This study aims to assess the residents’ support for sustainable tourism development in a destination that is in the initial tourism development stage. Residents’ perception of sustainable tourism development potential, sense of place, perceived tourism impacts, and tourism development support were involved in this study. A total of 331 completed questionnaire surveys were collected in Luozhou, a historical-cultural village in China. The empirical data were analyzed using a structural equation modeling (SEM) technique, and the results revealed that perceived collective benefits had a significant positive effect on tourism development support, whereas the other three perceived impacts’ influence were not significant. The relationship between residents’ sense of place and perceived collective and personal benefits, perceived personal costs and tourism development support, were significant. Additionally, residents’ perceptions of tourism development potential had a significant influence on perceived impact and tourism development support except for perceived personal benefits. Some practical implications of those findings for tourism planning and development are also discussed.

Linear cultural heritage (LCH) is a precious treasure of human beings, but its spatial distribution and development modes in the context of tourism value are not clear. This study constructs the resource (R) –natural environment (N) –industrial economy (I) evaluation system through the Delphi method, analytical hierarchy process and entropy method to examine tourism value from the perspective of the whole heritage. This system is verified to the case of a World Heritage Site, the 1800 km-long Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal in China. Combined with the situation of 22 cities along the canal, the standard values of each evaluation variable are determined. Besides total tourism value, R–N–I coordination is also calculated through a three-dimensional model. They are regarded as a classification basis in the grouping analysis method. According to the results, a resource is the most important factor, while natural environment and industrial economy are external supports for LCH tourism. Tourism value along Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal is divided into ‘high-value imbalance type’, ‘key breakthrough type’, ‘comprehensive strengthening type’ and ‘low-value restriction type’. The findings offer theoretical construct and policy recommendations for the development and sustainability of LCH tourism.

The homestay business has contributed to the development of the tourism industry, and it has revitalized tourism resources and boosted the tourism economy. This article takes the Mogan Mountain homestay agglomeration of Yangtze River Delta, the most developed and actively invested in business in the industry, as a research site focus to discuss the recent trends in the Chinese homestay business. Standard deviational ellipse analysis, spatial analysis of nearest-neighbor, and density are empirically tested with the data from the inn/homestay channel of Qunar.com, which is a widely acclaimed website with high page views. Based on the above researches, this paper uses the standard deviation ellipse analysis, the nearest neighbor analysis, and the kernel density estimation analysis method to explore the development characteristics of the Mogan Mountain homestay agglomeration. Combined with the Butler tourist destination life cycle model, it can be concluded that the Mogan Mountain homestay agglomeration area experienced a stage of initial development (2007–2011) and rapid development (2012–2015) and now is in a mature development stage (2016 up to now). This study proposes five actors: physical geographical conditions, traffic location conditions, tourism self-organization mechanism, policy influence, and community residents’ willingness to develop and significantly drive the evolution of Mogan Mountain homestay agglomeration. The formation and evolution of the Mogan Mountain homestay agglomeration are the results of the accumulation of resource-driven effect, scale effect, and differentiation effect at different stages. The unique organization and incentive mechanism promote regional sustainable development.

Climate is an essential component in the sustainability of tourism cities. Coastal tourism cities face unprecedented challenges under a changing climate. The complexity of the tourism–climate interface predicates the need for tools that can assess the weather and climate accurately. Tourism climate indices have been widely developed to evaluate the temporal and spatial distribution of climate resources, but these indices are not entirely applicable to coastal cities facing air pollution. This study developed a Coastal Tourism Climate Index (CTCI) to assess the tourism climate suitability of Chinese coastal cities. The CTCI was developed to include five variables: thermal comfort, sunshine, precipitation, wind, and air quality. This index was applied and verified in the case of nine coastal tourism cities in China compared to the Holiday Climate Index (HCI: Beach). According to the results, the CTCI is more suitable for coastal tourism climate assessment in China. Finally, corresponding countermeasures are put forward for the balanced and sustainable development of Chinese coastal tourism cities. This study takes the lead in applying big data to the development and validation of tourism climate indices. These findings provide novel insights for the tourism climate assessment of coastal destinations facing air pollution.