Coupling Relationship Between Tourists’ Space Perception and Tourism Image in Nanxun Ancient Town Based on Social Media Data Visualization

Abstract

From the perspective of social media data, this study investigates the coupling relationship between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism image in traditional old urban areas. Using Nanxun Ancient Town as a case study, this paper reveals the interaction and mutual influence between tourists’ perception of space and tourism image in the development of traditional ancient town tourism. We employed Python 3.13.0 to gather 10,789 valuable comments from tourists from Dianping 11.35.3, Ctrip 8.78.4, and Mafengwo 11.2.6. Mini Tag Cloud software is used to analyze the text data, systematically classify the cognitive image of tourists, and identify negative emotional factors. This paper constructs a four-dimensional landscape spatial perception evaluation system centered on “high-frequency words”, “perceptual dimensions”, “semantic networks”, and “emotional tendencies”. The key findings are as follows: (1) Tourists’ spatial perception exhibits pronounced characteristics of subjective preference and emotional attachment influenced by emotional factors. Overall, tourists exhibited positive emotional perceptions, with 59.51% positive emotions, 21.16% neutral emotions, and 19.33% negative emotions. (2) The perception of Nanxun Ancient Town’s tourism image can be summarized into four dimensions. Here are the dimensions in order of how important they are: historical culture and folk heritage (34.18%), perceptions of natural landscape and architectural style (31.03%), perceptions of tourism services and facilities (18.37%), and psychological identity and emotional interaction (16.42%). (3) Tourism image reciprocally influences tourists’ spatial perception. A positive tourism image is anticipated to encourage tourists to explore the spatial details of the ancient town more deeply, enhancing their positive spatial perception and experience. There exists a coupling relationship between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism image. (4) Key aspects of tourists’ perception of Nanxun Ancient Town include its historical and cultural significance, as well as commercialization. Future studies could focus on tourists’ spatial perception and tourism destination brand image building, and tourism policy makers should pay attention to tourists’ perception of Nanxun Ancient Town’s history, culture and commercialization, and use the coupling of the two to improve development and service policies.

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of the Internet, people are increasingly socializing through online media, and the huge amount of information generated as a result provides a data basis for the study of social perception [1,2]. This field of research primarily analyzes the cognitive feelings of people toward spatial places, spatial flow patterns, and social relationships between individuals by mining the information on human behavioral characteristics contained in big data [3,4]. With the rapid growth of social media data in recent years, research on analyzing the emotional perceptions of landscape space has gradually increased [5,6]. Now, increasingly, city managers are realizing the importance of using the Internet to promote their city’s image [7]. Due to the intangible nature of tourism products and the development of network informatization, tourists can perceive images of tourist destinations through various channels [8], such as microblogs, WeChat, online tourism websites, and tourism applications [9]. These platforms include the official introduction of tourist places and services provided, as well as the intuitive sharing of tourists after their visit.

The outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2019 dealt a heavy blow to the global tourism industry, profoundly affecting tourism market demand and tourist psychology and behavior. With the global outbreak officially over, the global tourism market is gradually recovering. According to the first World Tourism Barometer 2024 [10] released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), international tourism had recovered to 88% of its pre-epidemic level by 2023, with international tourist arrivals reaching approximately 1.3 billion. International tourism is expected to return to pre-epidemic levels in 2024, with a preliminary estimate of a 2% increase over 2019. In the domestic market, people’s long-saved enthusiasm for traveling was released in the post-pandemic era. According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, in 2023, a total of 4.891 billion domestic trips were made, an increase of 93.3% year-on-year; domestic tourists spent a total of CNY 4.91 trillion on trips, an increase of 140.3% year-on-year. In terms of inbound and outbound tourism, according to China Tourism Research Institute data, in 2023, China’s inbound and outbound travelers exceeded 190 million, an increase of more than 2.8 times compared with last year [11]. Nanxun Ancient Town—the first ancient town in the World Cultural Heritage List in China—is favored by Chinese tourists. Therefore, we chose this ancient town as the research object. However, the excessive pursuit of economic benefits by relevant stakeholders and the lack of development and management experience with regard to ancient towns have resulted in their over-development, damaged architectural features, and diminished authenticity. In recent years, scholars’ research on Nanxun Ancient Town in Jiangnan has primarily focused on the following: Wang Haibo et al. explored how to continue the protective development and sustainable utilization of folk houses in Jiangnan water towns during their tourism development through on-site investigation and analysis [12]. Shen Jianhua et al. explored the historical cityscape preservation and continuation of Nanxun Ancient Town through field investigation [13]. However, most studies adopted questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews [14], and so on, and the sample data obtained were relatively simple and accompanied by certain subjective factors.

This study introduces discussion, analysis and evidence of social media data, including a large amount of text data and wide coverage. It can better reflect tourists’ intuitive perception of Nanxun Ancient Town as a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. To explore tourists’ attitudes towards the public environment of the ancient town, we asked the following questions: What are the standards and concerns of tourists? What factors can affect the tourism experience of ancient towns? This study takes the coupling relationship between spatial perception and tourism image of traditional ancient town tourist destinations as the entry point, systematically constructs a four-dimensional analysis framework of “high-frequency vocabulary—perception dimension—semantic network—emotional tendency”, and deconstructs the tourists’ cognitive mechanism through social media big data. The research was first based on 10,789 review texts harvested from three major platforms (Dianping, Ctrip, and Mafengwo) using Python, and conducted emotional word frequency analysis using Mini Tag Cloud technology to reveal the distribution of emotional polarity in tourists’ spatial perception. Then, through semantic network analysis, a four-dimensional cognitive system of tourism image (historical culture, natural landscape, service facilities, psychological identity) is established, and the weights and interaction mechanisms of each dimension are quantified; finally, the coupled coordination model is used to explain the dynamic correlation law between spatial perception and tourism image. The research breaks through the limitations of traditional questionnaire surveys and, through in-depth mining of digital footprints, provides a data-driven decision-making path for the image optimization and experience improvement of Nanxun Ancient Town.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Tourists’ Spatial Perception from the Perspective of Affective Geography

Emotional geography, which originated in the late 20th century, is a reflection of traditional geography’s overemphasis on objective material space. In his book Space and Place: An Empirical Perspective, Duan Yifu (1977) first put forward the thought of humanistic geography, emphasizing people’s subjective feelings and emotional connection to space, and believing that place is a space full of meaning and emotion [15]. This thought laid the foundation for the development of emotional geography. Subsequently, Nigel Thrift (2004) further elaborated the role of emotion in social life and space construction, pointing out that emotion is a social force that affects people’s cognition and behavior in space [16]. Anderson and Smith (2001) formally put forward the concept of “affective geography” [17], arguing that emotions are generated in the interaction between people and space and are influenced by social, cultural and historical contexts. Emotion plays an important role in tourists’ spatial perception. Tourists’ emotional experience of the tourist destination will affect their perception and cognition of space. For example, Crouch (2001) believes that tourists understand and construct tourism space through physical perception and emotional experience during tourism [18]. Guan Q (2017) stated that the perception of historical feature authenticity has a significant positive impact on historical nostalgia, and the perception of unique authenticity and functional authenticity have a significant positive impact on individual nostalgia [19]. Kusenbach (2003) pointed out through the study of urban streets that the physical environment and social atmosphere of streets can trigger emotional experiences for pedestrians [20].

Tourists’ emotional perception of different types of tourism spaces: In natural tourism spaces, tourists’ emotional perception is often related to the beauty, tranquility and mystery of natural landscapes. For example, Sharpley, R. and Pearce, T. (2019) found in their research on tourists in national parks that when tourists enjoy magnificent natural scenery, they will have feelings such as awe and pleasure, which will affect their perception and evaluation of natural space [21]. In cultural tourism spaces, such as ancient towns and historic districts, tourists’ emotional perception is more related to cultural connotation, historical memory and local characteristics. According to the study of ancient towns in Jiangnan by Hu W (2022), tourists’ emotional attachment to ancient towns stems from their identification with traditional culture and pursuit of historical memory, which makes their spatial perception of ancient towns more delicate and profound [22]. In the urban tourism space, tourists’ emotional perception is affected by the degree of modernization of the city, social atmosphere and cultural diversity. For example, Ke Jian et al. (2022) found in their study on urban tourism in Shanghai that tourists’ cultural perception reflects their sense of “acquisition” after cultural recognition, cognition, feeling and internalization when they experience Shanghai’s bustling urban landscape and diverse cultures, and these emotions shape their perception of urban space [23].

2.2. Mechanisms for Associating Tourism Social Platforms with Tourists

Tourism social platforms create connections and interactions between media data, tourists and destinations, and tourism companies; subsequently, this association mechanism plays a role in the tourism industry in facilitating information dissemination, destination promotion, user reviews, marketing campaigns, and customer service interactions. Therefore, the scope of social media and tourist perception includes the concepts of usefulness, vividness, and interactivity of the perceived image. Regarding the usefulness of perceived image, some scholars believe that the use of certain online technological tools impacts the degree of improvement in work efficiency [24]. Some scholars have found that online channels are an effective source of information to support tourists in planning their future holidays through online text analysis, which can influence tourists’ perception of the destination and their traveling decisions [25]. Some scholars have argued that social media marketing promotes tourists’ willingness to buy [26]. In the vividness of perceived image, some scholars believe that social media platforms use colors, audio, pictures, videos, and other ways to bring sensory experience to tourists [27]; picture information is more vivid than text information, and intuitive visual information may influence tourists’ decision-making [28] and their perception of the destination [29]. Among the interactivity of perceived images, some scholars have proposed feedback on quality assessment, capacity management, image communication, and personalized recommendation of landscape areas through social media data [30].

2.3. Research on Visitor Perception Based on Social Platforms

In recent years, scholars have paid extensive attention to tourism research based on social platforms [31,32,33]. This way of using the Internet to collect information is not only a great advantage brought by the rapid development of the network but also effectively provides a convenient research channel for academic research. The collection of network data, on the one hand, simplifies the time cost of offline surveys and expands the scope of research; on the other hand, it can more accurately capture the real ideas of tourists. Therefore, this research method has been adopted by more scholars, developing a series of research results [34,35]. Scholars have used social platforms to conduct research on tourists’ perceived behaviors, adopting a variety of design research methods, primarily including online questionnaires, content analysis, and social network analysis. In terms of research content, they primarily focused on tourists’ perceived behavior, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. For example, some scholars obtained tourists’ evaluation data from media platforms such as Instagram [36], Sina Weibo [37], and TripAdvisor [38] as research samples and used tools such as NVivo [39] and Leximancer [40] to conduct content analysis on tourists’ comments and evaluations on such platforms, extract keywords for sentiment analysis, web semantic analysis, and so on in order to understand tourists’ perception of and satisfaction with the destination [41]. Other scholars have used the network analysis tools Gephi [42], UCINet [43], and so on to analyze tourist relationship networks on social media platforms [44] in order to study the relationships and interaction patterns among tourists and reveal their behavioral intentions and decision-making processes [45]. These research methods provide scholars with the means to collect, analyze, and visualize data, helping them to study tourists’ perceived behavior in depth and draw relevant conclusions; they also provide the ability to manage and interpret a large amount of data, further providing decision support and management recommendations for the tourism industry.

