tourism development. Taking the authenticity of objects as an example, Fu et al. studied the planning and performance of the authenticity of ICH in the context of cultural museums by taking the Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum in China as an example and then discussed and analyzed the catalytic role of tourism in museums [59]. Taking Tonganlakalaka, a UNESCO representative listed on the ICH list, as an example, Condevaux examined the authenticity, the idea of disseminating cultural practices in a fixed form, and understanding the role of tourism in heritage policy regardless of whether the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage truly continues the founding value of heritage [60]. In terms of the authenticity of tourists’ experience as the main body, Jeong and Park analyzed the tourists’ cognition and experience of real cultural transformation when using cultural assets. They found that the attempts to exploit and transmit royal culture have a positive impact on the establishment of a new type of authenticity based on active interaction and communication by tourists [61].
The burst keywords during the third stage (2020 to 2022) include “loyalty”, “motivation”, “conservation”, and “quality”. Scholars at this stage focused on the driving force of ICH tourism. The main motivation for the development of heritage tourism in residential communities is to seek economic benefits, and the motivation of tourists is among the indispensable perspectives for the development of ICH tourism. By analyzing two successful Aboriginal tourism activities in Northern Canada, Lemelin et al. found that residents believe that community-based tourism development depends on economic, social, cultural, and environmental benefits and costs [62]. McIntosh explored the motivations of tourists to appreciate the cultural experience of indigenous people and identified the five core dimensions of gaze, lifestyle, authenticity, personal interaction, and informal learning [63].

4. Implications

The relationship between ICH protection and tourism development has always been the focus of discussion in Chinese and foreign academic circles. Throughout this debate, people have gradually reached a consensus that tourism protection and development are not binary oppositions and irreconcilable contradictions but a relationship of dialectical unity. An effective and reasonable ICH tourism development serves as an important basis for realizing a benign interaction between the two. At the same time, authenticity has received much concern from scholars specializing in ICH protection and tourism development. Accurately grasping the connotation of authenticity is the top priority of balancing and coordinating ICH and tourism development. In terms of specific research content, China is mostly focused on the development model of ICH tourism. After more than 10 years of accumulation, China’s ICH tourism development has initially formed a variety of relatively complete development models for reference, and the research object mainly selects tourism resources in ethnic minority areas, thereby indicating that scholars are focused on the ICH tourism development in these areas. When using various ICH tourism development models, we must first pay attention to the protection of ICH and then carry out targeted and appropriate developments according to different types of heritage and their locations and markets. Only in this way can the heritage be passed on while ensuring its effective use. In terms of stakeholder research on ICH tourism development, Chinese scholars are no longer limited to simply discussing heritage objects, and research on the interesting relationship between ICH subjects is gradually deepening, thus helping coordinate the relationship between protection and tourism development from a more diverse perspective in order for ICH to be better protected and inherited.
Foreign research on ICH started relatively early. Scholars have mostly focused on heritage, cultural, and ethnic tourism and obtained excellent results in terms of their research methods, theories, and content. From the perspective of research methods, relevant foreign research involves both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Apart from traditional in-depth interviews, ethnographic studies, and case studies, these studies have focused on the use of new methods and perspectives [64]. These scholars have also applied a diverse range of theories to analyze ICH tourism, particularly stakeholder theory and identity theory [65]. In some specific fields of research, community empowerment [66] and sense of place [67] emerge as important theoretical foundations. In terms of research content, the connotation, the impact of tourism development, and the dynamic mechanism of ICH tourism are the key contents. Foreign and Chinese scholars generally believe that communities and inheritors are important forces in ICH protection [68].
Due to the different stages of tourism development, some cognition differences can be observed in the treatment of ICH tourism development at home and abroad. Specifically, foreign research is more focused on heritage protection, the impact of tourism development, and the dynamic mechanism. However, Chinese research started relatively late and has also experienced different stages of development, including protection, utilization, and coordination. In general, research on Chinese ICH and tourism development mainly focused on practice, the development mode of heritage, and the handling of community development issues. However, further theoretical research is needed.
This study is expected to make meaningful contributions to the literature. First, this paper combs through the relevant papers on ICH and tourism in China, thereby making up for the lack of an international understanding of Chinese ICH tourism and facilitating China’s academic and industrial cooperation with the international community. Second, this work uses bibliometrics to visually analyze the research progress on ICH tourism both at home and abroad, thereby enriching the research methods in relevant fields and enhancing the ability to systematically summarize the literature. Third, on the basis of the bibliometric results, this study offers a comparative analysis of the development process of ICH tourism both in China and abroad, and reveals the similarities and differences in their research methods, theories, and contents, thereby offering a useful reference and improving the relevant research on ICH tourism in China and abroad.
Practically, this study is expected to bring some practical significance to the future development of ICH in China and abroad. On the one hand, the policy analysis results reveal the policy impetus for the development of Chinese ICH tourism, which will help China and the international community in accurately predicting the future development of Chinese ICH tourism and identify further development opportunities. On the other hand, results of the literature analysis highlight the practical experiences of foreign countries’ ICH in sustainable development and community participation, thereby offering a significant practical reference for the future development of ICH tourism in China.

