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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]

Communities play a critical role in the development and maintenance of sustainable heritage tourism. However, conflicts often arise when these communities are ignored or marginalized in the heritage tourism development process. This paper examines whether the community located within the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, a World Heritage Site in China, views the designation and subsequent tourism development as beneficial or not. The findings show that there are significant differences in opinion between the local Hani people and non-Local Hani and outsiders who live in the heritage area. The local Hani feel a greater sense of deprivation due to de-empowerment and economic inequalities as compared with non-Local Hani and outsiders. This deprivation has reduced their motivation to conserve their own heritage, while the non-local Hani feel a greater sense of gain and a newfound appreciation for their personal and collective heritage identity. Frequent interactions between the two groups have led to local Hani people resisting the heritage preservation responsibilities enforced upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Because of profound applications of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and its heterostructures in electronics, its thermal stability has been spurred substantial interest. We employ a precision muffle furnace at a series of increasing temperatures up to 340 °C to study the oxidation behavior of continuous MoS2 films by either directly growing mono- and few-layer MoS2 on SiO2/Si substrate, or by mechanically transferring monolayer MoS2 or hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) onto monolayer MoS2 substrate. Results show that monolayer MoS2 can withstand high temperature at 340 °C with less oxidation while the few-layer MoS2 films are completely oxidized just at 280 °C, resulting from the growth-induced tensile strain in few-layer MoS2. When the tensile strain of films is released by transfer method, the stacked few-layer MoS2 films exhibit superior thermal stability and typical layer-by-layer oxidation behavior at similarly high temperature. Counterintuitively, for the MoS2/h-BN heterostructure, the h-BN film itself stacked on top is not damaged and forms many bubbles at 340 °C, whereas the underlying monolayer MoS2 film is oxidized completely. By comprehensively using various experimental characterization and molecular dynamics calculations, such anomalous oxidation behavior of MoS2/h-BN heterostructure is mainly due to the increased tensile strain in MoS2 film at elevated temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the evolution of China's border tourism policies based on the case of Xishuangbanna. Findings show a three-stage policy evolution, namely bottom-up promotion of tourism (the 1990s), inhibition of tourism (the 2000s), and reposition of tourism within broad national contexts (the 2010s). The lei motif behind such policies lies in a pragmatism born of the need to achieve economic growth via border openness and border security. It suggests that the Belt and Road Initiative is a continuation of policies that date back to China's "Opening-up" and tourism is consistent contributor to policy evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are easily oxidized in the humid atmosphere, leading to a decrease in their lubricating properties and limiting their application. In this study, a MoS2/WS2 multilayer film doped with tantalum (MoS2/WS2-Ta) is fabricated by magnetron sputtering to improve the corrosion and oxidation resistance of TMDs. Results show that doping of Ta makes the structure of the MoS2/WS2 multilayer film more compact, and the MoS2 and WS2 crystals exhibit a stronger (0002) preferred orientation than that of un-doped sample. Such compact structure and (0002) preferred orientation of MoS2/WS2-Ta can realize a high corrosion resistance, i.e., a more positive corrosion potential and a lower corrosion current density in comparison with the MoS2/WS2 multilayer. Furthermore, the friction properties of MoS2/WS2 multilayer film doped with 1.1 at% of Ta are improved remarkably under both of high temperature (370 °C in air) and vacuum conditions, the result is attributed to its high mechanical properties and (0002) preferred orientation. In a word, the combination of multilayer structure and doping of Ta into the films is a promising approach to accurately design the TMDs toward a wide temperature range and environmentally adaptive lubricants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated Chinese tourists' perceptions of domestic cultural heritage in general and consumption of a renowned Chinese cultural heritage site in terms of motivation and satisfaction across four generations. Seven hundred and five self-administered questionnaires were collected at Kulangsu. Findings showed tourists were interested in cultural heritage that conveys national history and culture, yet considered famous people and literary works secondary. They held strong positive views of World Heritage designation, yet the Post-80s and Post-90s showed lower interest in famous heritage places than prior generations. While consuming Kulangsu, the Lost Generation was cultural-heritage-oriented, whereas the younger generations were experience-oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the understandings and practices of responsibility for heritage conservation and heritage tourism from a multiple-stakeholder perspective at the Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, a unique World Heritage Site in China. Data were mainly collected via participant observations and semi-structured interviews. Local villagers comprised of ethnic minorities are conserving the heritage landscape in this protected heritage site through their traditional agricultural production and integrated religious and cultural practices. Conflict has