2.4. Research Trends Around Traditional Ancient Towns

In recent years, research on ancient towns has covered a variety of topics such as landscape aesthetics, community empowerment, tourism satisfaction and sustainability. Xian et al. (2014) explore the landscape aesthetics of Lijiang City, highlighting the significance of visual and spatial elements in shaping the identity of ancient towns. Their findings suggest that aesthetic considerations are crucial for enhancing the cultural value and attractiveness of these locations, which can influence tourism and local engagement. In the context of community involvement [46], Zhou et al. (2021) examine the empowerment of local residents in Zhujiajiao, Shanghai, emphasizing the importance of community participation in the sustainable development of ancient towns [47]. Their study employs an analytic hierarchy process to assess residents’ awareness and involvement in tourism-related activities, indicating that community empowerment is vital for the preservation and utilization of cultural heritage. Tourist satisfaction is another critical area of research, as demonstrated by Giao et al. (2020), who analyze the factors influencing tourist satisfaction in Hoi An, Vietnam. Utilizing structural equation modeling, their study reveals that service quality significantly impacts tourists’ experiences, underscoring the need for effective management strategies to enhance visitor satisfaction in ancient towns [48]. The integration of cultural and tourism development is further explored by Geng, B et al. (2021), who focus on the homestay industry in Dujiangyan. Their research identifies challenges such as weak brand awareness and a lack of professional talent, suggesting that a strategic approach to integrating cultural elements with tourism services can foster the growth of the homestay sector in ancient towns [49]. Sustainability is a recurring theme in literature, with Lv et al. (2023) investigating the topological structure of streets and lanes in Xixing Ancient Town. Their findings indicate that the spatial organization of the town affects its vitality and development potential, highlighting the need for urban planning that considers the historical and cultural context of ancient towns [50]. Additionally, Zhang et al. (2022) and Wang et al. (2022) contribute to the understanding of spatial cognition and tourism image-shaping in ancient towns. Zhang’s study on Anchang Ancient Town emphasizes the role of linguistic landscapes in forming a town’s tourism identity [51], while Wang’s research on Fengjing Ancient Town explores how tourists perceive and navigate historical spaces, suggesting that spatial characteristics significantly influence visitor experiences [52]. In summary, the literature on ancient towns reveals a multifaceted approach to understanding their aesthetic, cultural, and economic dimensions. The integration of community participation, tourism management, and sustainability considerations is essential for the ongoing vitality and preservation of these historical sites.

3. Study Area and Methods

3.1. Study Area: Nanxun Ancient Town

Jiangnan water towns have a high degree of aggregation of social development and economic activities in the Jiangnan region, and Nanxun Ancient Town (Ne Zin Tzen in Wu Chinese), as a famous historical and cultural town in China, attracts different types of tourists worldwide with its unique natural scenery and rich historical and humanistic resources. However, traditional landscape perception and evaluation methods face many limitations, making it difficult to comprehensively and accurately understand tourists’ behavioral needs and psychological changes. The popularity and development of social media have changed the traditional communication methods of scenic spots, which not only provide more channels and opportunities for tourists to understand tourist destinations but also provide researchers with practical research data [7]. Government administrators have noted that “it is necessary to be firm in historical and cultural confidence, insist on the use of the past for the present and the promotion of the new, connect the essence of Marxist thoughts with that of the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and increase the protection of cultural relics and cultural heritage” [53]. The Jiangnan region is connected by waterways that act as cultural veins, and the regional cultures are highly recognizable. In 2015, representatives from nine counties and cities (districts) and 13 ancient towns belonging to Suzhou City, Jiaxing City, and Huzhou City provinces and regions signed the Agreement on the Joint Nomination of Ancient Towns and Villages of the Jiangnan Water Towns for the World Heritage in Suzhou [54] and set up the Office of Joint Nomination for World Heritage.

Nanxun Ancient Town is one of the six major ancient towns in Jiangnan and is the first ancient town in Jiangnan to be included in the World Heritage List [55]. The ancient town is located within the jurisdiction of Nanxun, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province (Figure 1 and Figure 2); its unique location advantage is its close proximity to Huzhou City, Shanghai. The 318 National Highway and the Huyan Highway, as well as the Beijing–Hangzhou Canal, the Shen Channel, and the Jiashen Channel, crisscross through the entire territory [56]; thus, there is no traffic congestion. Nanxun Ancient Town has preserved rich historical and cultural relics, and its unique architectural style and cuisine attract countless tourists [57]. This ancient town sits at the confluence of the Nanshi River, Dongshi River, Xishi River, and Baoxian River and constitutes the core of the city with its main streets and residential buildings forming a similar “cross-shaped” pattern [58]. The streets and the layout of the preserved town remain intact, and the river system is still well-conserved. The ancient town comprised private gardens and mansions; during the most prosperous historical period, there were more than 20 gardens of different specifications, including the existing Xiaolian Zhuang (小蓮莊), Ying Garden (穎園), and Jiayetang Library (嘉業堂藏書樓) [59]. The ancient building complex of Baijianlou (百間樓) Riverside Ancient Buildings belongs to the Ming and Qing Dynasty, winding more than 400 m, and is the best-preserved residential community along the river in Jiangnan [60].

Through the abovementioned explanation of Nanxun Ancient Town’s cultural heritage protection and inheritance, socio-economic development, local revitalization, tourist destination image and brand building, and other areas, the town is of great significance. This study aims to provide stakeholders with decision-making support and management advice and contribute to the development and prosperity of the ancient town.

3.2. Data Collection and Processing

Amadeus, a leading technology services company in the global travel industry, recently released its My Travel Insights Report: Chinese Travelers’ Demand Preferences Report, which pointed out that online travel websites like Ctrip occupy the first place in the ranking of apps preferred by Chinese people [61]. This study harvested visitor evaluation data from Dianping 11.35.3, Ctrip 8.78.4, and Mafengwo 11.2.6 with “Nanxun Ancient Town” as the key phrase, evaluating the period from 1 January 2023 to 2 March 2025, and obtaining a total of 11,423 visitor reviews. After eliminating duplicates and invalid information not related to the theme, 10,789 reviews were obtained. To ensure the scientific and strict delivery of the research results, the authors cleaned the data appropriately with the following procedures: (1) Correction of misspelled words, traditional Chinese characters, dialect (Wu Chinese 吳語), and emoticon processing. (2) Content screening processing, that is, content unrelated to the research topic was screened and eliminated. (3) Text processing was performed with only pictures and no descriptive text and direct text deletion processing. After data cleaning based on the abovementioned rules, the total number of words in the network evaluation was reduced from 1,369,013 to 1,300,532 and the cleaned text was saved to proceed to the next step.

3.3. Methodology

This study is guided by the “cognitive–emotional” composition model of tourist destination imagery [62], based on the text of the tourists’ online reviews. First, Python 3.13.0 was used to harvest the evaluation data about Nanxun Ancient Town from the Dianping 11.35.3, Ctrip 8.78.4, and Mafengwo 11.2.6 websites for a certain period. The second step was to clean the data and keep valuable evaluation data as reliable research samples. The third step was to use Mini Tag Cloud software (https://www.weiciyun.com/, accessed on 2 March 2025) to segment the text and identify the high-frequency characteristic words referring to Nanxun Ancient Town, in order to obtain the tourist image perception of Nanxun Ancient Town. Through the construction of analysis categories (main category and subcategory), the perception dimension was analyzed and summarized. Using the semantic network analysis function, the most intuitive impression of Nanxun ancient Town was obtained. Based on the analysis of emotional tendency, negative comments of tourists were coded layer by layer by the text analysis method, and the core concepts were extracted. The negative emotions of tourists regarding Nanxun Ancient Town were coded and analyzed statistically according to their attributes. Since the evaluation data are all derived from Chinese tourism websites, Youdao Translation software (version 10.20.8) was used for Chinese–English auxiliary translation combined with manual proofreading to improve the accuracy of vocabulary translation. After the above analysis results were sorted out, the data were visually analyzed. Finally, the research team conducted a two-week on-site investigation and research (covering both working days and regular hours), and carried out a participatory observation and study on the spatial layout, business distribution and cultural landscape of Nanxun Ancient Town. The research findings show that tourists’ perception and evaluation of Nanxun Ancient Town through social media are significantly positively correlated with the objective situation observed by the research team, effectively verifying the coupling mechanism of subjective and objective cognition in cultural and tourism experiences. The study flow can be found in Figure 3.

4. Results

4.1. Analysis of High-Frequency Feature Words in Evaluation Data

Usually, tourists reviews record their most profound memories; the higher the frequency of words, the more tourists have a deeper sense of identity. Therefore, the analysis of high-frequency words can help to form a comprehensive understanding of the tourists’ overall image of Nanxun Ancient Town. Subsequently, the study used the “tourists review data text” (TXT) and custom user words in the Mini Tag Cloud for word division and word frequency analysis and ultimately identified the weighted frequency of the top 100 words (

Table 1. Statistics for the top 100 high-frequency word list.

