In the spring of 2023, a novel form of tourism emerged among college students, characterized by its brevity, tight itineraries, numerous destinations, and high intensity. This phenomenon has been dubbed“special forces-style tourism.”To examine the core attributes of this trend, this study analyzed online comments on social media platforms, leveraging a vast array of relevant textual data. First, a virtual ethnography approach was adopted to explore the origin and evolution of “special forces-style tourism,”followed by the application of text analysis methods to synthesize its fundamental features and emotional inclinations of“special forces-style tourists”toward it. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with active users who consistently provided high-quality, recently posted content, contributing significantly to the overall high frequency of posts in the history of the platform. Through thematic analysis, the study examined the nuanced characteristics, underlying causes, and repercussions of“special forces-style tourism.” The research findings indicate that “special forces-style tourism” possesses distinctive temporal, spatial, economic, and sightseeing features, setting it apart from traditional tourism models; its emergence is primarily attributed to peer influence, rapidly spreading among the younger demographic, particularly college students, via the Internet; it has both individual and collective impacts; and its features, causes, and effects can be conceptualized using a three-stage model. The contributions of this study are, first, clarifying the distinctions between “special forces-style tourism” and other forms like check-in tourism and budget travel, enhancing explanatory power from a peer-to-peer perspective; second, providing strategic insights for tourist destinations and attractions to cater to and attract“special forces-style tourists”; and third, offering guidance for young demographics emphasizing cultural immersion, self-identification, and self-image formation through tourism activities.

By collecting and screening 74 papers related to tourist destination image research in the big data environment — and published in the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and Peking University Chinese Core Journal Catalog (2020 Edition), as of April 2023 — this study combs through the current status of the field, and analyzes and summarizes existing research from three perspectives — data (sources and modalities), methodology, and technology (tools) — and looks forward to future research trends. The research shows that user-generated content is the main data source, textual data is dominant in terms of modality, and content analysis is the basic method of tourist destination image research in the big data environment. Other commonly used methods in the field of computer science — such as sentiment analysis, topic modeling, image annotation, and image recognition — can also be classified into this category. Technically, application programming interfaces (APIs) and software tools are mostly used, and the application of deep learning mainly focuses on image data, which has not yet been fully investigated in research on the image of tourist destinations.

Based on the virtual tourism community context, this study adopts the S-O-R theory, social exchange theory and service scenario theory to construct a theoretical model of “customer-to-customer interactions—customer engagement—value co-creation interactive behavior” from the perspective of C2C interaction. An empirical study was conducted using 495 valid questionnaires collected by online and offline methods, and the data were processed and hypotheses were tested using SPSS26.0 and AMOS28.0 software. The study found that direct and indirect interactions between customers have significant positive effects on the cognitive, emotional, and intentional dimensions of customer engagement. However, differences exist in the effects of the sub-dimensions. Emotional and intentional dimensions of customer engagement have significant positive effects on users’value co-creation interactive behaviors, and mediate the effects of direct and indirect interactions on value co-creation interactive behaviors, respectively. Contrarily, cognitive engagement does not have a direct effect on value co-creation interactive behavior. This study provides a new perspective on value co-creation in virtual tourism communities, which will promote its sustainable development.

With the increasing diversification of tourist needs in the rural B&B sector, enhancing tourist experiences and understanding the factors influencing and the interaction mechanisms of behavioural intentions are of great significance for the development of the B&B industry. Based on this context, this study applies the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Theory to construct and empirically test a theoretical model exploring the impacts of nostalgic emotions, perceived value, and memorable tourism experiences on tourists’ behavioural intentions. The findings are as follows: (1) Nostalgic emotions significantly and positively affect perceived value and memorable tourism experiences. (2) Nostalgic emotions do not have a significant direct effect on behavioural intentions. (3) Perceived value positively influences memorable tourism experiences and behavioural intentions. (4) Memorable tourism experiences positively affect behavioural intentions. (5) Perceived value and memorable tourism experiences mediate the relationship between nostalgic emotions and behavioural intentions. This research provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for rural B&B operators to enhance tourist experiences and optimize development strategies.

