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.

Intangible cultural heritage is the carrier of national memory and a historical witness. Exploring the spatial distribution and chronological evolution of intangible cultural heritage is of great significance to understand the cultural integrity and historical continuity. Taking the intangible cultural heritage along the Grand Canal as an example, this study carries out spatial deconstruction based on the extent of the spread of intangible cultural heritage and reveales the aggregation pattern through spatial autocorrelation analysis. Then, the historical process and the spatial center of gravity are shown through an evolution tree model. The influencing factors are illustrated via the methods of Geodetector and qualitative analysis. The results are as follows: (1) The two ends of the canal exhibit obvious advantages in the number of intangible cultural heritage items; however, the existence of a spatial mismatch at the city–county level makes the southern endpoint occupy a dominant position. (2) Although there is a high–high aggregation pattern along the whole canal, 29.82% of the counties are distributed widely with low–low aggregation. (3) The spatial center of intangible cultural heritage items from different historical periods generally presents a changing path from north to south and returning north. (4) Intangible cultural heritage items are mainly distributed in areas with a prosperous culture, a high level of economic development, and strong policy and financial support from government. Changes in the natural environment, population migration, economic development, war disasters, and canal shipping have profound impacts over time. This study provides a new idea for the methodological advancement of spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage, as well as studies on local cultural identity and regional consistency.

Tourism utilization is an important means for revitalizing canal heritage. Exploring the utilization models of canal heritage tourism is the prerequisite to realizing the sustainable development of canals. Based on previous studies, this study defines two important models of community concentration and corridor expansion. Through an empirical comparison of the Old City section and the Tongzhou section along the Grand Canal in Beijing, this study systematically explores the theoretical mechanism and law of the differences between the two models of tourism utilization. Utilizing a collection of the literature, field investigations, and in-depth interview data and using the theory of a figure-ground relationship, this study discusses the characteristics of the two models of canal heritage tourism utilization and the reasons for their differences. The results reveal that community-concentrated and corridor-expanded models show great differences in the development process, heritage and tourism resources, and spatial organization. The formation of the differences results from location, economic, cultural, ecological, and accidental factors as the driving forces and the continuous self-adjustment of the areas along the canal. This study provides theoretical constructs and policy recommendations for optimization and sustainable canal heritage development.