Number	Word	Frequency	Part of Speech	Number	Word	Frequency	Part of Speech
1	Ancient town	17,538	Noun	51	Very good	555	Adjective
2	Nanxun	12,076	Place name	52	Sculling boat	515	Noun
3	Admission ticket	2927	Noun	53	Old house	493	Noun
4	Jiangnan	2896	Place name	54	Queue up	485	Noun
5	Free	2225	Gerund	55	Tour	459	Verb
6	Xiaolian Zhuang	1947	Name	56	Nice	455	Verb
7	Commercialization	1941	Noun	57	Lingering charm	451	Noun
8	Place	1758	Noun	58	Of antique beauty	440	Noun
9	Baijianlou	1570	Noun	59	Appreciate	425	Verb
10	Right	1527	Adjective	60	Ramble	422	Verb
11	Jiangnan water town	1432	Place name	61	Live	417	Verb
12	Architecture	1375	Noun	62	White wall	413	Noun
13	Small bridge running water	1254	Noun	63	lamplight	412	Noun
14	Recommended	1217	Verb	64	Performance	395	Verb
15	cost-effective	1192	Verb	65	Environment	395	Noun
16	collect fee	1189	Noun	66	Fermented bean curd	390	Noun
17	Former residence	1184	Noun	67	Shop	387	Noun
18	Huzhou	1183	Place name	68	Friend	383	Noun
19	Night scene	1107	Noun	69	Humanity	372	Noun
20	History	1095	Noun	70	Garden	369	Noun
21	View	1065	Noun	71	Jiayetang	360	Other proper names
22	Time	1063	Noun	72	Groggery	353	Noun
23	Tourist	1045	Noun	73	Along the river	352	Verb
24	Feel	1029	Verb	74	Atmosphere	350	Noun
25	Parking lot	1013	Noun	75	Self-driving	344	Verb
26	Feature	1000	Noun	76	Travel	339	Nominal verb
27	Very big	983	Adjective	77	Misty rain	335	Noun
28	Snack	959	Noun	78	Cheap	334	Adjective
29	Wuzhen	942	Place name	79	Beautiful view	331	Noun
30	Play	940	Noun	80	Lively	328	Adjective
31	Play	904	Verb	81	Xitang	325	Place name
32	Breath	854	Noun	82	Of primitive simplicity	320	Adjective
33	Experience	852	Noun	83	Han Chinese Clothing	320	Other proper names
34	Scenery	835	Noun	84	Tradition	317	Noun
35	Jiangnan Ancient Town	808	Place name	85	Watercourse	315	Noun
36	Pleasure boat	805	Noun	86	Amorous feelings	306	Noun
37	Suggestion	788	Noun	87	Neat	303	Adjective
38	Library	750	Place name	88	Style	302	Noun
39	Be fond of	741	Verb	89	Tranquillity	297	Adjective
40	Taste	738	Noun	90	Reserve	296	Verb
41	Zhang Shiming	737	Name	91	Silk	295	Noun
42	Pull up	717	Verb	92	Cultural deposits	291	Noun
43	Zhang Jingjiang	714	Name	93	Dingsheng Cake	277	Verb
44	Expediency	675	Adjective	94	The central and western walls meet	276	Place name
45	Gourmet	653	Noun	95	Residential hostel	276	Noun
46	Wharf	637	Noun	96	Fireworks	274	Noun
47	Be pleased	625	Adjective	97	Pastry	264	Noun
48	Price	623	Noun	98	Natural silk	228	Noun
49	Bus	608	Noun	99	Celebrity	260	Noun
50	Tasty	570	Verb	100	Architectural style	258	Noun

Source: Statistics by the author.

) and word cloud statistics (Figure 4).

Table 1 includes 57 nouns, 17 verbs, and 10 adjectives from the lexical perspective. Nouns include names of places, buildings, food and snacks, and tourist souvenirs. Adjectives describe tourists’ perceptions of Nanxun Ancient Town’s attractions and the overall atmosphere of tourism, such as “quiet”, “commercialization”, and “cleanliness”, as well as tourists’ experiences during the tour process, such as “beautiful”, “nice”, “satisfactory”, and “lively”. Verbs reflect participation in tourism activities, such as taking pictures and boat rides. In addition, “small bridge and water”, “water town”, “white wall”, “ancient”, and other words and phrases appear as the overall impressions of tourists while describing Nanxun Ancient Town, indicating that the town conforms with the basic characteristics of a Jiangnan water town. The high word frequency of “business” represents the high degree of development of tourism resources in the town. The appearance of words such as “Baijiaolou Neighborhood”, “Xiaolian Zhuang”, “former residence”, and “garden” indicates that the ancient town’s architectural cultural heritage has received wide attention from tourists. Words such as “gourmet”, “snack”, and “delicious” further indicate that the food program of the ancient town is an important tourist attraction. Words such as “entrance fee”, “cost-effective”, and “free” indicate that tourists are more concerned about the expenditure of visiting the ancient town. In addition, the phrase “worth it” is more prominent in the comments, reflecting the intuitive impression of tourists traveling to visit the town, as well as the words “slowly” and “stroll”, indicating that the town’s living environment is very relaxing for tourists. Simultaneously, the phrase “night scene” indicates that the ancient town at night is a positive environment; the “night tour of Nanxun” project has become one of the must-see hit projects. “Recommended” and “awesome” appear in the comments; “Zhang Jingjiang”, “Zhang Shiming”, and other people’s names appear many times, indicating that tourists consider the former residence of celebrities as an important attraction for sightseeing and visiting. In addition, “Wuzhen” and “Xitang” are other ancient water towns in Jiangnan, indicating that tourists compare image characteristics and intuitive experiences between similar scenic spots.

4.2. Perception Dimension Analysis

Through the systematic combing of high-frequency feature words, the perceived imagery of Nanxun Ancient Town is summarized; the words and phrases related to the research theme of tourist place imagery are selected from the original text description to be conceptualized, named and the frequency counted as follows: “Water system landscape”, “Architectural feature”, “Spatial layout”, “Historical site”, “Intangible cultural heritage and living customs”, “Historical geographical coordinates”, “convenience”, “comfort”, “Commercial balance”, “Aesthetic pleasure”, “nostalgia” and “Cultural identity.” A total of 12 keywords are summarized into four dimensions: “Dimensions of natural landscape and architectural style”, “Historical culture and folk heritage dimension”, “Tourism services and facilities experience”, and “Destination atmosphere and impression” (

Table 2. Coding process of visitor perception dimensions.

One-Level Coding	Secondary Coding	Keyword Frequency	Percentage %	Keyword Total Frequency	Percentage %
Natural landscape and architectural style perception analysis	Water system landscape	2558	2.52%	31,382	31.03%
	Architectural feature	22,531	22.27%
	Spatial layout	6293	6.23%
Historical culture and folk heritage perception analysis	Historical site	8185	8.09%	34,585	34.18%
	Intangible cultural heritage and living customs	8978	8.87%
	Historical geographical coordinates	17,422	17.22%
Analysis of tourism service and facility experience perception	Convenience	3842	6.69%	18,590	18.37%
	Comfort	5122	5.06%
	Commercial balance	9626	6.62%
Analysis of emotional interaction and psychological identity perception	Aesthetic pleasure	3658	3.62%	16,606	16.42%
	Nostalgia	5443	5.38%
	Cultural identity	7505	7.42%

Source: Statistics by the author.

).

4.2.1. Natural Landscape and Architectural Style Perception Analysis

The high-frequency words are divided according to the analysis categories established by the content analysis method, and the statistical results are shown in Table 2. Among them, the dimension of natural landscape and architectural style reflects the tourists’ intuitive feeling of the unique natural environment and architectural aesthetics of the water village. The total frequency reached 34,585 times, and the high-frequency words in the category of tourism resources accounted for 31.03% of the four main categories, and “architectural characteristics” accounted for the highest proportion. The data show that Nanxun ancient Town is an ancient town with a long history and profound cultural heritage, and tourists can appreciate traditional ancient buildings, experience a traditional lifestyle and feel the unique ancient town atmosphere. Among them, the buildings that tourists pay more attention to are Xiaolian Zhuang, Zhang Shiming’s old house, Baijianlou, Jiayetang Library, etc. These architectural styles are elegant and exquisite, which is a model of Jiangnan water town architecture.

According to the statistical results obtained from the analysis of review text, the recurrence rates of “water landscape” and “spatial layout” in tourist evaluation are 2.52% and 6.23%, respectively. The recurrence frequency of “Jiangnan” is 2896 times, followed by “Jiangnan Water Town” 1432 times and “Small bridge flowing Water” 1254 times, reflecting tourists’ yearning for the beautiful environment of the ancient town. “Garden” mainly reveals the characteristic scenic spot of Nanxun Ancient Town, Xiaolian Zhuang, which is representative of private gardens in Jiangnan and forms the cultural core of Nanxun Ancient Town. It is known as the essence of “the first of the six ancient towns in Jiangnan”. “Central and Western Walls” mainly reveals the characteristics of the interaction between Chinese and Western cultures in the traditional architecture of Nanxun Ancient Town. For example, the main buildings in the Xiaolian Zhuang, such as “Xiuxiu Small Pavilion” and “Qingxiangshi Cave”, are mainly in the style of Jiangnan water pavilions. The “Dongsheng Pavilion” in the west of the pond is French architecture with shutters and fireplaces, reflecting the integration of Chinese and Western cultures in the late Qing Dynasty. “White wall”, “simplicity” and “retention” reflect the preservation of traditional buildings such as Matou Wall in Nanxun Ancient Town. “Antique” and “charm” are evaluations of the authenticity of life in Nanxun Ancient Town. The stone road, the riverfront building and the Wumeng boat dock in the ancient town still retain their original ecological life scenes, and the hundred buildings covered by mist in the morning are like ink paintings.

4.2.2. Historical Culture and Folk Heritage Dimensions

Nanxun Ancient Town has profound intangible cultural heritage, including the exhibition of “three carvings, one color and one embroidery”, movable type printing experience, and copperware technology display. The exquisite intangible heritage projects such as lake brush-making skills, Shuanglin silk-weaving skills, Lianshi boat-boxing skills, and high-pole boat skills, let people personally feel the intangible heritage charm that is bred in the “home of silk, the land of fish and rice, and the land of culture”. This perception dimension has the highest total frequency among the 100 high-frequency words in the analysis category, with a total of 34,585 instances, accounting for 34.18%. It embodies the tourists’ immersive experience of Nanxun Ancient Town’s historical heritage and local culture.