arisen over the years due to inequities between the responsibilities they assume to maintain the cultural landscape and their ability to acquire compensation and share tourism's benefits. Other stakeholders (e.g., local government, the state-owned tourism enterprise, hostel operators) have benefited greatly from tourism to this area, but have not shared the responsibilities of actually maintaining the heritage landscape. The findings also show that an emphasis on the material heritage and technical approach towards the conservation of the heritage landscape by local authorities exacerbate the conflicts as the roles and needs of the local residents are not recognized. The study suggests that heritage responsibility discourses and practices justify and reinforce systematic unequal power relations between local community residents and the state at the Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces. The villagers play the greatest role in sustaining the cultural landscapes for current and future generations of Chinese citizens and visitors, yet experience numerous restrictions and impediments in the process. This study reveals complex relationships between the "doing" of responsibilities through local cultural practices of the Hani ethnic minority and their "rights," both of which are situated locally and socially constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social norms are critical drivers of pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) yet vary in their influences across individuals or cultures. This study investigates the contingent effects of social norms on tourists' PEBs by examining the moderating role of an individual cultural value, i.e. Confucian-based Chinese traditionality, on the mediated relations via personal norm. Using survey data collected from Kulansu island and with structural equation modelling and bootstrap analyses, it revealed that both injunctive and descriptive norms did not exert a direct effect on tourists' PEBs but an indirect one via personal norm, i.e. personal norm fully mediated the relationship between social norms and PEBs. It also confirmed that Chinese traditionality moderated the mediated relationship between injunctive, but not descriptive, norm and PEBs through personal norm, such that the mediation was stronger for tourists higher, rather than lower, in Chinese traditionality. This study contributes to the literature on the norm-behaviour relationship in a Confucian-based cultural context and offers practical insights into crafting normative appeals in environmental campaigns. [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]

Shared governance between the public and private sectors can contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of park management and to the fulfilment of its triple mandate of recreation, conservation, and economic pursuits. Nevertheless, park authorities in centralised countries are reluctant to introduce public–private partnerships on a wide scale. This qualitative study is to explore the reasons why public–private cooperation is not widespread within national parks in Vietnam and China. The findings show that both countries have made some sophisticated management choices in relation to public–private cooperation. The adaptive implications are discussed at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wavelength dependent hyper-Rayleigh scattering measurements have been performed by using a fluorescence spectrometer. With this detection strategy, first molecular hyperpolarizability (β) of a dual charge-transfer (H-shaped) chromophore and its monomer have been measured in two-photon resonance range from 670 to 950 nm as well as at off-resonance of 1064 nm. The absorption and resonance hyper-Rayleigh profiles can be simulated reasonably well with a common set of parameters. In addition, both resonance and off-resonance results show that β0 per chromophore has a remarkable enhancement for the H-shaped molecule as large as 1.7, compared with that of the monomer, which could be ascribed to two physical effects: (1) coherent enhancement of two chromophores and (2) intramolecular dipole-dipole interaction, which was confirmed by their fluorescence-decay behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of identity and cultural citizenship as cultural policy in tourism development in the Tibetan ethnic area of Sichuan Province, China. The findings indicate that the Tibetans are building different cultural identities in response to government cultural policies. In Guannei, they actively claim their rights to a share of tourism profits at the expense of their culture, while in Guanwai, they have constructed a multicultural identity not only for preserving culture, but also for developing it. The native Tibetans, therefore, are able to negotiate their identity based on their desire in contemporary society. The impact of tourism upon ethnic culture could be negative or positive and it depends on the identity of cultural citizenship. The paper explores the impact of tourism from a cultural citizenship perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tries to explore psychological components of memorable tourist experience (MTE) that are most likely to recall tourists' memories. Urban residents from three representative cities in China were selected as research samples, and totally 301 usable questionnaires were used for data analysis. The results showed that the recollection of MTE was positively affected by novelty, involvement and social interaction. It was also suggested that hedonism and novelty had positive effects on the vividness of MTEs significantly. Additionally, in the context of Chinese culture, two new psychological factors, social interaction and perceived serendipity, resulted in different effects on the MTE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates Chinese tourists’ views of nature, interest in animal experiences and their preferred natural landscape interpretation content from a