Search Results (193)

Traditional Miao villages in southwest China are being reshaped by rural modernization, tourism development, and changing everyday practices, creating a need for architectural interventions that accommodate contemporary functions without reducing local culture to decorative motifs. This study examines Jiubai Village in Guizhou Province through the lens of vernacular reinterpretation and develops a design-driven pathway linking the identification of vernacular spatial elements, interpretation of socio-spatial meanings, refinement of design principles, and translation into contemporary architecture. The research combines documentary study, repeated field surveys, morphological and typological analysis, oral-history interviews, informal discussions, and architectural design experimentation. The results reveal a multi-scalar socio-spatial system linking topographic and material adaptation with village-scale collective spaces, ritual practices, and household-scale gathering around the huotang. They also show uneven modernization and the persistence of cultural and spatial values despite functional change. The proposed design intervention translates these relationships through an open collective ground floor, a reinterpreted huotang, terrain-responsive form, timber expression, and layered contemporary functions. This study suggests that relational reinterpretation, rather than formal imitation, may support cultural continuity and spatial sustainability in rural revitalization, while broader environmental, economic, and long-term social sustainability remains beyond the scope of this assessment. Full article

Driven by rural energy decarbonization and the electrification of agricultural production, agricultural microgrids (agri-microgrids) have become a critical paradigm for accommodating distributed renewable generation and volatile farming loads. However, agri-microgrids usually face acute cost sensitivity. Coordinated operation of autonomous agri-microgrids offers a promising solution. Yet coordinating heterogeneous energy resources to exploit temporal complementarity while fairly allocating costs remains a key challenge. Information asymmetry, the lack of trusted node, and the computational complexity of revenue allocation impede cooperative dispatch of multi-microgrids.This paper proposes a decentralized game-theoretic framework for cooperative multi-microgrid dispatch. Firstly, a distributed node information collection algorithm is designed to acquire necessary data while preserving local privacy. Secondly, a trusted-node election method is proposed to enable reliable coalition profit calculation without external authorities or predefined centralized coordinators. Then, an enhanced Shapley value-based revenue allocation strategy, which reduces the computational complexity, is presented. Finally, case studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in reducing operational costs and promoting green energy coordination among agri-microgrids. Full article

Sustainable rural cultural tourism requires effective approaches to improving the visibility, accessibility, and decision feasibility of dispersed cultural resources, particularly in destinations where service information is fragmented across online and offline channels and tourists face substantial uncertainty in coordinating transport, accommodation, and cultural experiences. This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) agents can support the sustainable digital transformation of rural cultural tourism by alleviating information asymmetry, releasing latent tourism demand, and facilitating calibrated human–machine trust. Drawing on human–machine trust theory and the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, this study conceptualizes AI agent functionality through three dimensions: AI Information Quality (AIQ), Information Extensibility (IE), and AI Planning Autonomy (APA). Travel Planning Risk Awareness (TPRA), Human–Machine Trust (HMT), Planning Satisfaction (PS), Rural Cultural Tourism Attractiveness (RCTA), and Rural Cultural Tourism Intention (RCTI) are further incorporated into an integrated model comprising four pathways: information empowerment, autonomy–risk awareness tension, trust boundary, and demand release. Using the Ctrip AI Travel Assistant as the research context, 413 valid questionnaire responses were analyzed through a hybrid Structural Equation Modeling–Artificial Neural Network approach. The results support 12 of the 14 hypotheses. AIQ significantly influences IE (β = 0.530), PS (β = 0.304), and HMT (β = 0.380). HMT functions as a central mechanism connecting AI empowerment with tourism decision-making and exerts the strongest effect on RCTA (β = 0.485), reaching 100% normalized importance in the corresponding ANN model. TPRA positively affects HMT (β = 0.262), indicating that risk awareness can facilitate rational and calibrated trust rather than simply inhibiting AI acceptance. RCTA (β = 0.281) and PS (β = 0.218) jointly promote RCTI through the complementary mechanisms of destination pull and planning push. The findings demonstrate that AI agents can contribute to the sustainable development of rural cultural tourism by improving information accessibility, strengthening responsible human–AI collaboration, and transforming fragmented cultural resources into credible and actionable travel-planning options. This study provides implications for sustainable destination marketing, responsible AI travel-service design, rural revitalization, and the long-term development of rural cultural tourism, while clarifying trust as a psychological gate in AI empowerment. Full article