According to the analysis and statistics of the content of network texts and the co-occurrence of high-frequency words, the dimensions of tourists’ historical culture and folk custom inheritance of Nanxun Ancient Town are mainly reflected in three aspects: historical relics, intangible cultural heritage and living habits, and geographical coordinates. The study found that tourists were very interested in the historical sites in the ancient town, among which Zhang Shiming’s former residence (張石銘舊居) was mentioned 737 times, Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence (張靜江故居) was mentioned 717 times, and Jiayetang Library was mentioned 1110 times. Zhang Shiming’s former residence is known as “the first mansion in the South of the Yangtze River”. In the Chinese courtyard, Roman columns, blue-crystal glass carvings and Dongyang wood carvings coexist. A total of 244 rooms show the luxury of silk merchants’ lives. Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence is not only a model of traditional architecture in the south of the Yangtze River, but also a micro-carrier of political and economic changes in modern China. Its characteristic is to condense family wealth, revolutionary situation and cultural accumulation brick by brick, and become a fresh annotation of Nanxun’s “history of the people, half of which is in Huzhou”. Jiayetang Library is the cultural treasure of Nanxun Ancient Town, and it is also the private library with the largest scale and richest collection in modern China. “Silk” and “silk making” highlight that the ancient town displays sericulture, silk reeling and other technologies through the Jili Silk Exhibition Hall and promotes silk research in combination with the Mulberry Fishpond experience area, transforming the industrial tradition of “land without mulberry trees” into cultural tourism resources. Words such as “Hanfu”, “photo” and “experience” reflect tourists’ strong interest in Hanfu shooting, and it is a cultural dialogue that crosses time and space, integrating the ancient charm and artistic atmosphere of the water town, but paying less attention to the “authenticity” of the tourist destination. The words “sculling boat”, “boat” and “performance” have been mentioned many times by tourists. As an important means of water transportation in Nanxun Ancient Town, sculling boats are closely connected to the inheritance of folk culture. The water route runs through the core area of intangible heritage: from Xiaolian Zhuang to Guanghui Palace through Baijianlou, tourists can closely watch the silk reeling techniques of Jili Lake silk workshop (輯里湖絲制作坊), the weaving scene of Shuanglin silk, and the three tea-making processes of the teahouse along the river, forming an immersive experience of “one boat to see all the intangible cultural heritage”. “Wuzhen” and “Xitang” appear many times, reflecting that tourists are more concerned about the comparison between the ancient towns, and later tourism development should pay attention to the development of characteristic projects, adhere to the concept of “you have my new, you have my special”, do not engage in homogeneous competition, and take the road of differentiated development.

4.2.3. Analysis of Tourism Service and Facility Experience Perception

The dimension of tourist service and facility experience in Nanxun Ancient Town accounts for 18.37%, which reflects the satisfaction evaluation of tourists on infrastructure and service quality. Tourists focus on the convenience, comfort and commercialization of tourism services. Among them, “free”, “commercialization”, “charge”, “shop” and “price” reflect the price level, but according to the actual situation, the “free” in the tourist comment text mainly refers to free opening to the outside world from January 2023, so in addition to free tickets, “commercialization” may have more reference value than “free”; tourists generally reflect that the ancient town’s commercial atmosphere is too strong. The types of shops are relatively homogeneous, mostly catering shops, hand shops, milk tea shops, Hanfu shops, etc. In addition, tourists generally feed back that the price level of Nanxun Ancient Town is high, requiring the management of the scenic spot to strengthen price supervision and management and pay attention to the characteristic management ideas of the scenic spot. “Snacks”, “stinky tofu”, “Dingsheng cake” and “yummy” reflect tourists’ cognition of the food and beverage in Nanxun Ancient Town, mainly focusing on snacks such as double noodles, Dingsheng cake and stinky tofu, and there are no words similar to other traditional Jiangzhe dishes, reflecting that the food format of Nanxun Ancient Town is dominated by traditional snacks, and the mining of Huzhou’s traditional characteristic catering culture needs to be improved. In addition to food and drink, tourism services also involve transportation accessibility, accommodation quality and health conditions. According to the actual statistical situation, “parking” and “parking lot” have been mentioned a total of 1730 times. From the evaluation, it can be found that tourists have more complaints about the difficulty of parking in Nanxun Ancient Town, which deserves high attention from the management of the scenic spot, and this problem needs to be solved urgently. “Self-driving” and “bus” appear more frequently and are the main modes of transportation for tourists to reach the scenic spot. “Hotel” and “homestay” are mentioned many times, indicating that the quality of accommodation is a hot spot for tourists. Recently, Nanxun Ancient Town launched an initiative whereby tourists staying in the designated hotels or guest houses can visit the six core attractions free of charge; this policy, through the “accommodation + scenic spots” linkage, to a certain extent also drove the tourist flow of scenic spots. The impression of “clean” is larger. The main target of “clean” is basic public facilities, such as toilets, street environment, residential environment, restaurant environment, etc. In recent years, Nanxun Ancient Town has achieved significant improvement in environmental quality through systematic ecological restoration, fine environmental management and multi-party joint governance.

4.2.4. Dimension Analysis of Emotional Interaction and Psychological Identity

In Nanxun Ancient Town, the dimension of emotional interaction and psychological identity accounts for 16.42%, which reflects the relationships of emotional resonance and psychological belonging between tourists and the ancient town’s environment and culture. In the classification of perception analysis, cultural identity accounts for a relatively high proportion, reaching 7.41%. Tourists are more satisfied with the spatial atmosphere of the whole scenic spot; “comfortable”, “beautiful”, “appreciation”, “beautiful scenery”, “quiet” and similar words reflect the sense of tranquility or shock caused by visual beauty of tourists. Research shows that tourists’ perception of ancient town buildings (such as Xiaolian Zhuang and Zhang Shiming’s former residence) directly affects psychological identity. Visual elements such as white walls and black tiles of Ming and Qing architectural groups and the reflection of river channels in water towns create a sense of immersion, of “time stagnation”, and stimulate tourists’ yearning for and belonging to Jiangnan culture. Words such as “time”, “tourists”, “customs”, “misty rain” and “atmosphere” appear many times, and reflect tourists’ historical memory or childhood nostalgia triggered by the aspect of the ancient town. The aesthetics of 100 buildings deeply attracted many tourists with a nostalgic complex; this 400 m stretch of 100 buildings, the white wall of green tile reflected in the Di Tang Canal, the sound of washing clothes in the morning, and the sound of rowing boats intertwined. This original ecological water village scene, which has not been commercialized, re-engraves the collective life memory of traditional settlements in Jiangnan and becomes a visual symbol of “Jiangnan water village childhood”. When tourists taste “three teas” in teahouses along the river, the aroma of tea and the swaying of weeping willows on the river often evoke associations with the lifestyle of their grandmothers. In recent years, Nanxun ancient Town has adopted the triple path of “living protection” (retention of indigenous people) + “value sharing” (free ticket policy) + “cultural regeneration” (intangible cultural heritage activation). Tourists’ emotional expressions such as “recommend”, “worthy”, “characteristic”, “great”, “like” and “very good” not only contain their identification with the traditional Jiangnan lifestyle but also imply careful reflection on the commercialization of modern cultural travel.

4.3. Semantic Network Analysis

The above-mentioned high-frequency words can better reflect the main features of tourists’ perception of spatial imagery in ancient towns. However, it is more difficult to reflect the semantic relatedness in tourists’ evaluation and the deeper semantic structural relationship between high-frequency words in tourists’ evaluation. Therefore, this study used the semantic network analysis function in the Mini Tag Cloud software to discover a spatial pattern with the ancient town as the core and dispersion in all directions (Figure 5). This is the most intuitive embodiment of the types and functions of tourist attractions and, simultaneously, illustrates the tourists’ intuitive impression of the spatial perception of the ancient town.

In the semantic network analysis diagram, in addition to the words “ticket”, “attraction”, “nice”, and “place”, the terms “Xiaolian Zhuang”, “small bridge and flowing water”, and so on are distributed in the sub-core position. “Baijianlou” and other terms indicate that these architectural features and the brand image of Nanxun Ancient Town are closely linked in the special attention of tourists. In addition, “the Ancient town and tickets”, “the Ancient town and Baijianlou”, “the Ancient town and architecture”, “the Ancient town and former residence”, “Ancient town—nice”, and other terms maintain high connectivity, revealing the following aspects:

(1)

Thematic focus: the high degree of linking of these terms indicates that they appear frequently in discussions or descriptions related to Nanxun Ancient Town, forming a close thematic association that reflects the core elements and characteristics of the town as a tourist and cultural attraction.

(2)

Tourism attributes: “Ancient town and tickets” suggests that tourists are discussing the cost-effectiveness of Nanxun Ancient Town’s scenic area, which reflects its commercialized and standardized tourism operation. Simultaneously, the positive comments from tourists on “Ancient Town—Not bad” indicate that the overall tourism experience of the town is recognized.

(3)

Architecture and cultural heritage: The links “ancient town and architecture” and “ancient town and former residence” highlight the importance of the architectural and cultural heritage of Nanxun Ancient Town. The high degree of correlation between these terms indicates that the town has preserved a large number of valuable ancient buildings and historical homes and that these elements are one of the main features of the town that attracts tourists.

(4)

Attraction features: The “Ancient town and Baijianlou” association refers to the famous building “Baijianlou” in Nanxun Ancient Town, indicating that the attractions in the ancient town have an importance for the tourists coming to visit the town.

In summary, the high degree of linkage among these terms reveals the core elements and characteristics of Nanxun Ancient Town as a tourism and cultural attraction, including its tourism attributes, architectural and cultural heritage, and specific attraction features. This information is important for understanding and describing the importance and value of Nanxun Ancient Town in the field of tourism and culture.

4.4. Emotional Disposition Analysis

4.4.1. Distribution of Emotional Value and Quantity

The emotional tendency of tourists can be analyzed by identifying the emotive words in tourist reviews. The basic emotions include three categories, namely, positive, neutral, and negative emotions, and each category includes many common emotive words. Therefore, the emotional tendency of tourists and their experience perceptions of the tourist destination must be distinguished by identifying their emotional words. Tourist place imagery is constructed by tourists based on individual cognition and emotion on top of each other, and with the integration of personal experience and emotion, the emotional imagery of tourist places begins to form. First, we imported the tourists’ evaluation text into Mini Tag Cloud after lexical processing, selected the tourists’ evaluation text for statistical analysis of emotional high-frequency words, and obtained the emotional analysis table and the emotional value and quantity distribution chart (

Table 3. Sentiment analysis statistics of visitors’ online comments.

Affective Tendency	Evaluation Quantity (Articles)	Percentage %	Segmented Statistics of Positive Emotions	Evaluation Quantity (Articles)	Percentage %
Positive emotion	6420	59.51%	Common (0–10)	4317	40.01%
Neutral emotion	2283	21.16%	Moderate (10–20)	1575	14.60%
Negative emotion	2086	19.33%	High (>20)	528	4.90%
			Segmented statistics of negative emotions	Evaluation quantity	Percentage %
			Common (−10–0)	2037	18.88%
			Moderate (−20–10)	40	0.37%
			High (<−20)	9	0.08%

Source: Statistics by the author.

and Figure 6). The research data show that the average score of Nanxun Ancient Town’s emotional analysis is 6.87 points, of which the proportion of tourists’ positive, neutral, and negative emotions is 59.51%, 21.16%, and 19.33% (Figure 7), respectively. The main reason is that tourists have high recognition of Nanxun Ancient Town with its beautiful natural scenery, rich history, and flourishing arts; thus, the general impression of tourists of the town is good. Nanxun Ancient Town is called “the state of culture”, “the town of poetry and books”, “Jiangnan water town”, and so on, reflecting the high evaluation and appreciation of tourists. However, as a World Heritage tourist attraction, managers need to focus on the causes of the negative emotions of tourists.

