Rural tourism is a significant driver of socio-economic development in rural areas. However, current offerings are often characterized by monotonous experiences, homogenized products, and a lack of cultural depth, failing to meet tourists’ growing demand for immersive engagement. While some scholars have adopted a spatial perception perspective, a visitor-centered approach remains scarce, with limited focus on methods for analyzing cultural perception. This study takes Dangjia Village, a renowned cultural tourism destination in Hancheng, China, as a case study. By scraping online reviews from travel and social platforms, we employ LDA topic modeling, textual semantic analysis, and IPA to investigate the characteristics and preferences of tourists’ cultural perception. The findings reveal that: (1) Tourists’ cultural perception of Dangjia Village includes three dimensions: History and Culture, Architecture and Culture, and Local Products and Culture. (2) Positive sentiments outweigh negative ones in tourist evaluations. (3) The History and Culture dimension received the highest levels of both attention and satisfaction. Architecture and Culture attracted the least attention but relatively high satisfaction, while Local Products and Culture garnered considerable attention yet the lowest satisfaction. Originating from a visitor perception perspective, this study explores cultural perception characteristics, providing insights for the high-quality utilization and optimization of cultural tourism resources in such villages.