5. Conclusions and Future Research

In this study, various functions of CiteSpace 6.1 were used to analyze 381 core journal documents related to ICH tourism published between 2005 and 2022 from the CNKI database as well as 545 related documents published between 2007 and 2022 from the WoS core collection. A visual analysis was carried out on the number of published papers, keywords, and clusters, and the research content was summarized according to the relevant results. The following conclusions were drawn:
(1)
From the perspective of the number of publications, the publication volume of domestic and foreign ICH tourism research journals from 2005 to 2022 showed three stages of steady development, rapid growth, and fluctuating decline, and the research on this subject gradually deepened.
(2)
From the perspective of keywords, although scholars have paid increasing attention to new content, such as ethnic minority (NO. 8), authenticity (NO. 16), and cultural space (NO. 18), tourism development has always been a keyword among Chinese papers (NOS. 2, 4, 11, and 12). In other words, people still regard ICH as a tourism resource. The keywords burst of Chinese periodicals over the past three years include “cultural tourism”, “rural revitalization”, and “culture and tourism integration”. This stage focuses on the integration of ICH culture with tourism and rural revitalization. Meanwhile, the emergent keywords in foreign journals include “loyalty”, “motivation”, “conservation”, and “quality”, which indicates that foreign scholars pay more attention to tourist experience.
(3)
From the perspective of research hotspots, Chinese journals have formed 9 cluster tags, including “tourism development”, “protection”, “culture and tourism integration”, and “cultural tourism”. No obvious clustering results were observed in foreign journals.
(4)
From the perspective of research content, the research on ICH tourism in China mainly revolves around the development of tourism resources. The relationship between development and protection, the tourism development model, and stakeholders in development are the three main research contents. Among them, the development in ethnic minority areas is the focus of Chinese academic circles. Meanwhile, the research on stakeholders emphasizes that based on the protective development of ICH, a protection and development system with inheritors at the core and taking into account multiple stakeholders should be formed. Foreign scholars pay more attention to the connotation, the impact of heritage tourism development, and the dynamic mechanism of ICH tourism and obtained relatively rich results in terms of their research methods and perspectives. Obviously, some differences were observed between domestic and foreign ICH tourism research, with domestic scholars paying more attention to the development and utilization of tourism resources.
China’s research on ICH tourism has obtained fruitful results, whereas its perspective has gradually deepened and diversified. However, compared with foreign research, China needs to address the following deficiencies:
(1)
First, many studies have explored the development of ICH tourism resources but lack scientific evaluation systems and evaluation methods for tourism development. The current development of ICH tourism resources shows a flourishing phenomenon. The modes and methods of ICH tourism resources development are various and are still innovating. However, previous studies have mostly used the analytic hierarchy process [69], factor analysis method [70], and other approaches to construct their tourism resource evaluation system and rarely involved new theories or qualitative research methods. In practice, ICH comes in many types. If they are not regulated, poor behaviors can breed easily, including random development, which can damage heritages. Therefore, in the future, to achieve tourism development under the protection of ICH in China, scientific and reasonable value evaluation systems and methods should be adopted.
(2)
Second, Chinese studies have been mostly conducted from the perspective of tourists and not of ICH communities [71]. The essence of the development of ICH tourism is to seek to use economic benefits to feed back the protection and sustainable development of ICH. Feelings of tourists can largely influence and determine the success of tourism development. Therefore, by mostly aiming toward tourists, previous studies fail to explore the relationship and impact of ICH protection and tourism development from the perspective of the community, which serves as the living space for the protection and inheritance of ICH [72] and the original soil on which the heritage lives. Leaving the local community also means destroying its authenticity to ultimately become a tourist commodity without a cultural core. Therefore, future research should pay more attention to the protection of ICH and tourism development from the perspective of ICH communities, which would be of great practical significance to comprehensively understand the dialectical relationship between them and promote the sustainable development of ICH.
(3)
Third, ICH tourism research has many practical types, but theoretical research needs to be deepened. Chinese scholars have accumulated relatively rich experience in the practical research on ICH tourism. From a certain region, a certain type of ICH to a specific ICH, the development mode is gradually improving. In terms of theoretical research, related theoretical concepts, including authenticity, interaction, and cultural space, have important guiding value for practical research, but the limitations and deficiencies of existing theories have become increasingly apparent. Therefore, on the premise of adapting to the changes in the macro environment and meeting the needs of real development, future research on ICH tourism in China should consciously integrate problem-oriented thinking, correctly view the development of ICH, strengthen the protection of cultural heritage, pay equal attention to theoretical deepening and practical analyses, constantly standardize their academic theoretical framework, and actively propose constructive development strategies.

