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Nurturing cultural atmosphere and making such atmosphere perceivable are critical for revitalizing historic districts and attracting tourists. However, lacking understanding of and measurement tools for cultural atmosphere impedes both research and managerial practices. To fill the gaps, the present study adopted a mixed-method approach developing a scale of perceived cultural atmosphere in the context of a historic district, Yongqing Fang. Using UGC content and 30 interview data, the qualitative part served for initial item generation. Through two questionnaire surveys with 513 participants, the quantitative part completed scale refinement and validation. A 13-item, four-dimension structure was suggested, including architectural setting, interior decoration, traditional activity, and shared affects. Theoretically, the present study improves the understanding of cultural atmosphere and provides a measurement tool for future studies. Pragmatically, destination managers may apply the scale in cultivating and maintaining a sense of culturalness in historic districts or other heritage sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how heritage value would be constructed against Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) in the Chinese World Heritage tourism context. It does so from the tour guides' perspective based on a case study of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, a World Cultural Heritage Site. Data were mainly collected via participant observations and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that while the identified OUV underlines the materiality of the heritage site with a Eurocentric view, the guides tend to go beyond the built heritage to emphasize the people and activities related to it, transmitting a sense of "Chineseness" and place. Such culturally specific heritage value construction is a co-constructive and dynamic process involving multiple stakeholders: The national state promotes nation-building via (world) heritage system, whereas local government, supported by local experts, underpins the World Heritage with locality, by which the heritage place is differentiated so as to make it attractive; trained with normative templates embedded in state heritage discourse, guides seem to have established a sense of heritage identity and place; for domestic tourists, the expression of "Chineseness" is culturally appropriate and acceptable, while their regional difference allows a comparison that highlights the locality of the heritage place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]