A World Heritage Site is a masterpiece of mankind and/or nature that possesses outstanding universal value (OUV). In this regard, the 5Cs strategic objectives (credibility, communication, capacity-building, conservation, and community) set by the World Heritage Committee have become a main issue for WHS sustainable development. As one of the key stakeholders of WHS, tourist’s perceived OUV attractiveness, congestion, and attitudinal behavior have significant implications for heritage protection and tourism’s sustainable development. Based on the perspectives of OUV attractiveness and perceived tourist crowding, and taking into account destination attachment, the influencing factors and mechanisms of tourist satisfaction are investigated. In view of the 536 questionnaire responses from tourists of Mount Sanqingshan National Park, the structural equation modeling approach was employed to study tourist satisfaction. The conclusions were sketched: (1) tourist crowding perception did not have a significant negative effect on OUV attractiveness; destination attachment, and tourist satisfaction, and the degree of crowding perception was low; (2) the OUV attractiveness has a significant positive influence on destination attachment and tourist satisfaction, which fully highlights the charm of OUV and its important role in shaping tourists’ attitudes/behaviors; (3) destination attachment has a significant positive effect on tourist satisfaction, indicating that tourists’ heritage-place attachment contributes to tourist satisfaction. Finally, the analysis of tourism crowding, OUV, and the satisfaction framework proposed broaden the horizons of visitor satisfaction research, which is also a positive response to the strategic objectives of the 5Cs of WHS, with some practical implications for heritage preservation and visitor management in World Heritage Sites.

Tourist communities have enjoyed the benefits of tourist development in various regions and have paid the associated costs, resulting in different attitudes towards tourism development in World Heritage Sites. On this basis, this study takes the Mount Sanqingshan National Park, a World Natural Heritage site, collects 330 examples of perceptions of residents of tourism communities, relies on social exchange theory and community participation theory, uses structural equation modeling as a technical methodology, and constructs a conceptual model, including perceived benefits and costs, community satisfaction, and place attachment as mediating variables from the view of tourism’s social, economic, environmental, and heritage protection impacts. The study shows that: first, the perceptions of benefits have a significant positive influence on place attachment and community satisfaction; second, the perceived cost has a significant negative influence on place attachment, and a negative influence on community satisfaction does not hold true; third, place attachment has a full mediating effect on tourist cost perception and satisfaction, a partial mediating effect on tourist benefit perception and satisfaction, and a significant positive effect on community satisfaction. Finally, we propose the ‘SHE-ABC’ framework of WHS tourist community satisfaction based on the perspectives of heritage tourism impact perception and place attachment. The results of the study have theoretical value and practical guidance to sustainable development, tourist industry, and community management of World Heritage Sites.

World Heritage Sites (WHS) possess outstanding universal value (OUV) centered on science and aesthetics, and the large scale of tourism has a certain influence on sustainable development, which will have some degree influence on the quality of tourist service and experience. Taking the World Natural Heritage Site Mount Sanqingshan National Park in China as a case, we collected 535 samples of tourists and used structural equation modeling as a methodology to construct a theoretical framework from the perspective of tourists’ perception, including tourism crowding (functional crowding, personal crowding, and social crowding), service quality (interpretation, goods, commuting, accommodation, and catering), tourists’ satisfaction, and OUV attractiveness as intermediary variables. The results were: (1) tourist crowding has a substantial negative influence on satisfaction, and the negative influence on OUV attractiveness is not tenable; (2) service quality has a substantial positive impact on OUV attractiveness and satisfaction; (3) the tourists’ perception of OUV attractiveness has a mediating influence on service quality and satisfaction, but there is no mediating impact on tourism crowding and satisfaction; (4) this paper puts forward the SCA-S (service, crowding, attractiveness, and satisfaction) framework of WHS, and explores impact factors and mechanisms of visitor satisfaction of WHS from different aspects. The relevant research conclusions have some theoretical value and practical significance for the interpretation and display of heritage value, improved service quality, and tourism experience, and they are conducive to protecting WHS.

Transforming ecological value into economic value is an important challenge regarding China’s protected natural areas. The key strategy is to develop a regional public brand and increase the premium of eco-products. A brand–quality–price model was proposed to analyze the factors influencing consumers’ purchase intention and behavior toward eco-agricultural products from China’s protected natural areas. The data came from a questionnaire survey sample of 300 consumers in Zhejiang Province. The results show that there is a gap between purchase intention and actual behavior: (1) For purchase intention, brand awareness, brand trust, perceived quality, and perceived price had significant positive influences. (2) For purchase behavior, brand awareness, and purchase intention had direct impacts. However, brand trust did not directly affect behavior. (3) Age, monthly income, and marital status had significant effects on purchase intention and behavior. However, purchase intention and behavior were not affected by gender, and the educational level had significant effects on purchase intention but had no significant effects on purchase behavior. (4) Consumers were willing to pay 17.13% more than the price of the ordinary products. This study provides important references for brand development and valuable experience for establishing ecological product value realization mechanisms in other protected natural areas.