Tourist destinations with cultural heritage have arisen as a prominent issue in tourism literature. Creating a positive image of the destination can influence tourists’ satisfaction and willingness to return. The goal of this research is to investigate the relationship between destination image formation (DIF), tourist satisfaction (TS), and tourist trust (TT). As a result, the structural relationships between local community participation (LCP), authenticity (A), access to local products (ALP), TS, and TT were investigated in this study. This study used a quantitative approach based on a survey of 644 domestic and foreign tourists visiting the Guangdong cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, and Shenzhen. The statistical software SmartPLS 3.3.3 was used to determine the relationship between variables in the research model using structural equation modeling. The outcomes show a positive correlation between LCP, A, and ALP, which led to tourist satisfaction and, eventually, tourist trust. It is concluded that the DIF and TS may result in increased tourist trust. There is also a discussion of additional theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations. The outcomes of this study will help to shed light on the variables that encourage and promote tourism in developing countries.

Due to the increasing concern with physical and mental wellbeing, people realize the need to get away from the routines of domestic life and travel to tourist destinations. We propose the notion of tastescape to demonstrate one specific task—tea drinking in a tourist setting—to promote wellbeing. Through the lens of tastescape, as a combination of material elements, practices, and places, we emphasize that tea drinking offers a way to understand the spatial, temporal, and social relations through which wellbeing unfolds in the therapeutic qualities of tourist destinations. The study case is Lijiang Old Town, a well-known destination in Yunnan province, southwestern China. Specifically, this paper has two objectives. First, it explores why and how guesthouse owners in Lijiang organize tea activities to socialize with tourists. Second, we examine why some tourists favor tea drinking for relaxation and comfort. The tastescapes of wellbeing are threefold: spatially, building closeness to nature, sparked by absorption into the place that tourists visit; temporally, slowing down to taste tea and thus enjoy a different rhythm of life; and socially, building connection with hosts and other tourists through tea conversations. The tastescapes of wellbeing spell out the relational nature of wellbeing as something that actually happens between human beings and their surroundings rather than an intrinsic set of qualities. The emphasis on tastescape in this paper offers a valuable means to understand wellbeing as the outcome of interactions that happen in the timespace of tourism through the dynamic interplay of tourists, tea, and socionatural environments.

Cultural heritage tourist destinations have emerged as a hot topic in tourism literature, but there have been relatively few studies that determine the role of the involvement of local participation in either tourism planning or the decision-making processes of tourists. The connection between local community participation (LCP), authenticity, access to local products, destination visit image, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty is thus relatively unexplored in the literature. This study used a quantitative approach based on a survey with 406 respondents visiting the city of Kaiping in Guangdong, China. The proposed hypotheses were empirically tested with SPSS and Analysis of Moment Structures. The resulting outcomes indicated a positive correlation between LCP, authenticity, and access to local and destination visit image, which led to tourist satisfaction and ultimately resulted in tourist loyalty. Additional theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations were also discussed.

Home, as a site of daily dwelling and a set of meanings, offers a way into studying the relationship between lifestyle and profit in tourist destinations. Situated in the context of lifestyle entrepreneurship, we explore the synergy of lifestyle and profit within the space of tourism production. Using Lijiang Old Town, China, as a study case, we have two objectives. First, we examine how lifestyle entrepreneurs make lifestyles for themselves as well as for their tourist customers in Lijiang. Second, we analyze the strategies by lifestyle entrepreneurs to achieve the balance between lifestyle and profit. We find that the selling of home to tourists in guesthouses facilitates the process of capital accumulation, a process that sustains entrepreneurs’ pursuit of lifestyle and production of experience economy in Lijiang. We argue that the synergy of profit and lifestyle shapes the role of hospitality from basic supply of temporary residence to meaningful zones of sentimental care, defining and installing home-related elements into the space of tourism consumption. It also means connecting these elements to the commodification of home, as a sense of home becomes a selling point in the tourism market and facilitates the logic of profit making.

Linear cultural heritage is a unique and emerging type of large-scale heritage primarily located in rural areas. Despite the fact that much literature has concentrated on the importance of heritage to rural revitalization and development in Western countries, linear cultural heritage production has remained largely absent from accounts of rural studies in the context of China. This article aims to address this neglect by examining the spatial reconstruction process of the Meiguan Historical Trail. Based on the theory of the production of space, this article reveals the cultural practice of local ruling elites in mobilizing linear cultural heritage to promote regional competitiveness and how ordinary people question the official space reconstruction policy. The article finds that residents are obedient to government’s efforts, while tourists are suspicious of the superficial cultural restoration. The findings further deepen the understanding of linear cultural heritage production as a rural development location policy. In addition, as an important dynamic force, culture participates in the spatial production of linear cultural heritage, which enriches the cultural dimension of spatial production to a certain extent. The findings offer theoretical direction and policy recommendations for the development and sustainability of linear cultural heritage worldwide.