generational perspective. Eight hundred and eight self-administered questionnaires were collected at Wulingyuan, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, in China. It suggests that overall Chinese traditional cultural values and beliefs, notably the thinking of tian ren he yi (oneness of nature with humans), still have considerable impacts on Chinese tourists. They were found to have a strong sense of connection with nature and a preference for cultural interpretations of natural landscapes. Meanwhile, Chinese might be reaching a point of convergence in terms of attitude towards nature and animals with their Western counterparts, as reflected by their weak anthropocentric view, and strong ethical and aesthetic appreciation of animals, regardless of generation cohorts. Yet, the study shows significant generational gaps: older generations have a stronger connection with nature, are more concerned about environmental issues and show more support for the Western approach towards nature protection; the younger generations hold weaker anthropocentrism, and are more interested in animals, yet are less likely to learn about nature through tourism interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawn upon the brand attachment theory, this study examines the role of destination brand personality (DBP) and self-congruence in developing destination brand attachment (DBA) from the perspective of tourists. In particular, the study investigates whether DBP tends to match tourists’ ideal self or conforms more to the actual self during the DBA development process. The conceptual model is empirically tested with a sample of Chinese independent tourists in Yangshuo, China, a popular destination for this market segment. In addition to identifying the four DBP dimensions relevant to Yangshuo, the most important findings of this study rest on the mediating role of self-congruence between DBP and DBA. These findings suggest that congruence between the actual self and the DBP dimensions of Excitement and Charming contribute to the development of DBA, while the ideal self-congruence does not. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on norm-activation theory, this study explores the link between tourists' perceptions of the negative impacts of tourism and their perceived responsibility. A proposed theoretical framework was examined and verified through exploratory and confirmatory research processes. Self-administered questionnaires were collected at two UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites in China. The findings of this research suggest that tourists' perceptions of the negative impacts of tourism positively affect their ascription of responsibility, which positively influences tourists' perceptions of responsibility. Nevertheless, the accessibility of information about tourism impacts is far from enough to foster in tourists a sense of responsibility, which is important for the promotion of responsible behaviours. Several practical implications are provided to address tourists' sense of responsibility, including enhancing tourists' awareness of negative tourism impacts, increasing the availability and accessibility of information about tourism impacts, and recommending behaviours for tourists to make a positive difference to destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines tacit knowledge spillover among lodging firms within a destination and how it contributes to sustainable destination development. Longitudinal data for this study were collected primarily through in-depth interviews with lodging firms' managers and operators in a destination located in southern China. The findings suggest that tacit knowledge spillover in a region may lead to hospitality firm agglomeration. Furthermore, the eco-friendly hotel pioneers' tacit knowledge spillover may, over an extended time period, enhance the eco-friendly initiatives and operations of local hospitality firms, which may contribute to the successful development of sustainable destinations. The findings also indicate that local government's effective interventions tend to encourage and facilitate tacit knowledge spillover through establishing knowledge transfer mechanisms in the community, which is significant in the context of sustainable destination development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of culture on landscape-name perceptions of tourists from China, United States, and Europe utilizing both Hofstede's and Hall's cultural typologies. Data for this study were collected from visitors to two national parks in China. Culture is found to have a significant impact on both sub-dimensions of understanding (legibility and coherence) and involvement (mystery and diversity). Findings suggest that tourists from different cultures are likely to interpret landscape names differently. Those from cultures with a high power distance and low individualism would prefer landscape names that are mystical, dreamy, fictive, ingenious, original, and poetic, while those from cultures with a lower power distance and high individualism would prefer names that simply describe the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the conflicting relationship between heritage and tourism has been debated at length in the Western academic literature, interest in the relationship is now becoming increasingly pronounced across the developing world with particular interest noted in China. To examine this phenomenon further, this study explores the cause and temporal variation of conflicts between heritage and tourism over the past decade in China. Content analysis was adopted as the most appropriate methodology for the study with data from online media reports serving as the primary data for the analysis of the occurrence of heritage and tourism conflicts in China. The findings highlight antiquated management structures, inappropriate tourism operations, and the ineffective use or deficiency of legislation as the primary causes of heritage and tourism