Promoting the high-quality development of rural tourism is a crucial path to fully realizing the rural revitalization strategy. Based on New Endogenous Development Theory, this paper constructs a theoretical model for the multidimensional high-quality development of rural tourism from the perspective of multi-actor collaboration and internal-external linkages. A quantitative empirical study is conducted based on survey data from 16 villages in 8 cities in Zhejiang Province (N=1,126). Using structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 4.0 software, the study finds: (1) The operation of tourism enterprises, local community involvement, and government policy support all have a significant positive impact on the economic, social, ecological, and cultural dimensions of high-quality rural tourism development. (2) Rural operational mechanisms drive local community participation, jointly promoting the high-quality development of rural tourism. (3) Government policy support effectively promotes internal community involvement and the operational engagement of tourism companies in rural areas. This paper provides a theoretical basis and practical reference for the policy design and innovative practices of high-quality rural tourism development.

Improving the quality of tourism public services is essential not only to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of tourism and improve quality and efficiency but also to enhance tourists’ well-being. This study, from the perspective of tourism experience, constructs a multiple intermediary model of the influence of tourism public service quality on tourists’ well-being. Structural equation and Bootstrap methods are used to test the model. The results reveal that, experience value positively mediates the impact of information communication service quality and administrative supervision service quality on eudaimonia enjoyment and the impact of information communication service quality, security service quality and administrative supervision service quality on hedonic enjoyment; experience satisfaction positively mediates the impact of information communication service quality and administrative supervision service quality on both eudaimonia enjoyment and hedonic enjoyment; the alternative attractiveness negatively moderates the impact of public facilities service quality, convenience and benefit service quality, and administrative supervision service quality on experience value and the impact of public facilities service quality and convenience and benefit service quality on experience satisfaction. This study integrates the dual structure of subjective well-being and psychological well-being and expands the research on tourists’ well-being. Additionally, it defines the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions of the influence of tourism public service quality on tourists’ well-being, providing important enlightenment for improving tourism public service quality and enhancing tourists’ long-term well-being.

The integration of culture and tourism industries is an inevitable requirement for the high-quality development of China’s tourism industry, and it is also inherently essential to compensate for the weaknesses of tourism development and promote its transformation and upgrading. This study uses the coupling coordination model to assess the development level of cultural and tourism integration in 30 provinces (cities) in China from 2010 to 2019, and then introduces the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method to explore the development path of cultural and tourism integration in China based on the driving conditions of demand, supply, and support. The results reveal the following: (1) The overall development level of China’s cultural tourism industry has improved in the 2010-2019 period, but great regional heterogeneity exists in different regions. (2) From the perspective of the overall development path of culture and tourism in China, demand and support are important conditions, whereas residents’ consumption power and regional transportation play a particularly prominent role. (3) Significant differences exist in the development paths of the eastern, central, and western regions. The development of the eastern region is predominantly driven by demand combined with support, whereas the development of the central region is boosted by support and demand separately; meanwhile, the development of the western region is driven by both demand and demand-support. The results indicate that local governments should pay attention to synergizing the multiple conditions of supply, demand, and support; effectively adjust the strategy for cultural tourism development considering local conditions; and improve the targeted core driving capacity to break the bottlenecks of the development.

Tourism flow is one of the main focuses of tourism research. The application of big data technology to tourism flow research is gradually becoming a trend. This study aims to understand the state-of-the-art tourism flow research from the perspective of big data application. We selected articles published in international academic journals as the research objects, summarized the research progress in relevant fields, and proposed research prospects. The analysis indicates that (1) since 2013, research on tourism flow, from the perspective of big data application, has shown a rapid development trend. Relevant research involves tourism, management, economy, information technology, and other fields with a development trend of diversified achievements. (2) based on keyword co-occurrence network analysis, it was divided into five condensed subsets. In terms of research themes, we found that achievements mainly focused on the measurement and characterization of tourism flow, the spatiotemporal pattern and effects of tourism flow, influencing factors, and prediction of tourism flow. In terms of application data, user-generated equipment and management data were the main data sources for analysis. The main methods included spatial statistics and analysis, network analysis, model construction, and interactive integration of different research methods. (3) existing research results show an imbalance in terms of themes, data, and methods. In the future, it is urgent to continue to explore and deepen the expansion of research themes, the fusion of big and small data, and the integration of multidisciplinary methods.