Accommodation establishments constitute a core component of tourism infrastructure, and their location choices directly affect water resource utilization, land pressure, and the spatial equilibrium of tourism development—issues that are particularly acute in vast arid regions. Yet the spatial organization of accommodation supply across extensive drylands characterized by fragmented oasis distribution, and the reasons why standard and non-standard accommodation follow divergent location logics, remain poorly understood. This study addresses three questions: (1) How are nine accommodation categories, differentiated by type and quality, distributed across Xinjiang? (2) Do directional spatial associations exist among categories that are consistent with hierarchical, path-dependent development? (3) Which factors drive these patterns, and do their effects exhibit the nonlinearity and threshold behavior predicted by location theory? Drawing on 12,073 accommodation establishments from the Ctrip platform, we construct a staged analytical framework in which each technique answers a specific question: the nearest-neighbor index and standard deviational ellipse characterize global patterns; kernel density estimation and OPTICS clustering identify local agglomerations; directional local co-location quotients measure asymmetric spatial associations; and XGBoost–SHAP isolates nonlinear drivers and threshold effects. Results reveal a highly concentrated “single-core, multi-center” structure anchored by Urumqi, Yining, and Kashgar, with rapid expansion toward the Ili Valley, Kashgar, and Altay since 2019. Standard accommodation tracks urban centrality and transport nodes, while non-standard accommodation tracks tourism resource endowments, consistent with location-theoretic expectations. Directional co-location analysis reveals hierarchical spatial associations among categories, and driving factors exhibit pronounced nonlinear threshold effects. From a sustainability perspective, the identified thresholds—elevation (1360 m), water-body proximity, and distance to rural tourism demonstration sites (3 km)—constitute quantifiable, spatially explicit sustainability indicators that can be incorporated into planning tools to monitor and steer accommodation development away from ecologically sensitive zones. Global Moran’s I diagnostics of model residuals (reduction of 83–99.7%) suggest that these findings are unlikely to be artifacts of spatial autocorrelation; this diagnostic, however, complements rather than replaces spatially blocked validation. The study contributes category-differentiated, spatially directed evidence for policies balancing tourism expansion against water security and ecosystem integrity, serving sustainable tourism development in arid-region destinations. Full article

As tourism shifts from sightseeing to experience-oriented consumption, understanding how tourist perception differs across heterogeneous destination types and spatial scales remains challenging. Using 23,439 Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) reviews archived for six destinations in Shangrao, China, this study compares mountain-type and rural comprehensive destination products. These are operational dominant-function categories rather than mutually exclusive geomorphological classes. The archive supports fine-grained sentiment, topic, and semantic-network analyses; annual temporal comparisons use the full 23,439-review corpus covering 2019–2025, whereas a separate subset of reviews posted from 1 August 2022 with official IP labels, aggregated into 2022–2024 province–year observations, supports Pooled Ordinary Least Squares (Pooled OLS) estimation. A hybrid lexicon–XLM-RoBERTa workflow, BERTopic, semantic co-occurrence analysis, and Pooled OLS are integrated in a cross-scale framework. Static results reveal shared strengths and weaknesses—high scenery and overall-experience evaluations but low price evaluations—alongside type-specific structures: mountain reviews concentrate on natural scenery, climbing effort, and accessibility, whereas rural reviews span village landscapes, cultural activities, accommodation, and nighttime experiences. Temporally, mountain demand retains a stable scenic core while accessibility concerns become more salient; rural demand shifts from traditional agricultural landscapes toward nighttime performances and other experience-oriented products. Cross-scale regressions identify destination- and dimension-specific correlates rather than causal drivers: urbanization is positively associated with several rural evaluations, while ecological contrast, climatic difference, and competing scenic resources are associated with more critical assessments in selected dimensions. The findings show that perception differences arise from the interaction of destination product structures and origin-region contexts, supporting differentiated accessibility management for mountain destinations and balanced product innovation, service improvement, and commercialization control for rural destinations. Full article