conflicts in China with the categories of conflicts varying from clashes relating to resource use to clashes over values. The findings also shed light on the significant role played by the media in the resolution of conflicts. Finally, implications and limitations of the study's findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth of tourism in China since the 1980s has generated attendant interest in tourism research in the country, among researchers both in the mainland and outside. The dialogue between the two communities (domestic and international researchers) is also growing, but is as yet still limited, with insufficient contributions from Chinese mainland tourism researchers to the international academic world. China provides a rich field for examining the cultural, social and institutional context in which tourism develops. Recent studies of village-based community tourism development in China, with an emphasis on institutional perspectives, provide some insight on the dynamic and complex changes of rural communities along with tourism development. In general, these papers show that village participation in decision making is growing, although examples of disempowerment are as rife as those of growing empowerment. Contested resources are one of the most influential factors in this struggle, along with the rapid growth of tourism that the country has experienced since the 1980s. The papers in this special collection also demonstrate the distinct character of domestic tourism research in China, which engages the rich body of literature published in Chinese, but is generally less connected to broader international debates in the predominantly Anglo-American English publishing realm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the dynamics of the evolution of a nature-based destination in China. Based on longitudinal studies in Zhangjiajie (Hunan Province), it focuses on the roles of institutions in tourism development in China, demonstrating the centrality of institutions and governments in fostering destination development through policy orientations, attracting investments and regulations in their capacity as producers, protectors and promoters of desired processes of change. It describes a five-stage development process from Exploration, through Starting and via Fluctuation and Acceleration to the current stage of Transition leading towards a Destination seeking Better Service Quality. The study, by incorporating institutions as a driving force, develops an RICI model (Resource, Institution, Capital and Innovation) accounting for destination development in China. The key role of policies implemented by local governments and the roles of institutions are critical in the process of its development, especially in the earlier stages, contrasting with many western countries, where the private sector and central government tend to dominate. The paper notes the role of inter-institution rivalries, and the impact of those rivalries on sustainable development. It is suggested that the proposed model could be empirically verified and tested in other cultural or regional destination development contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the impact of institutions on evolution of tourism accommodation format in Wulingyuan, a well-known tourist destination in China, from the perspective of institutional cluster embeddedness. Data were primarily collected through interviews and participant observations. The findings show a five-stage evolution process starting from introduction (1982–1988), through growth (1989–2000), adjustment (2001–2004), and upgrade (2005–2010) to the current stage of individualization (2011–present). During the process, the informal institutions work to suppress, conflict with the formal institutions, yet transform into formal institutions in the end. In such a process, institutional loopholes and frictions are the norm, and tourism accommodation format evolves from extensive development to sustainable development. It suggests that the sustainable development of the tourism accommodation industry needs the synergy of formal and informal institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A "cultural turn" from those early management focused studies to more wholesome and exploratory socio-cultural analysis of food with sociological approaches has emerged in more recent food tourism studies. In the Chinese tourism context, however, extant studies are mainly conducted with marketing approaches linked to management to analyze the role of (heritage) foods in tourist perception and experience, and destination marketing. This study thus seeks to understand the mechanism of food heritagization and its effect in Yuanjia Village, a renowned rural tourism destination featuring traditional delicacies in China's Shaanxi Province. Data were collected via interviews and participant observations. The findings show that, led by local elites and monitored by a bottom-up regulatory system, locals use raw materials associated with being "local", "traditional", and "organic", make food with traditional crafts, and present food in a nostalgic atmosphere for consumption. Traditional foods are reinvented/reproduced as edible exemplars of the culture and heritage of the Guanzhong area (central Shaanxi Plain), and as carriers of nostalgia for a rural past that satisfies the imaginations and needs of surrounding urbanite visitors. This, in turn, contributes to the sustainability of the village as a rural tourism destination, featuring industry convergence that fosters economic sustainability, as well as governance embedded in rurality to deal with tourism benefit distribution (i.e., cooperatives) and social problems (i.e., peasant school) that promotes social sustainability. This research contributes to the understanding of food heritagization from a bottom-up perspective as well as rural destination sustainability from a gastronomical perspective in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]