The rapid proliferation of immersive tourism performance has outpaced academic research, which has created a disparity between development in practice and scholarly investigations. Notably, characterized by interactivity and participation, immersive tourism performance hinges primarily on visitors’ embodied experiences within the local context, and further exploration of specific dimensions of immersive tourism performance is warranted. Guided by embodiment theory, we construct an experience quality evaluation of such performance based on tourists’ body, cognition, and situational factors. We further adopt content analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to comprehensively evaluate immersive tourism performance, considering network evaluation as the analytic text. Our study derives the following findings: (1) The experience quality evaluation system of immersive tourism performance is constructed from four dimensions, with particular emphasis on the role of “body” factors in tourism experience, to accurately and comprehensively measure the quality of immersive tourism performance experience. (2) The quality of tourism experience is relatively satisfactory. Tourists have a good evaluation of embodied participation and experience situational dimensions, while the evaluation of product cognition and service cognition is at a general level. (3) Tourists obtain flow and meaning experiences in product cognition, and the generation of meaning experience can bring more lasting satisfaction, while performance rhythm plays a catalytic role. The service cognition indicators are rated low, which suggests that the various services provided by immersive tourism performance to tourists are not ideal. Physical participation includes the multi-sensory experience of using the body passively, with vision as the dominant factor, and the somatosensory experience of using the body actively, with kinesthetics as the dominant factor. The latter facilitates easier stimulation of tourists to exert their subjective initiative; it extends the experience situation and adds social situation elements based on previous research. (4) IPA reveals that the performance team, sense of substitution, sensory experience, and other elements are its advantages, which must be maintained in the future. The performance rhythm, atmosphere of fellow tourists, service guidance, and other elements fall into the opportunity area, which should be further developed and improved. The performance content factors fall into the key improvement area, and the immersive tourism performance project must take effective measures immediately. The study broadens the research perspective of tourism experience quality, enriches embodied experience research context, and presents recommendations for upgrading the quality and competitiveness of immersive tourism performance.

The digital economy has increasingly become an important driving force of high-quality development, and understanding the internal laws that empower high-quality development in the tourism industry is of great significance. Based on the empowerment theory of the digital economy, this study constructed a dynamic analytical framework for the relationship between digital economy and high-quality tourism development and established a PSTR model using provincial panel data to explore the enabling effect and mechanism of the digital economy on the high-quality development of tourism. The results show that (1) the empowering effect of the digital economy on high-quality tourism development has dynamic nonlinear characteristics and has passed the robustness test of various methods. (2) The digital economy has the transmission effect of empowering high-quality tourism development through the efficiency and structure of the tourism industry. (3) The enabling effect of the digital economy on high-quality tourism development is regionally heterogeneous, and the empowerment effect is weaker in regions with higher economic development levels. This study enriches the theory of digital economy empowerment, providing policy suggestions for high-quality tourism development in the digital era.

Cultural resilience provides a new concept for the high-quality development of tourism destinations and their cultures, and a strong connection exists between them. Academics have also focused on the importance of the cultural resilience of tourism destinations. However, its research lineage remains unclear. This study uses the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method to comprehensively analyze the literature related to the cultural resilience of tourism destinations. It aims to clarify the existing research progress in terms of conceptual connotation, theoretical foundation, methodological application, and research focus, thereby providing future research directions. The results show that, first, the concept of the cultural resilience of tourism destinations is unclear, and its basic theoretical analysis needs to be strengthened; second, its research methods are mainly qualitative and need to be further explored based on mixed research methods; third, the applicability of the evaluation index system is limited, and an independent measurement system can be developed; fourth, the influencing factors of the cultural resilience of tourism destinations are weakly examined, and its antecedents and evolutionary process should be thoroughly analyzed; and fifth, the systemic nature of countermeasures to enhance the cultural resilience of tourism destinations is weak, and multiple paths need to be further explored. This study can fill the gap in the literature vis-à-vis the cultural resilience of tourism destinations and promote its theoretical understanding. Moreover, it lays the foundation for expanding and enriching the theoretical system of the cultural resilience of tourism destinations. It also helps highlight the research direction for enhancing cultural resilience.

