The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of natural soundscapes on tourist behaviors in a nature-based tourism destination. A behavioral model depicting the relationship among tourist attitudes to natural soundscapes, natural soundscape image, tourist satisfaction, and loyalty is examined using structural equation model and bootstrapping analysis. Results indicate that tourist attitudes directly affect natural soundscape image but do not affect tourist satisfaction and loyalty. The natural soundscape image directly affects tourist satisfaction and indirectly affects tourist loyalty when mediated by tourist satisfaction. Positioning natural soundscapes as a novel tourism attractor, theoretical and managerial implications are presented.

Drawing on theories of stimulus overload and social interference, this study proposes a multidimensional way to measure tourists’ perceptions of crowding. Three dimensions of crowding are discussed: neutral, personal, and social. A second-order structural equation model is used to analyze the relationships among crowding perceptions, destination attractiveness, and satisfaction by surveying tourists at Mount Sanqingshan National Park (n = 424). The results of a covariance-based SEM show that tourists’ perception of crowding (TPC) has negative effects on reported attractiveness of the destination. However, TPC dose not directly affects their satisfaction. Results of this study refine the multidimensional connotation of TPC and provide another dimension to evaluate the quality of tourists’ experiences apart from the universal construct of satisfaction. The paper then goes on to discuss the importance of managing TPC.

The soundscape is an essential type of attraction in tourism destinations. Music can serve as a significant tourist attraction that makes people immersed in it. Similarly, while tourists linger in the leisure and recreation environment, they may have a flow experience of the soundscape in tourism attractions. Yet, there is little research about the relationship between tourists’ perception of soundscape and flow experience. Taking Lijiang old town, a world heritage site, as an example, this study explored the dimensions of tourists’ perception of soundscape and soundscape flow experience and examined the influence of soundscape perception on soundscape flow experience. The results indicate that soundscape perception includes three dimensions: preference, comfort, and richness. The flow experience of soundscape is a second-order construct in this research, which contains four dimensions: time distortion, control, enjoyment, and concentration. Besides, preference and richness positively influence flow experience, and flow experience contributes to behavioural intention, whereas comfort does not significantly affect flow experience. This study applied flow theory to soundscape research, which enriches the study of soundscape experience. This study has also provided management strategies for tourism destinations to improve the quality of the soundscape experience.

Recent music tourism researches are notable owing to growing socioeconomic significance of music. But the question about how music affects tourists’ behaviors in travel practice remains there. This study explores the effects of music on tourists’ behaviors by deploying a survey of tourists in Lijiang old town which is famous for abundant musical cultures. Results show that tourists’ behavioral intentions are influenced by music-induced emotions which are stimulated by music perception and music cognition. This paper provides a new insight into music characteristics in tourism and new ways for how tourism destinations engage with music.

The concept of resilience has recently received a substantial amount of attention in sustainable tourism research. Nevertheless, empirical studies on the factors that may influence the perceived resilience of community residents in tourism destinations remain lacking. A thorough analysis is needed to examine place attachment as a catalyst of or a barrier to community resilience in tourism destinations. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the influence of place attachment on perceived resilience based on data derived from 655 residents in two earthquake-affected tourism communities in Sichuan Province, China. The empirical results indicate that place identity and place dependence have a positive influence on the perceived resilience of community residents in tourism destinations. The equality test for the structural model demonstrates that the influence of place attachment on perceived community resilience is invariant across native residents and lifestyle tourism immigrants. Residents who develop strong place attachment to their communities exhibit greater resilience and adaptive capacity.

This paper adopts the Malmquist Index and panel data model to measure and test the spatial–temporal evolutionary characteristics and the factors that affect total factor productivity of China's tourism industry from 2001 to 2009. The results show the following: there is a trend of growth in the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry, and technological progress is the dominant factor that affects total factor productivity changes, which indicates that the growth pattern of China's tourism industry has changed from a pattern driven by input factors to a pattern driven by technology; the spatial pattern of the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry has changed from a spatial pattern dominated by provinces with a low productivity to a spatial pattern dominated by provinces with a high productivity; the total factor productivity of China's tourism industry is mainly affected by the levels of economic and service industry development.