This study presents the design, development, and evaluation of iSign, an Android-based educational mobile application developed to support sign language learning among deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in rural communities. The project was conducted using a research and development (R&D) approach guided by the ADDIE instructional design framework. A preliminary needs assessment, based on municipal records and field validation, revealed limited access to structured sign language education and assistive learning resources in selected barangays of Odiongan, Romblon. The iSign application was designed as a user-centered and accessible mobile learning tool incorporating alphabet learning (A–Z), number recognition (0–9), a dictionary containing 160 commonly used vocabulary words with definitions and corresponding sign language video demonstrations, and multimedia content such as nursery rhyme songs interpreted in sign language. The system was developed using Android Studio and structured to support offline accessibility to accommodate low-connectivity environments. The application was evaluated in terms of functional suitability, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability. Twenty-one community participants and four information technology experts assessed the system using a five-point Likert scale. The overall weighted mean rating of 4.0 (“Agree”) indicates that the developed application met acceptable software quality standards and user satisfaction levels. The findings demonstrate that iSign is a functional and accessible mobile learning application that can serve as a supplementary tool for sign language education in underserved communities. Full article

Sustainable tourism in oasis landscapes requires governance approaches that go beyond generic destination-growth models and standardized sustainability checklists. In living cultural landscapes such as Al-Ahsa Oasis, tourism development is inseparable from water systems, palm-grove agriculture, rural livelihoods, heritage values, climate stress, visitor behavior, and institutional accountability. This paper develops a governance framework for sustainable tourism in Al-Ahsa Oasis, Saudi Arabia, a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape. Methodologically, it is a conceptual framework-development study based on structured critical review and contextual synthesis. It critically interprets international sustainable tourism, heritage management, visitor management, and sustainable investment frameworks in relation to recent Al-Ahsa-specific evidence on rural tourism, resident satisfaction, farm-tourist behavior, rural lodges, land-cover change, and World Heritage governance. The study proposes a six-dimensional framework structured around cultural landscape stewardship, water-sensitive ecological governance, agricultural landscape continuity and rural accommodation regulation, community benefit and local enterprise, climate-responsive visitor management and interpretation, and monitoring and institutional accountability. These dimensions are treated as interdependent governance fields rather than separate checklist categories. The framework is further operationalized through an indicator and governance matrix linking suggested indicators, data sources, governance mechanisms, and responsible actors. The paper contributes by reframing sustainable oasis tourism as an adaptive governance problem rather than a technical exercise in applying predefined criteria. It provides an evidence-informed basis for planning, monitoring, stakeholder deliberation, policy refinement, and future empirical testing in Al-Ahsa and comparable arid cultural landscapes. Full article

This study examines how value is constructed in sustainable rural tourism through the integration of local gastronomy and spatially embedded accommodation. Although sustainability is commonly treated as an evaluative dimension, limited attention has been given to how it is experienced and internalized within tourism contexts. Addressing this gap, the study develops and empirically tests a process-based model in which Local Gastronomic Authenticity initiates a sequential pathway through Spatial Immersion, Perceived Sustainability Value, and Experiential Enrichment, ultimately shaping Behavioral Intention. Data were collected from 3181 respondents with direct rural tourism experience in the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), within Slow Food-based gastronomic settings and Albergo Diffuso accommodation systems. The findings indicate that value emerges through interconnected stages rather than isolated attributes. Gastronomic authenticity enhances spatial immersion, which strengthens sustainability perception and contributes to experiential enrichment—the strongest predictor of behavioral intention. The results further show that authenticity acquires behavioral relevance through successive stages involving immersion, sustainability perception, and experiential enrichment, without exerting a direct effect on behavior. The study advances a process-oriented understanding of tourism experience formation by explaining how authenticity becomes behaviorally relevant through successive experiential stages and offers practical implications for designing integrated and sustainable rural tourism systems. Full article