With the rapid development of tourism, tourists have prioritized their internal emotional experiences. The relationship between tourism involvement and place attachment has become an important issue in the development of local tourism as it is an important indicator for analyzing and predicting tourists’needs. Therefore, it has been widely studied by the tourism industry and academia. This study takes Changsha City as an example and introduces tourists’perceived value as an intermediary variable based on the city’s tourism situation and relevant achievements. Additionally, it discusses the relationship between tourism involvement and place attachment. Studying the mechanism of tourist attachment and its promotion strategy is of great significance for sustainable destination development. The results show that: (1) The three dimensions of involvement significantly affect perceived value and place dependence, self-expression/centrality significantly affects place identity, and perceived value significantly affects place dependence and place identity. (2) Perceived value plays an important mediating role in the formation of tourists’place attachment. Perceived value partially mediates the relationship between attraction/self-presentation/centrality, place dependence and place identity. It is also a complete mediator between attraction and place identity. (3) Tourism involvement and perceived value are important drivers of place attachment.

The practice of Marxist productivity theory in China is deeply reflected in the concept and connotation of new quality productive forces, which have facilitated the high-quality growth of China’s cultural tourism by providing it with robust driving forces and support and presenting fundamental guidelines for the creation of a credible, admirable, and respectable image of China while developing a cultural tourism powerhouse with global competitiveness. To this end, the incorporation of new quality productive forces into cultural tourism should be manifested through the integration of advanced technology, high efficiency, high quality, green mindset, and low-carbon advocacy, which aligns with the quality expectations set by the new development philosophy for the productive forces of an advanced cultural tourism industry. In light of this, this study proposes fundamental philosophies and principles for developing the new quality productivity of cultural tourism and summarizes a fitting development framework based on strategic emerging industries, high-tech (service) industries, and future industries before proposing a feasible implementation pathway using relevant theories, factors, talents, data, and equipment as guidelines. In conclusion, through these theoretical explorations and pathway contemplations, this study contributes to accelerating the formation of new quality productivity for the cultural tourism industry.

Technology has become an important driving force in high-quality tourism development. Macroscopically, this study discusses the present situation and tasks of technological innovation in China’s tourism industry and the important areas of technology-enabled high-quality tourism development. At the meso level, this study analyzes the practical paths and research issues of digital technology-empowered tourist destinations. At the micro level, this study discusses the impact of digital visual technology and various digital technologies on the tourist experience and their application in tourist locations such as museums. This study draws the following conclusions: (1) China should carry out demand-oriented technological innovation in the field of tourism, improve the quality of tourist services, upgrade elements of tourist enterprises, modernize the governance skills of mass tourism in various destinations, and form a green development capacity for the sustainable use of resources so that technology will comprehensively empower high-quality tourism development. (2) AI technology empowers high-quality tourism development, especially in shaping a more coordinated and greener tourism development model. (3) The practice of applying digital technology to promote the high-quality development of tourist destinations has given rise to issues worthy of study, such as the “liquid interaction” between destinations and tourists, value co-creation by multiple participants, and the construction of digital ecology and digital competitiveness. (4) Innovation in tourist experience products and services empowered by digital visual technology can help China upgrade and develop its tourist industry in the direction of service innovation, product technology, and brand uniqueness. (5) Digital technology reshapes the forms of museums, enriches the content and methods of museum exhibitions, enhances visitors’ immersive experiences and edutainment, and helps create more diverse communication channels.