6. Limitations

This study has several deficiencies. First, in the selection of data samples, the selection of subject words may lead to some documents not being selected, which will affect the comprehensiveness of this study to a certain extent. In addition, the coverage of WoS is not extensive enough; it mainly focused on academic journals and excluded the books published by scholars. Second, in terms of research methods, CiteSpace only selects some high-frequency keywords based on a certain threshold and does not take into account some low-frequency keywords that may become research hotspots. Therefore, CiteSpace cannot reflect complete information. Third, when interpreting the research hotspots, the clustering effect is not homogeneous enough. Combining keyword clustering with the frequency data table for hotspot interpretation demonstrates certain subjectivity that may affect the accuracy of the findings. Future research can use more comprehensive and accurate sample data and apply software analysis or other diversified research methods to comprehensively reflect the ICH research situation.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, J.C. and Z.G.; methodology, M.Z., Z.G. and C.L.; software implementation, Z.G.; validation, J.C., S.X. and W.H.; investigation, J.C.; data curation, Z.G. and C.L.; writing original draft preparation, Z.G., J.C. and R.L.; writing—review and editing, Z.G., J.C., R.L. and M.Z.; visualization, Z.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by The Shenzhen Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project in 2021 entitled “Research on the Protection and Utilization of Revolutionary Sites, Revolutionary Cultural Relics and Educational Bases in Various Historical Periods in Shenzhen”, grant number SZ2021D003.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript can be made available by the authors to qualified researchers.