4.4.2. Category Analysis of Negative Tourist Perception Factors

Negative tourist perceptions of a destination reflect possible problems with the destination. The study of negative perceptions can better identify and improve the existing deficiencies. Therefore, the 2086 negative reviews that received poor ratings from tourists were coded layer-wise through the rooted theory research method to refine the core concepts, aiming to understand the essential factors behind the phenomenon of negative reviews, and ultimately condensing them into three core attributes of tourism resources, environment, and activities, as well as secondary attributes including architectural style, cultural authenticity, attraction items, traveling feelings, traffic conditions, catering conditions, accommodation, scenic environment, scenic management, and leisure and entertainment (

Table 4. Hierarchical coding process of negative perception factors in reviews of Nanxun Ancient Town.

First Level Coding (Frequency)	Secondary Coding	Tertiary Coding
The commercial atmosphere of the Ancient town is too heavy (48) The spatial positioning of the Chinese and Western walled buildings is confusing (15) The Ancient town is not very large (15) The vast majority of the houses are renovated at a later stage (9) The traces of architectural artifacts are relatively heavy (6) The Ancient town is integrated with the neighboring district residences (6)	Architectural style 19.07%	Tourism resources 45.08%
Much the same as other ancient towns (15) Jiangnan custom nature of the ancient town, nothing amazing (9) The entire scenic area honestly has no characteristics (12) Jiangnan town style is much worse (9)	Cultural authenticity 8.67%
Liu’s ladder number and Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence are really no fun; this is a poster introduction (3) Fewer small attractions than in Xitang, Wuzhen is too far away (12) Shanghai Fengjing Ancient town for free than here and is also good to look at (6) Zhujiajiao Qibao old street is not much different (6)	Landscape project 6.36%
Disappointed (9) Poor experience (9) Average view (15) Small place (15) Boring (12)	Traveling experience 10.98%
The restaurants at the entrance are expensive (9) A bowl of bok choy surprisingly costs CNY 38 (3) The taste of the Netflix restaurant is average (3) The stir-fry at Shuangjiao Noodle House is too difficult to eat (9) Only four people ate, and the bill was nearly CNY 400 (3) There are too few tasty cuisines (9) Food hygiene at scenic spots needs to improve (9) The restaurants are not cheap, and they do not taste good (6)	Catering conditions 9.83%	Tourism environment 28.86%
No toiletries in Jiangnan Courtyard Hotel room (3) Average soundproofing (15) Too many mosquitoes in Ancient town accommodation (6) Rather poor room hygiene (9)	Accommodation 6.35%
Unreasonable layout of washrooms (6) Multiple broken pavements (9) Multiple renovations to attractions and cluttered piles of building materials (6) Lack of timely cleaning of bins (6)	Scenic environment 5.21%
Higher car park charges (18) Poor traffic management (9) Congestion to the point where there is no parking (9) Buses from the HSR station to the attraction stop far away from the entrance (3)	Transport conditions 7.52%
All tickets are scanned, and the ambiance does not feel very friendly (6) Water buses are not frequent (6) Directional signs are not obvious enough (9) Finding the way is a bit dizzying (3) Indifferent attitude of the staff (9) Tickets are bundled with the sale of hairy crabs (12) All the shops are closed for the Chinese New Year (9) Unreasonable refund rules (15) Poor attitude of the security guards (9)	Landscape management 15.03%	Tourism activities 26.01%
Low playability (18) Not recommended for young people (6) Too many people, crowded (33)	Leisure and entertainment 10.98%

Source: Statistics by the author.

).

Among the negative perception factors about Nanxun Ancient Town, tourism resources exhibited the most problems, accounting for 45.08% of the overall problems, which is much higher than those of the environment of the tourist place and activities. This category includes four secondary factors: architectural style (19.07%), cultural originality (8.67%), scenic area projects (6.36%), and tourism feelings (10.98%). Tourists repeatedly mentioned unsatisfactory aspects, as follows: (1) The place is very small; the scenery is generic. (2) Young people generally comment on the absence of characteristics, and other ancient towns are much the same, resulting in fewer interactions. (3) The ancient town is too heavily commercialized and has strayed away from the original environment of the Jiangnan water town. (4) Middle-aged and old-aged tourists are generally nostalgic; however, as most of the houses have been renovated in the modern age, the old Nanxun Ancient Town flavor is lost; thus, such tourists feel disappointed. These four aspects are the outstanding problems in tourism perception. Tourism environment is in 2nd place among the negative perception factors, accounting for 28.86% of the total problems, including four secondary categories of food and beverage conditions, accommodation conditions, scenic environment, and traffic conditions. Tourism activities are in 3rd place, accounting for 26.01% of the total problems, including scenic area management and recreation, both of which are secondary categories.

The abovementioned analysis shows that the overall characteristics of tourists’ perceived image of Nanxun Ancient Town are primarily centered around the positive emotions of “tourist atmosphere”; it indicates that most tourists are more satisfied with the evaluation of the town’s renovation and are more interested in projects with distinctive local cultural characteristics. Simultaneously, their poor experience with tourism resources is the main factor leading to the negative emotions of tourists. The negative tourism experience of tourists is mostly focused on “architectural style”, “authenticity of the built environment”, “cultural authenticity”, and “attraction programs”. Therefore, with regard to the factors leading to negative emotions, excessive commercialization should be avoided in the future, the renewal of historical and cultural districts and the authenticity of the architectural environment and local culture should be carefully examined and protected, and the cultural heritage of attractions and projects should be highlighted, in order to provide tourists with a good tourism experience and positive feelings.

4.5. Analysis of the Spatial Emotional Tendency of the Core Scenic Spots

The landscape characteristics and plot themes of the seven core scenic spots in Nanxun Ancient Town, namely, Xiaolian Zhuang, Jiayetang Library, Zhang Shiming’s former residence, Guanghui Palace, Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence, House of Family Liu and Baijianlou, have a profound impact on tourists’ emotional perception. Tourists’ emotional perception of scenic spots directly affects their satisfaction, revisit rate and word of mouth communication, and further affects the overall development of the scenic spot. Scenic spots with high emotional value scores (such as Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence, Baijianlou, Jiayetang Library) can often attract more tourists and drive surrounding consumption, while scenic spots with low scores (such as Guanghui Palace) need to strengthen the mining and promotion of their resources. According to the emotional value score and text analysis, the research shows that there are significant differences in tourists’ emotional perception of the seven core scenic spots in Nanxun Ancient Town. The specific analysis is given below.

4.5.1. Xiaolian Zhuang

Built in 1885 during the reign of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, Xiaolian Zhuang is a typical classical garden in South China. It was carefully built by Liu Yong, the richest man in Nanxun, and his family over 40 years. Zhao Mengfu (趙孟頫), a calligrapher and painter from the Yuan Dynasty, admired the garden, which spans an area of 27 mu, for its lotus village. The architectural space layout of Xiaolian Zhuang is exquisite; it combines the delicacy of Jiangnan Garden with the grandeur of Western architecture and is one of the most representative buildings of Nanxun Ancient Town. The Xiaolian Zhuang is mainly composed of three parts: the outer garden, the inner garden, and the Liu family temple. The overall layout is centered on the lotus pond, and the mountains and rivers are set up according to the terrain to form two gardens inside and outside. Mini Tag Cloud software (https://www.weiciyun.com/, accessed on 2 March 2025) was used to select high-frequency words of tourists’ evaluation of Xiaolian Zhuang for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 2.72 points (Figure 8, Figure 9 and Figure 10).

Further analysis of the positive evaluation of architectural space of Xiaolian Zhuang revealed the following three main factors. These were: (1) Garden design and natural landscape: Visitors generally think that the garden design of Xiaolian Zhuang is exquisite, winding, and quiet, and it has typical characteristics of Jiangnan gardens. In summer, when the lotus flowers are in full bloom, the scenery is particularly charming, and the lotus pool and the pavilions complement each other, making people linger. However, in winter, the overall landscape of the lake is affected by the fading of the lotus flowers, which also leads to negative emotions among some tourists. (2) A combination of Chinese and Western architectural styles: Visitors are deeply impressed by the architectural styles combining Chinese and Western elements such as “Dongsheng Pavilion” and think that these buildings are particularly eye-catching in Jiangnan gardens and add exotic flavor. (3) Historical and cultural values: Tourists have a high evaluation of the historical relics such as Liu Family Temple and the Corridor of Steles and think that these places are excellent places to understand the history and culture of Nanxun. The “Chengxian Mu Clan” Kowloon gold plaque hanging in front of the royal temple and the main hall is a symbol of the glory of the Liu family.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of Xiaolian Zhuang. These are: (1) The landscape is seasonally limited (Figure 11); the lotus pond in Xiaolian Zhuang is one of its core sights, but the lotus flowers only bloom in the summer, and the scenery is relatively monotonous in other seasons, which may disappoint some visitors. (2) Some areas are poorly maintained: some visitors pointed out that some areas of the village (such as some buildings or garden facilities) have problems with insufficient maintenance, such as peeling walls and slightly messy garden landscapes. (3) Heavy commercial atmosphere: some tourists feel that the commercial atmosphere in and around the village is heavy, such as the small vendors selling souvenirs, restaurants, etc., which affects the quiet atmosphere of the garden.