Common prosperity is an essential requirement of the Chinese path to modernization, and rural areas are key to achieving the goal of common prosperity. In recent years, rural tourism has played an important role in promoting farmers’ income growth and solving the “Three Rural Issues.” This study focuses on the scientific connotation, theoretical logic, impact mechanism, development strategy, and realization path of high-quality development of rural tourism from the perspective of common prosperity. The core points are as follows. (1) The scientific connotation of high-quality development of rural tourism from the perspective of common prosperity should be understood and grasped from the aspects of industrial upgrading and economic development, cultural revitalization and cultural continuity, ecological protection, and the transition to green development. (2) The development of rural tourism should focus on demand and supply, scientific planning of rural tourism, and benefits for more people. (3) Rural tourism micro-enterprises are important in the development of rural tourism. They must stimulate the vitality of common prosperity by activating kinship networks, improving cultivation accuracy, and building industrial clusters. (4) The development of rural tourism needs to focus on cultural connotations, make full use of the excellent traditional Chinese culture represented by intangible cultural heritage, and promote rural tourism to enter a new stage of high-quality supply. (5) Common prosperity and high-quality development of rural tourism are interdependent and mutually supportive. We should further clarify industrial orientation, improve supply levels, make good use of cultural achievements, and explore reform and innovation systems.

Although hotel research has developed in China for more than thirty years, few studies have investigated the knowledge development process or the current status of Chinese hotel research. This paper conducts a chronological analysis of hotel-related papers published in two leading Chinese tourism journals, namely Tourism Tribune and Tourism Science. The total number of articles included in the analysis was 598. Network analysis was used to examine the key contributors and institutes contributing to the Chinese hotel literature across different time periods. The research area, research design, and methods for data collection and data analysis were identified for each sampled hotel article by adopting a manual coding approach. Results show that the paradigm of Chinese hotel research shifted between the years 2001 and 2005, characterized by distinct foci and methodological preferences. The majority of hotel articles published before 2000 were conceptual and atheoretical; empirical research following a hypothesis-testing approach has grown rapidly since 2000 and now has become the dominant paradigm of Chinese hotel research. Regarding the topics of Chinese hotel research, there has been an increased interest in the attitudes and behaviors of hotel employees and customers, and a declining interest in understanding the practical aspects of hotel management. Correspondingly, surveys targeting hotel customers and employees have become the most widely used data collection tool; also, data analysis methods have become more sophisticated, with techniques suitable for latent variable analysis, including factor analysis and structural equation modeling, gaining popularity.

Food festivals are important components and manifestation of festival and food tourism. However, compared with the booming food festival industry, theoretical research on food festivals is relatively scattered and lacks a cohesive system. To address this gap, this study analyzed 112 research articles on food festivals indexed in the WoS database from 1997 to 2023, and used bibliometric and content analysis methods to systematically review relevant domestic and foreign research results. The findings indicate that research on food festivals can be divided into three clusters: motivations and types of food festival participants, satisfaction of food festival participants, and the roles and impacts of food festivals. The results also present a development trajectory of different time periods. Using a framework-based systematic review, an innovative integration of research results on food festivals was conducted. Based on the theories, contexts, and methods framework, as well as the antecedents, decisions, and outcomes framework, existing research results were explained, and a structured view was outlined.

Rural tourism plays a guiding role in promoting rural revitalization and achieving common prosperity, and it is also an important way to promote the modernization of Chinese agriculture and rural areas. After more than 30 years, the research on rural tourism in China has achieved fruitful research results, with the research content showing a trend of “a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending”. However, localised theoretical innovation and insights into theoretical research are still lacking. The regional system of the relationship between scholars and places in local geography provides an important basis for the perspective of rural problems, and the rural human-land-industry element system has become an important perspective in rural research and has been widely used. However, as a complex multisystem, rural governance is an unavoidable problem in promoting rural modernization and building a well-off society. Based on this, this study constructs a theoretical framework of “human-land-industry-governance” on the basis of the human-land-industry framework. It holds that population is the key factor in the development of rural tourism destinations, and industry is the core of the development of rural tourism destinations. Land is the basic guarantee factor for the development of the rural tourism industry and the entrepreneurship of talent officers, and the governance of rural tourism sites plays the role of regulator. The coordinated development of the four factors can further promote the optimization of the land-land relationship in rural tourism, and the integration of the theoretical framework can better promote the theoretical research and practical progress of rural tourism in the future. Against the background of this article being written on the land of the motherland, the study of rural tourism localization should pay attention to the following three problems: first, it should emphasize people-orientation and pay attention to the subjectivity of individuals in rural tourism; second, it should pay attention to the flow of urban and rural populations and explore the new endogenous development model of rural tourism destinations; third, it should build a good governance system in rural areas, focusing on the common prosperity of rural tourism destinations.