Acknowledgments

We thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editors for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Land 11 02298 g001 550
Figure 1. The number of ICH publications in Chinese journals from 2005 to 2022.
Figure 1. The number of ICH publications in Chinese journals from 2005 to 2022.
Land 11 02298 g001
Land 11 02298 g002 550
Figure 2. The number of ICH publications in foreign journals from 2007 to 2022.
Figure 2. The number of ICH publications in foreign journals from 2007 to 2022.
Land 11 02298 g002
Land 11 02298 g003 550
Figure 3. Co-occurrence network of keywords in Chinese journals.
Figure 3. Co-occurrence network of keywords in Chinese journals.
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Land 11 02298 g004 550
Figure 4. Co-occurrence network of keywords in foreign journals.
Figure 4. Co-occurrence network of keywords in foreign journals.
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Land 11 02298 g005 550
Figure 5. Timeline view of keywords in Chinese journals.
Figure 5. Timeline view of keywords in Chinese journals.
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Land 11 02298 g006 550
Figure 6. Keyword burst in foreign journals.
Figure 6. Keyword burst in foreign journals.
Land 11 02298 g006
Table
Table 1. Top 18 high-frequency keywords in Chinese journals.
Table 1. Top 18 high-frequency keywords in Chinese journals.
No.KeywordsFrequencyCentralityNo.KeywordsFrequencyCentrality
1Intangible cultural heritage2720.7610Rural vitalization80.02
2Tourism development730.3511Sustainable development80.05
3Protection410.1812Tourist resources80.01
4Development130.0213Cultural tourism80.08
5Policy tools130.0114Culture and tourism integration70.04
6Inheritance120.0415Protection and inheritance60.03
7Protection of ich110.0616Authenticity60.03
8Ethnic minority110.0617Inheritance and protection60.03
9Protection and inheritance100.0818Cultural space60.02
Table
Table 2. Top 18 high-frequency keywords in foreign journals.
Table 2. Top 18 high-frequency keywords in foreign journals.
No.KeywordsFrequencyCentralityNo.KeywordsFrequencyCentrality
1Intangible cultural heritage1280.1610Place240.04
2Cultural heritage820.1311Management220.04
3Tourism700.0612Sustainable tourism200.01
4Cultural tourism600.0913World heritage190.01
5Intangible heritage460.1314Sustainable development 160.07
6Authenticity440.1115Identity150.03
7Heritage tourism330.0916Conservation130.06
8Experience320.0817Cultural landscape130.05
9Heritage270.0518Rethinking authenticity110.06
Table
Table 3. List of clustering results in Chinese journals.
Table 3. List of clustering results in Chinese journals.
ClusterSizeSilhouetteAverage YearYear of First UseTag Words (Select the First Three)
#0 tourism development 1450.97220112005Tourism development, tension, protection.
#1 protection350.96220112005Protection, development, tourism development.
#2 culture and tourism integration190.97120142020Culture and tourism integration, tourism, tourism industry.
#3 cultural tourism170.87320152008Cultural tourism, authenticity, living conservation.
#5 heritage protection140.97520132010Minority, architectural style, utilization.
#6 minority140.97220182005Inheritance and protection, rural revitalization, industrialization.
#7 cultural space90.96620112008Cultural space, practice path, cultural ecology.
#12 traditional handicraft50.98920152012Traditional handicraft, precise support, game.
#14 management40.93420102009Management, development, utilization.
1 “#” is a symbol automatically generated by CiteSpace software to represent its category.
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MDPI and ACS Style

Chen, J.; Guo, Z.; Xu, S.; Law, R.; Liao, C.; He, W.; Zhang, M. A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Using CiteSpace: The Perspective of China. Land 2022, 11, 2298. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122298

AMA Style

Chen J, Guo Z, Xu S, Law R, Liao C, He W, Zhang M. A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Using CiteSpace: The Perspective of China. Land. 2022; 11(12):2298. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122298

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chen, Jie, Zhen Guo, Shaogui Xu, Rob Law, Chenmei Liao, Wenqin He, and Mu Zhang. 2022. "A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Using CiteSpace: The Perspective of China" Land 11, no. 12: 2298. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122298

APA Style

Chen, J., Guo, Z., Xu, S., Law, R., Liao, C., He, W., & Zhang, M. (2022). A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Using CiteSpace: The Perspective of China. Land, 11(12), 2298. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122298

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