In China, policy-driven rural renewal projects have transformed many village public spaces, but some renewed sites are still weakly integrated into villagers’ everyday routines. This study asks why some renewed public spaces sustain routine use and low-intensity social interaction, while others remain materially complete but socially weak. The study was conducted in a rural township in Puyang County, Henan Province. Twelve renewed public spaces across several villages were examined through structured spatial audits and 579 resident questionnaires. Five spatial conditions were assessed: visibility, stay support, activity accommodation, interaction-supportive arrangement, and experienced locational convenience. Two behavioral outcomes were used to describe post-renewal vitality: use frequency and social participation. The analysis combines necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). NCA is used as a diagnostic tool for identifying upper-limit constraints, while fsQCA is used to identify sufficient combinations of conditions. The results suggest that experienced locational convenience is the clearest bottleneck condition for both outcomes. When a site is difficult to incorporate into residents’ daily walking routines, internal design quality has limited capacity to translate into sustained behavioral use. Among better-located spaces, high vitality is associated with several design configurations. The most stable recurrent pattern combines visibility, stay support, and locational convenience as core conditions, together with either interaction-supportive arrangement or activity accommodation. Low-vitality spaces follow a different logic, being characterized by the simultaneous absence of several supporting conditions rather than by the absence of one isolated feature. The paper therefore proposes a two-step diagnostic logic for rural public-space renewal: first checking whether a site is embedded in everyday mobility and then matching internal spatial conditions with local patterns of use. Full article

This study addresses second-home ownership not merely as a form of tourism accommodation or real estate investment, but as a home-building process intersecting with local life, belonging, daily practices, and sustainable destination governance. While the economic, environmental, and community impacts of second-homes have been extensively discussed in the literature, how individuals perceive their primary and secondary homes differently in terms of the bodily, material, vibrant, imaginary, and emotional dimensions of home has been examined in a limited number of studies. This research analyzes paired data obtained through a two-stage online questionnaire from 223 British participants who own a secondary home in the Mugla–Ortaca region and a primary home in the United Kingdom. The 18-item Home Scale was used as the measurement tool. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability–validity analyses, measurement invariance, and paired-samples t-tests were applied. The findings show that the bodily home difference was not statistically significant at the conventional 0.05 threshold, whereas primary-home scores were significantly higher in the material, vibrant, imaginary, and emotional home dimensions. The small to small-medium effect sizes suggest that the results should be interpreted cautiously as an asymmetrical home-building process rather than as evidence of a hierarchical superiority of the primary home. The study proposes a planning approach that does not view second home owners as merely transient consumers in sustainable coastal–rural destinations, but rather considers social sustainability, service planning, seasonality management, and local community engagement channels together. Full article

This study examines the transformation of the Balaton region in Hungary from a traditional tourist destination into an international retirement migration destination for older adults from Western Europe. Migration theories and models are applied to illustrate the relationships between migration and development and to explore how tourism, lifestyle aspirations, and socio-economic factors influence the settlement decisions of older migrants. Empirical findings suggest that prior tourism experience can mitigate the uncertainty associated with migration and foster belonging. However, many retirees move to Hungary with limited knowledge of the country, relying on social networks and real estate agents for information. These retired migrants also utilize local services and infrastructure, including healthcare and community spaces, which shape their daily lives and help them integrate into the community. The migration of older adults stimulates the development of peripheral rural areas through real estate purchases, renovations, and small-scale entrepreneurial activities, particularly in the accommodation sector. This challenges the traditional perception of older-age migrants as inactive. Full article

This study examines the current account implications of sustainable rural tourism in Türkiye by measuring rural tourism intensity through tourist arrivals in locally embedded and small-scale accommodation structures—including mountain lodges, camping sites, hostels, pensions, motels, village houses, and boutique hotels—collectively referred to as the LESS variable. Using monthly time series data over the period 2000–2025, the trade deficit is modeled as a function of rural accommodation intensity and the real effective exchange rate. The empirical framework employs Johansen cointegration analysis evaluated through the Pantula principle, Vector Error Correction Model-based Granger causality tests, full-sample bootstrap causality tests, and rolling window bootstrap causality analysis to capture time-varying causal dynamics. The findings confirm a long-run cointegration relationship among the variables and reveal that rural tourism intensity exerts a statistically significant causal effect on the trade deficit, with the relationship intensifying during crisis periods such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 shock. Specifically, increases in rural accommodation intensity are found to exert a negative and significant effect on the trade deficit, indicating that locally embedded tourism structures enhance net foreign exchange retention through lower import leakage. These results suggest that tourism structures characterized by stronger local embeddedness and lower import intensity enhance net foreign exchange retention and contribute to external balance stability. Full article