4.5.2. Jiayetang Library

Jiayetang Library in Nanxun Ancient Town is one of the most famous book collection buildings in modern China. It was built in 1920 by Liu Chenggan, grandson of Liu Yong, one of the “four elephants” in Nanxun. Jiayetang Library is not only famous for its rich collection of books, but also its architectural space design is very distinctive, combining traditional Jiangnan Garden style with Western architectural elements. The architectural layout of Jiayetang Library reflects the concept of “harmony between nature and man” in traditional Chinese gardens while combining functional needs. The library divides the overall space into three main parts: (1) As the core building, the library adopts the traditional Chinese style, focusing on practicality and cultural symbols. (2) Garden landscape: Arranging rockeries, ponds, pavilions, and other garden elements around the library creates a peaceful and elegant environment. (3) Ancillary buildings: including functional spaces such as study rooms, meeting rooms, lounges, etc., to meet the needs of book collection, reading, meeting guests, etc. Mini Tag Cloud software was used to select high-frequency words in tourists’ evaluation of Jiayetang Library for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 3.12 points (Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 14).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of architectural space of Jiayetang Library, there are three main factors. These are as follows: (1) Strong cultural atmosphere: Visitors generally believe that the architectural space of Jiayetang Library is full of a strong cultural atmosphere, especially the design of the library, which gives people a sense of history and knowledge. Elements such as rockeries and ponds in the garden also remind people of the life taste of traditional Chinese literati. (2) Elegant and quiet environment: The garden landscape and architectural layout of Jiayetang Library create a peaceful and elegant environment where visitors can relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Many visitors say the paths and promenades in the gardens are perfect for walking and taking photos. (3) Comfortable space experience: Visitors appreciate the spatial flow line and functional zoning of Jiayetang Library, thinking that the layout is reasonable, and it is very convenient to visit. The lighting and ventilation design has also been well-received by visitors, especially during the summer months, when the interior remains cool and comfortable.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of Jiayetang Library (Figure 15). These are the following: (1) Crowded: In the tourist season or holidays, the number of tourists in Jiayetang Library is large, resulting in space congestion, which affects the tour experience. Some visitors said the crowds prevented them from enjoying the beauty of the buildings and gardens, especially in the narrow corridors and pavilions. (2) Insufficient tour information: The historical and cultural background of Jiayetang Library is complicated, but some tourists think that the tour information is not detailed enough or lacks multi-language support. Visitors expressed limited knowledge about Jiayetang Library and asked for more detailed explanations or guided tours, especially for foreign visitors, where the lack of multilingual guided tours is a problem. (3) Insufficient maintenance and repair: Some buildings and garden facilities are aging or damaged and have not been well-maintained, affecting the overall look and feel. Tourists pointed out that some rockery, ponds, and pavilions appear to be a little shabby and hope that the relevant departments can strengthen maintenance to maintain the original style of Jiayetang Library.

4.5.3. Zhang Shiming’s Former Residence

Zhang Shiming’s former residence is one of the most well-preserved large residential buildings in Nanxun Ancient Town, which has the typical architectural style of Jiangnan Water Town but also integrates Western architectural elements, showing the unique features of cultural exchanges between China and the West in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The former residence covers a large area, and the overall layout follows the principle of axial symmetry of traditional Chinese architecture while combining the layout characteristics of Jiangnan gardens. The building complex is divided into several courtyards, each of which has a clear function, not only living space but also functional areas such as reception, entertainment, and leisure (Figure 16, Figure 17 and Figure 18).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of the architectural space of Zhang Shiming’s Former Residence, there are three main factors. These are as follows: (1) A wonderful example of Chinese and Western fusion: Visitors generally appreciate the design style of Zhang Shiming’s former residence, which combines traditional Chinese Jiangnan architecture with Western decorative art. Western elements such as stained glass and Roman columns complement Chinese white walls and black tiles, carved wood, and brick carvings, forming a unique visual aesthetic. (2) Ingenious spatial layout: Visitors are impressed by the courtyard layout and patio design of the former residence, which is consistent with the architectural characteristics of the Jiangnan water town but also has practical functions such as lighting, ventilation, and privacy. (3) Exquisite decorative art, rich in details: visitors are full of praise for the wood carving and brick carving techniques in the former residence, thinking that these decorations are not only exquisite and delicate but also contain rich cultural implications, such as auspicious patterns, historical stories, and so on. In addition, visitors are amazed by the stained-glass windows and Western decorative elements, believing that these details add a unique artistic charm to the traditional building.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of Zhang Shiming’s former residence (Figure 19). These are as follows: (1) The garden landscape is slightly neglected: Some tourists believe that the garden landscape in the former residence is not maintained enough, and some areas (such as ponds and rockery) appear neglected, failing to fully show the delicacy and beauty of the Jiangnan Garden. (2) The space is crowded and narrow, and the visiting experience is not good: Tourists believe that some areas of the former residence (such as wings and corridors) are narrow, which results in congestion, especially when visiting in groups. (3) Lack of interactive experience: Some visitors believe that the content of visiting the former residence is mainly a static display, lacking interactive projects (such as virtual reality experiences, manual activities, etc.), making it difficult to attract the interest of young tourists or family tourists.

4.5.4. Guanghui Palace

Guanghui Palace is a Taoist temple with a long history, which was built in the Song Dynasty and has been restored many times and is still well-preserved today. Guanghui Palace is not only an important religious place in Nanxun Ancient Town, but also one of the representatives of Taoist architecture in the Jiangnan area. The overall layout follows the building regulations of traditional Chinese Taoist temples and it adopts a symmetrical layout with an emphasis on solemnity and holiness. The complex is divided into several courtyards; the main buildings are arranged along the central axis, including the mountain gate, the front hall, the main hall, and the back hall, and there are side halls and ancillary buildings on both sides. Mini Tag Cloud software was used to select high-frequency words from tourists’ evaluations of Guanghui Palace for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 1.12 points (Figure 20, Figure 21 and Figure 22).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of the architectural space of Guanghui Palace, there are three main factors. These are the following: (1) Unique architectural style: The architectural complex integrates the characteristics of the north and south; the yellow walls and eaves complement the Jiangnan water town, and the carved temple is fine. The Temple of Heaven in Guanghui Palace is built according to the poles of heaven, Yin and Yang, four images, eight diagrams, and twelve zodiac signs. There is also the inscription “Tao” by the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi, which means “Tao is natural”. (2) Pleasant atmosphere: There are fewer tourists in the early morning, and the local elderly can be seen about their quiet morning exercise, full of life; strong incense during the day, bright lights at night, showing different charm. Many tourists think it is a suitable place for taking photos, especially with Guanghui Bridge and Nanshi River, forming a typical picture of Jiangnan water town. (3) Comfortable experience: Some tourists mentioned that Guanghui Palace is moderate in size, the tour route is clear, and you can feel its cultural charm without a long stay. The statue in the temple is dignified and compassionate, and the overall atmosphere is solemn and mysterious, suitable for tourists seeking peace of mind.

On the other hand, there are also two main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of the architectural space of Guanghui Palace (Figure 23). These are as follows: (1) Lack of classical charm: tourists reflect that Guanghui Palace has obvious traces of new construction, a lack of antique atmosphere, and an architectural style that tends to modern repair, losing the original historical charm. (2) The scenic area is small in scale and lacks deep experience: the main architectural complex is small in area, mainly including Huang Da Xian Hall and Cihang Hall, and there are many kinds of idols (such as the Emperor of Cishan, Huang Da Xian, Wang Lingguan, etc.). The space layout is crowded, resulting in a single tour route, more homogenous content, and a lack of deep experience.

4.5.5. Zhang Jingjiang’s Former Residence

Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence has become a model of Nanxun’s ancient town residences, with its strict layout along three axes, the traditional architectural form of Jiangnan, and the spatial narrative of Confucian merchant culture. Its pure Chinese style is different from the former residence of Zhang Shiming, which is “a combination of Chinese and Western elements” in the same period, and it is more restrained and solemn. It creates a compound space that combines etiquette, residence, and cultural inheritance through the progressive courtyard, carved inscriptions, and hall furnishings. This space not only records the rise and fall of the family but also shows how Jiangnan gentry culture is still alive today. Mini Tag Cloud software was used to select high-frequency words from tourists’ evaluation of Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 3.4 points (Figure 24, Figure 25 and Figure 26).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of the architectural space of Zhang Jingjiang’s Former Residence, there are three main factors. These are the following: (1) Unique architectural style, a combination of Chinese and Western elements: Tourists generally speak highly of the architectural style of Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence, believing that it combines traditional folk houses in Jiangnan with western architectural elements, forming a unique style of “Chinese and Western elements”. The combination of traditional elements, such as brick and wood structures, pitched roofs, and green tiles, with Western elements, such as arched doors and windows and carved decorations, shows the diversity of architectural styles of the late Qing Dynasty (1636–1912) and the early Republic of China (1912–1949), leaving a deep impression on visitors. (2) Reasonable spatial layout and clear function: Tourists are satisfied with the spatial layout of the former residence, believing that its functional zoning is clear, and the streamlined design is reasonable. The front hall, the middle hall, and the back hall undertake different functions, which not only meet the needs of formal reception but also ensure the privacy of family life. In addition, there are gardens, patios, and other leisure spaces in the former residence, which increase the comfort of living and bring a pleasant visiting experience to visitors. (3) Exquisite decoration and exquisite details: Tourists appreciate the decoration and details of the former residence and think that the wood and brick carving decoration is very exquisite, especially the carving of doors and windows, beams and columns, and other parts. The theme is mostly flowers and birds, figures, auspicious patterns, etc., which has far-reaching implications and reflects the cultural tradition and aesthetic taste of the Jiangnan area. Additionally, the furnishings of the former residence, primarily made of mahogany, showcase the traditional Jiangnan style with their simple and generous shapes, emphasizing practicality.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence (Figure 27). These are as follows: (1) The exhibition content is simple and lacks depth; some visitors believe that the exhibition content in the former residence is relatively simple—mainly static pictures and text introductions—and lacks interaction and innovation. Visitors said that the exhibition did not fully show Zhang Jingjiang’s life story and important role in modern history, resulting in limited access to information and insufficient experience during the visit. (2) High ticket price, insufficient value for money: Some tourists believe that the ticket price of Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence is relatively high, especially compared with similar attractions in other Jiangnan ancient towns; the value for money is not outstanding. Visitors said that the content and experience of the former home did not fully match the ticket price, leading to some disappointment. (3) Imperfect supporting facilities: Some tourists pointed out that the supporting facilities around the former residence are not good enough, such as insufficient parking spaces, fewer bathrooms, limited rest areas, etc., which brings inconvenience to the tourist’s visiting experience. In addition, some visitors believe that the dining and accommodation options around the former residence are too few to meet diverse needs.

