How “cultural reshaping” affects rural tourism development in China - a case from zhejiang beautiful countryside demonstration area

Abstract

A number of studies have been carried out on the importance and connotation of tourism culture. However, from the literature study of tourism culture, it is found that there is still a gap between the remolding of tourism culture and the development of tourism enterprises in the digital era. This study aims to identify the enterprise clustering effect and employment benefit of rural tourism culture reshaping. By empirical research, this study establishes a new conceptual research framework for rural tourism sustainability to cover the gap between the cultural reshaping and enterprise development for rural tourism in Zhejiang. We began with investigation to villagers on their acceptance of reshaped tourism culture. Through interviews with entrepreneurs, this study investigates the relationship between tourism cultural reshaping and tourism enterprise image. An enterprise network of regional tourism cultural IP image has been established to describe the density among the whole tourism cultural industry. The location entropy index is adopted to show the employment in tourism enterprises. This index reflects residents’ acceptance of the reshaped cultural image as a key influencing factor of enterprises’ sustainable development. Furthermore, it is found that tourism cultural reshaping is a significant base for rural tourism industry clustering. The research results suggest that tourism corporation can contribute to the local tourism economy by reshaping culture.