Climate change poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in South Africa, particularly in rural areas where dependence on rain-fed agriculture and limited institutional support heighten vulnerability. This study investigates how different forms of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) influence climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers in Bergville, KwaZulu-Natal. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining a household survey (n = 150), focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. Households engaged in smallholder farming were purposively identified and randomly selected within the study ward. To accommodate varying literacy levels, structured questionnaires were administered through interviewer-led surveys. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and a probit regression model, while qualitative data were thematically analysed to contextualise adaptation decisions and social dynamics. The findings show that trust in peer information, farmer group membership, collective action, and access to extension services significantly increase the likelihood of adopting climate adaptation practices (p < 0.05). While bonding social capital supports short-term coping, limited bridging and linking social capital constrain access to institutional resources and climate information. By explicitly operationalising and empirically distinguishing these dimensions of social capital, the study provides context-specific evidence on how uneven social networks shape adaptation outcomes. Strengthening inclusive institutional linkages and extension services is essential for promoting long-term climate resilience among smallholder farmers in rural South Africa. This study contributes to the international literature by providing empirical evidence on the differentiated roles of social capital dimensions in shaping adaptation outcomes in resource-constrained rural contexts. The findings highlight the need for policy interventions that strengthen institutional linkages, improve extension service delivery, and promote inclusive access to adaptation resources to enhance long-term climate resilience. Full article

The platformization of urban space is opening new frontiers of capital accumulation, particularly through short-term rentals. Airbnb plays a central role in this process by commodifying housing in tourist destinations. Despite its rapid growth, research on Airbnb in Latin America—especially in small tourist cities—remains limited and largely focused on metropolitan contexts. This article addresses this gap with the objective of analyzing how platform-mediated short-term rentals reorient housing markets beyond traditional urban cores. It is hypothesized that Airbnb expands housing commodification by extending tourism-oriented uses into new residential areas and by redistributing returns unevenly across actors. Using a quantitative and geospatial approach, the results reveal a strong presence of Airbnb in rural and natural areas, from which the highest returns are extracted, as well as a high concentration of accommodation supply among professional hosts. These dynamics reconfigure housing use toward asset-based logics, posing challenges for housing security and social and territorial sustainability in small tourist cities. Full article

Winter tourism is increasingly influenced by changing socio-demographic dynamics, climate change, and evolving leisure preferences. While prior research has examined winter tourist motivations, sustainability strategies and climate change adoption, less attention has been paid to differences between urban and rural residents in their attitudes toward domestic winter leisure tourism. This study addresses this gap by exploring variations in participation patterns, service evaluations, and overall tourism experiences among urban and rural Bulgarian residents. Drawing on a quantitative survey of urban and rural residents (n = 1003), the research systematizes the general characteristics of domestic winter leisure tourism practices and evaluates key tourism service dimensions, including accessibility, accommodation, pricing, infrastructure, and environmental quality. Descriptive statistics and inferential analyses were applied to identify statistically significant differences between groups. The findings reveal distinct behavioural and perceptual patterns: urban residents demonstrate higher participation frequency and place greater emphasis on service quality and diversified amenities, whereas rural residents show stronger sensitivity to pricing and accessibility factors. Differences are also observed in the overall evaluation of the tourism experience, reflecting structural and socio-economic disparities. The study contributes to winter tourism literature by integrating spatial residence into the analysis of domestic tourism demand and experience assessment. The results provide practical implications for destination managers and policymakers seeking to design differentiated marketing strategies and improve service provision in line with the needs of diverse domestic segments. Full article