4.5.6. Liu Residence

The residence of the Liu family, built in the late Qing Dynasty, was that of Liu Yong, the richest man in Nanxun. Liu’s family were involved in the silk industry and accumulated huge wealth. The construction of their mansion was grand in scale and unique in style, which integrated the traditional architecture of Jiangnan and Western architectural elements, reflecting the tastes and cultural integration of the wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan at that time. The Liu residence adopt the typical “multi-entrance courtyard” layout of traditional houses in Jiangnan, which is divided into multiple courtyards, such as the front yard, middle yard, and back yard. Each courtyard has a clear function, with both open guest space and private living area. Mini Tag Cloud software was used to select high-frequency words from tourists’ evaluations of the Liu residence for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 2.56 points (Figure 28, Figure 29 and Figure 30).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of the architectural space of the Liu residence, there are three main factors. These are as follows: (1) Chinese and Western architectural features: Visitors highly appreciate the Liu residence, whose architecture integrates Chinese Hui style fire-sealing gable, stone door and Western European Romanesque and Rococo style roof, forming a unique visual impact. The red brick building (commonly known as the “red house”) has a magnificent appearance, and the interior wood carving, brick carving and stone carving are exquisite, such as the auspicious ancient seal characters in the panes, Western fireplace and glass carving and other details, showing the open vision and luxurious tastes of the silk merchants of the late Qing Dynasty, which is called “exquisite out of silver” by tourists. (2) Visual beauty and photo experience: the exotic style of the red brick houses and the simplicity of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River complement each other and become a popular focal point. Tourists especially praise the “high appearance level” of its appearance, saying that it is “very nice to photograph” and is suitable for capturing the unique charm of the integration of Chinese and Western architecture. The details of the building complex (such as carved wooden windows and roof decoration) are also mentioned many times, considered to be very artistic. (3) Protection and restoration work in place: Visitors affirmed the protection and restoration work of the Liu residence, believing that it followed the principle of “repairing the old as the old”, and tried to retain the original architectural style and spatial layout, avoiding excessive commercial development. In the process of visiting, visitors can feel the historical original appearance of the Liu residence, which increases the sense of identity of traditional architectural culture in Jiangnan.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of the Liu residence (Figure 31). These are the following: (1) Ticket price dispute: Some tourists think that the ticket price of CNY 20 for a single scenic spot is high, especially compared with the internal display content, “more cultural landscape, fewer historical traces”, the tour area is small, and the overall experience is not worth the ticket price. Some tourists suggest that the price should be CNY 10–15, or it is recommended to buy a joint ticket (including Xiaolian Zhuang, Zhang Shiming’s Former Residence, etc.) to improve the value for money. Furthermore, the free opening of ancient towns has not fully reflected the differentiated value of charging for scenic spots. (2) The renovation project affects the experience: In recent years, the Liu residence have been in a state of repair many times (for example, visitors in 2024 mentioned that “the Red House is under repair”), and some areas (such as the corridor of the Lucid Library) have been closed for a long time, affecting the integrity of the building’s appearance and internal display. Tourists reflected that the ornamental value of the landscape declined during the renovation period, noting that the details of the decoration of European-style houses, stained glass, and other highlights were blocked from view, and the restoration information was not publicized in advance, resulting in disappointment. (3) The content of the tour is monotonous, and the homogeneity is obvious: Compared with other rich merchant mansions in Nanxun (such as Zhang Shiming’s Former Residence and Xiaolian Zhuang), the spatial layout and architectural form of the Liu residence are relatively simple, the core attraction is focused on the appearance of the red house, and the internal visit flow is short (it is recommended to stay for only 20–30 min). Tourists reflect that “in addition to taking photos and punching cards, there is a lack of content that can be experienced in depth”, the style is similar to that of other Chinese-Western buildings in the ancient town (such as Zhang Shiming’s former residence), and there is insufficient differentiation.

4.5.7. Baijianlou

With “one river and two streets” as the framework, the architectural space of Baijianlou integrates elements such as a small courtyard, an arcade gate, and a horsehead wall group, forming a model of a water village residence with both functional and aesthetic value. Its layout reflects the wisdom of “depending on the water” in Jiangnan water towns; the spatial sequence contains rhythm; the water-friendly design strengthens the atmosphere; and the cultural connotation reflects the traditional ethics and the view of nature. As one of the best-preserved riverside residential groups in Jiangnan, Baijianlou is not only an architectural heritage but also a living carrier of water village culture. Its protection and management provides an important reference for similar ancient towns. Mini Tag Cloud software (https://www.weiciyun.com/, accessed on 2 March 2025) was used to select high-frequency words from tourists’ evaluations of Baijianlou for statistical analysis, and the emotional value of tourists was 3.15 points (Figure 32, Figure 33 and Figure 34).

In further analysis of the positive evaluation of the architectural space of Baijianlou, there are three main factors. These are the following: (1) Architectural beauty, simple and elegant: tourists generally praise the architectural style of Baijianlou, thinking that its design of blue bricks, black tiles, and carved wood window lattices is full of the charm of Jiangnan water towns, giving people a quiet, simple feeling. The buildings built along the river and the covered bridges complement each other, forming a beautiful picture of the water town, and many tourists say that “taking a picture at will is a big movie”. (2) Original ecological life and cultural atmosphere: Baijianlou has retained the aspect of traditional life, the river pier has residents washing vegetables, the elderly chatting, children playing under the arcade, cats and dogs are lazy, the air is full of fireworks. With fewer tourists and moderate commercialization, it is known as “the original ecological sample of Jiangnan Water Town”. There are no over-developed shops here, but there are riverside homestays and specialty restaurants; tourists can experience the leisurely “boat in the water, people in the middle of the painting”. (3) Tourist experience and reputation praise: tourists praised Baijianlou as Nanxun’s “most worthy of time”, saying that it is “quieter than Wuzhen, more primitive than Zhouzhuang”. Photography enthusiasts love its rich composition (gate, arcade, river); slow travelers enjoy the comfort of drinking tea beside the river. A tourist commented, “This is what Jiangnan water town should look like old but not broken, antique, a sense of going back in time”.

On the other hand, there are also three main factors for further analysis of the negative evaluation of architectural space of Baijianlou (Figure 35). These are as follows: (1) The shallow layer of cultural experience: Although Baijianlou bears the folk culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties, tourists generally think that its cultural impression is insufficient. Besides the appearance of the buildings, there is a lack of in-depth display of the history of the Dong family and the residence system of servants, and the content on the interpretation board is thin. Some tourists complained, “In addition to taking good photos, I don’t know the story behind these old houses, and commercialization has drowned the cultural thickness.” In addition, the contradiction between indigenous life and tourism development is prominent—some residents complain about “loss of privacy” due to tourist interference, while tourists feel that “residents are indifferent and lack a sense of interaction”, forming two-way dissatisfaction. (2) Inconvenient transportation: Some tourists mentioned that the transportation to Baijianlou is not convenient enough, specifically that the distance from other areas of Nanxun Ancient Town to Baijianlou is longer, and the walking time is longer. Some visitors suggested increasing the shuttle service within the scenic area to facilitate visits by the elderly and families with young children. (3) Infrastructure and service shortcomings: Some tourists pointed out that the supporting facilities of 100 buildings lag behind the tourism development. For example, there are not enough public toilets, and the river walks are narrow and congested. Some homestays lack standardized management, and health conditions are uneven. Some tourists observed, “Parking spaces are difficult to find in peak season, and self-driving tourists need to walk farther to reach the core area.” In addition, some of the restaurants renovated by the old houses have poor ventilation, hot summers, low service efficiency, “slow menu updates, and characteristic dishes that are not worthy of the name” (

Table 5. Analysis of tourists’ perception characteristics of core space nodes.

Core Space Nodes	Landscape Features	Plot Theme	Significant Sensing Node	Tourists Perceived Emotional Value
Xiaolian-zhuang	1. Private garden 2. The imperial temple 3. The home temple facing the wall	1. Garden art appreciation 2. Natural scenery experience 3. Visits to ancient houses		2.72
Jiayetang Library	1. Chinese architecture 2. Pavilions 3. Rockery pond	1. Visits to ancient houses 2. Natural scenery experience 3. Book culture experience		3.12
Zhang Shiming’s former residence	1. The central and western walls meet 2. Carved brick gatehouses 3. Grand ballroom	1. Visits to ancient houses 2. Celebrity trail tracking 3. Inspired by the artistic atmosphere		2.63
Liu’s Former Residence	1. The central and western walls meet 2. European-style column 3. Fine carving	1. Visits to ancient houses 2. Celebrity trail tracking 3. Inspired by the artistic atmosphere		2.56
Guanghui Palace	1. Taoist culture 2. Carved beams and painted buildings 3. Temple architecture	1. Religious and cultural visits 2. Inspection of temple architecture 3. Make a wish		1.12
Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence	1. Elegantly decorated 2. Elders of the Republic of China 3. Cultural relics display	1. Visits to ancient houses 2. Celebrity trail tracking 3. Influenced by Republic of China culture		3.4
Baijianlou	1. Arcade building 2. Golden waterway 3. Cultural heritage	1. Visits to ancient houses 2. Inheritance of intangible cultural heritage 3. Water village life experience		3.15

Source: Statistics by the author.

).

4.6. The Influence of Tourists’ Emotional Value on the Development of Scenic Spots

Zhang Jingjiang’s former residence, Baijianlou and Jiayetang Library will become the core attractions of the scenic spot in the future as attractions of high emotional value, which will continue to drive the flow of tourists, and then promote the development of industries such as catering, accommodation and sales of cultural and creative products in the scenic spot. Cultural connotations and emotional resonance should be deepened. Innovative experience forms and interactive design have become the core competitiveness of Nanxun Ancient Town’s economic development. Xiaolian Zhuang, Zhang Shiming’s former residence and Liu’s Former Residence, as moderate emotional value attractions, need to optimize the forms of exhibition, increase interactive experiences and balance the flow of people management; the use of AR/VR technology to restore historical scenes, such as the garden life of Xiaolian Zhuang, Zhang Shiming’s former residence in the Republic of China style, Liu’s Former Residence in the mixed architectural style, provides visitors with an immersive experience, which improves tourist satisfaction and re-visiting rate. As a scenic spot with low emotional value, Guanghui Palace needs to excavate its cultural connotations and enhance the display of Taoist culture. It can deeply excavate its historical background, Taoist cultural connotations and its role in the development of Nanxun Ancient Town and convey its cultural value to tourists through exhibition panels and multimedia. Combining with the history of Nanxun Ancient Town, the stories of famous people or historical events related to Guanghui Palace are presented to enhance the historical significance of the scenic spot. Increase blessing experience: design blessing ceremonies or interactive activities, and carry out interactive activities such as hanging blessing signs and lighting peace lights, so that tourists can participate in them and increase emotional resonance.

5. Discussion

In recent years, research on the perception of the image of tourist destinations has been a popular topic; tourists’ tourism behavior comprises a series of rational decision-making processes, which is deeply influenced by consumer behavior models and decision-making theories, leading to various models of tourist decision-making behavior [63]. In the case of ancient towns, scholars have proposed a “retaining nostalgia”-oriented landscape optimization strategy [64]. The three-dimensional model of the “cognitive–emotional–integral” image of tourist places has been explored [65], and the homogeneous characteristics of Jiangnan water towns and their practical significance have been examined [66]. The current situation of the development of cultural and creative industries in China’s ancient towns was analyzed through the interview and survey method [67]. Most previous studies have focused on assessing the perception dimension individually. Nanxun Ancient Town is a world cultural heritage town. Excessive commercialization often leads to a high degree of similarity in architectural style, goods and services, and the loss of the original local characteristics and cultural connotations. For example, many ancient towns are full of small commodities from Yiwu and national unified “Internet celebrity” snacks, and it is difficult for tourists to feel the unique historical and cultural atmosphere. This study also discusses the commercial spatial layout of ancient towns by introducing POI data, which is a new type of spatial data source, including geographical information such as name, category, address, longitude and latitude coordinates, etc. [67]. Due to its own particularity, commercial forms are more likely to attract people and vehicles to gather. Whether commercial forms are rich or not reflects the degree of population agglomeration to a certain extent. Ancient towns often take commerce as their leading function to optimize the development of historical and cultural blocks. In this paper, the commercial POI data of shopping services, catering services and life services in Nanxun Ancient Town were obtained by processing Ambit map data with Python 3.13.0. After some processing and simplification, the POI data was imported into ArcGlS Pro 3.4.2 software in the form of a csv file. By using the kernel density analysis tool, three types of commercial POI data were visualized, and on this basis, the integration results obtained by Depthmapx 0.8.0 software were annotated with the results of kernel density analysis. In the nuclear density analysis diagram, the nuclear density value is expressed in terms of color depth; the redder the color, the higher the nuclear density value. It can be seen from the figure that the distribution of the overall commercial formats in Nanxun partially overlaps with the degree of integration, and commercial sites are mainly distributed in areas with a high degree of integration. In this area, the core scenic spots such as Xiaolian Zhuang, Jiayetang Library, Liu’s Former Residence and Zhang Shiming’s former residence are mainly distributed, such as Nanxi Street and Nandong Street on both sides of the Nanshi River and Renrui Street at the south entrance of the ancient town.

In addition to the visualization of the overall business distribution, the POI data of shopping services, catering services and life services were respectively imported into ArcGlS Pro 3.4.2 in csv format for visualization analysis, and the results as shown in the Figure 36 were obtained. It can be seen from the distribution map that the distribution of the three types of business is generally consistent, and the distribution of each type of business has a certain correlation with the distribution of degree of integration, but it is not the same. The study found that Nanshi Street, Nandong Street, and Renrui Street, areas with high commercial nuclear density, were highly coincident with geotagging negative evaluations of “commercialization” on social media. The kernel density value is strongly linked to the number of negative emotion words (data confirmation), which shows that commercial agglomeration has a direct effect on how people feel about commercialization (Figure 36).

At present, focusing on the construction and perception mechanism of tourism destination images, scholars have deepened the theoretical exploration of the dual perspective of “projection—perception” from multiple dimensions: in terms of the theoretical framework, existing studies take the three-dimensional model of “cognition—emotion—whole” [68,69] and “dynamic evolution” [69,70] as the core to reveal the differences and convergences in lexical expression, emotional tendency and semantic structure between the official projected image and the tourist-perceived image [70,71,72]. Researchers have pointed out characteristics where the high stability of the core image and the dynamic adjustment of the peripheral image coexist [68,70]; at the methodological level, mainly relying on network text analysis [68,69,70,71,72,73], grounded theory [73], and the structural equation model [74], researchers have deconstructed the bidirectional driving mechanism of host and guest interaction on destination image [70,74], and verified the complete mediating effect of place attachment between perceived value and behavioral intention [74]. Existing research also extends to specific scenarios, such as immersive experiences [75], study tours [73], and the influence of heritage events [69], finding that the efficiency of cultural dissemination is influenced by the synergy of environmental resource bases and dissemination methods [73], and major events (such as World Heritage applications) significantly reshape emotional images by reinforcing cognitive symbols [69]. Overall, the research highlights the necessity of hierarchical governance for tourism image, providing methodological inspirations for dynamic monitoring, host and guest dialogue, and scenario-based design for the optimization of destination image.

Compared with other studies, this research proposes to construct a four-in-one landscape space perception evaluation system (Figure 37). This evaluation system is designed to optimize the space, enhance the experience of traditional ancient towns, and deeply understand that social media comments have a significant impact on the marketing and promotion of scenic spots. The study reveals the tourism behavior psychology and motivation of tourists, provides a new scientific basis for the future tourism development of Nanxun Ancient Town, and has important theoretical significance for management and decision-making in the tourism industry.

In the era of “Internet+e-commerce” [76], to cope with the challenges brought about by technological developments and changes in audience populations, this study provides practical implications for scenic spot management. The managers concerned need to effectively implement personalized design strategies [77]. This requires managers to strengthen the monitoring and analysis functions of social media to adjust and optimize the service content in good time, thus enhancing the brand image of scenic spots and visitor satisfaction. Simultaneously, with the help of satellite remote sensing [78], managers of tourist destinations need to formulate targeted tourism promotion strategies and service modes by conducting real-time monitoring of the distribution of people in scenic spots, based on the needs of different groups of tourists, to provide personalized tourism experiences. In addition, infrastructure construction should be strengthened to enhance the quality of tourism security. The degree of manifestation and perception in the perceived image of tourism infrastructure is low; therefore, Nanxun Ancient Town’s managers should invest more in the infrastructure and appropriately increase the number of healthcare facilities [79], such as the construction of charging stations, hand-washing facilities, sunshades, automatic external defibrillators, and self-service medicine boxes to enhance the comfort and safety of tourism activities. While constructing the infrastructure, the managers should focus on matching the overall image of Nanxun Ancient Town, showing the characteristic style of Jiangnan water towns. In this process, it is crucial to pay attention to and absorb tourist feedback, which can not only help the scenic area to identify problems in good time but also promote the continuous optimization of services and accomplish sustainable development of the scenic area.

6. Conclusions

This study makes us deeply realize the important influence of social media comments on the marketing and promotion of scenic spots. Through an in-depth analysis and assessment of Nanxun Ancient Town’s tourism resources, tourism culture, tourism atmosphere, recreation methods, tourism activities, tourism environment, tourism management, and so on, the behavioral psychology and travel motivation of tourists are revealed. The expectations of tourists regarding Nanxun Ancient Town has become the benchmark to measure the quality of this scenic location, which has practical significance for the touristic promotion and management of Nanxun Ancient Town. However, at the theoretical level, this study aims to build a four-in-one landscape spatial perception evaluation system, which further deepens the theory of “cognitive emotion” and determines the emotional attitude of tourists when they travel to Nanxun Ancient Town, a water town in southern China, based on tourists’ cognitive landscape preferences. It also reveals the relationship and influence between perceptual experience and tourist recreation behavior, which provides a new scientific basis for the future tourism development of Nanxun Ancient Town and has important theoretical significance for the tourism development of other Jiangnan water towns. This study uses Mini Tag Cloud to sort, summarize, and analyze 10,789 social media evaluations and explores the influence of social media data on the tourism motivation of tourists in Nanxun Ancient Town. The conclusions of the research are as follows:

(1)

Tourism image will also impact tourists’ spatial perception. Positive tourism image is expected to guide tourists to explore the spatial details of the old city more deeply and enhance their positive perception and experience of space. There is a coupling relationship between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism image.

(2)

The analysis of Nanxun Ancient Town’s perceived image emotion found that positive, neutral, and negative emotions were 59.51%, 21.16%, and 19.33%, respectively. The overall positive emotions reflect the tourists’ high recognition of the humanistic and landscape value of the ancient Jiangnan water town, while the negative emotions are mostly concentrated on tourism management and service. The development of the scenic spot is seriously restricted by a series of problems such as the commercialization and trend towards homogenization of the ancient town, low operational efficiency, and weak service awareness.

(3)

The dimensions of tourists’ perception in Nanxun Ancient Town are ranked as follows: historical culture and folk heritage dimensions (34.18%), natural landscape and architectural style perception analysis (31.03%), analysis of tourism service and facility experience perception (18.37%), dimension analysis of emotional interaction and psychological identity (16.42%). Nanxun Ancient Town should reasonably control the commercial scale, optimize the spatial layout of buildings, adhere to diversified operation paths, and achieve a sustainable balance between tourism development and cultural heritage protection by paying attention to protecting the authenticity of regional culture and architectural culture in the future.

(4)

Based on the data analysis results, this study builds a coupling relationship model between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism intention in traditional ancient towns and visually displays the interaction between various variables. The whole research process has contributed to the field of emotional geography and tourism research. At the same time, it provides a reference for the tourism planning, development and management of traditional ancient towns.

The study, however, also has some limitations. First, due to time and resource constraints, this study used Nanxun Ancient Town as the research object, which might not comprehensively represent the situation of all Jiangnan water towns. The data used may suffer from under-representation, as the users who provided reviews were primarily young and middle-aged, while there were fewer data collected from children and older adults. Second, in terms of authenticity, visitors who leave reviews usually have strong emotional tendencies, while neutral emotions are under-represented. In addition, although the study used textual analysis methods, there were still challenges with the completeness and accuracy of analyzing data from different platforms.

Future research can expand the scope of the research object to cover more Jiangnan water towns in order to get more comprehensive and specific research conclusions. Second, in the post-epidemic era of surging culture and tourism consumption, the Chinese government has to support high-quality development of culture and tourism to strengthen tourism promotion. To meet the individualized and diversified needs of the tourism market, new tourism formats have blossomed [80]. However, similar resource endowments and the eagerness of builders make it difficult to overcome the homogenization dilemma of ancient towns in Jiangnan. In the future, we need to focus on how to excavate the local cultural characteristics and, through a variety of forms and media, revitalize them to display to tourists, to enrich the tourism products of ancient towns [81], and reduce the homogenization of the Jiangnan water towns. At present, the active protection and use of scenic spots have become very significant, and future development can actively explore the layout of the new tourism industry [82], including silk display experience, traditional handicrafts experience, traditional theater viewing, recreation and leisure tours, and traditional agricultural experiences [83] and perfecting the supply chain of agricultural products [84]. Simultaneously, artificial intelligence technology [85] can be used in ancient town tourism to create a high sense of immersion in the emerging ancient town culture and tourism projects, forming a new “IP + culture and tourism + science and technology” trinity immersive experience to develop a new model. It will promote the fusion of traditional and modern culture and attract tourists to go deep into the water towns to enjoy immersive leisure and cultural journeys through cultural and tourism projects with rich local characteristics.