Destinations generally face the important practical task of image construction and image renewal in their transformation and development, but the academic community lacks in-depth knowledge of the dynamic evolution law of their image dynamic evolution. In this context, this study takes Emeishan City as an example, based on web texts from 2011 to 2021, by diachronic dynamic analysis and multi-dimensional comparative analysis are made on the lexical expression and internal structure of the projected and perceived images, the dynamic evolution characteristics of tourist destination images are deeply discussed. This study found that: the differences in the ‘projected-perceived’ image of tourist destinations objectively exist, but converge over time; the core image of tourist destinations is highly stable, while the peripheral image is unstable; and the dynamic evolution of the image of tourist destinations is driven by a complex bidirectional role of official government and tourists. This study extends and deepens research on the dynamic evolution of the image of tourist destinations, and can provide methodological guidance for the construction and renewal of the image of tourist destinations.

National parks are one of the most important fields to highlight the achievements of China’s ecological civilization. The key to improving national identity is making the projected image fit the perceived image of national parks. Considering Wuyishan National Park as an example, this study collects Ctrip reviews and official publicity texts on Wuyishan National Park. Based on the tourist gaze theory, we use the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) theme model to analyze the similarities and differences between the official projected image and tourists’ perceived image of the national park. We obtain the following results: (1) National parks’ image in the network context contains five dimensions—natural resources, cultural resources, tourist experience, facilities and services, and value status. (2) From the perspective of the core high-frequency words of image cognition, the coincidence rate of projected and perceived image is only 1/3. The broadness of the official propaganda is in sharp contrast to the specificity of tourists’ perceptions and experiences. (3) The comparison of different dimensions reveals that the natural resources dimension exhibits a high degree of projected and perceived image fit, while dislocation exists regarding other dimensions. Accordingly, we use the two-dimensional quadrant method to construct three regions of the national park image: maintenance, advantage, and improvement regions. According to the characteristics of different regions, strategic suggestions are proposed based on the leadership of national park management organizations.

Just as the senses are core tools in a human body’s ability to collect information, the tourist sensory experience plays an integral part of the tourist experience. The tourist sensory experience is formed by receiving stimuli from sensory organs and translating it into vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Although research on tourist sensory experiences has made some progress, there remains a lack of systematic discussion and outlook on this topic. So as to define the relevant concepts relating to a tourist’s sensory experience, this study systematically reviews the prevailing body of research in reference to the situation, content, and mechanism behind tourist sensory experiences. This study then proposes future research themes, including the refinement of the concept and measurement content, the exploration of the intrinsic formation mechanism of the tourist sensory experience, and the enrichment of sensory experiences of different tourism phases, multiple destinations, and differentiated tourist types, with the aim of enriching and enhancing the depth and breadth of the research on tourist sensory experiences.

The key to rural revitalization lies in vitalizing rural industries. The development of the rural tourism industry - under the requirement for green, low-carbon and sustainable growth - is an important path for rural revitalization. To achieve high-quality development of rural tourism, it is necessary to follow the triple logic of system, reality and practice, with the overall aim being to achieve a “green and low-carbon ecological foundation, innovation-driven intelligent transformation, cultural empowerment of spiritual inheritance, and industrial optimization of integrated development.” The bottleneck of rural tourism’s development is that it is difficult for industrial factors to flow to, and gather in, the rural areas. The key to success lies in re-understanding the contemporary rural regions and re-constructing the local comprehensive entities, starting from tourism factor clustering, specialty of development, effective utilization of resources, green development, scientific and technological empowerment, institutional innovation, personnel training, and reconstruction of local comprehensive entities. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to forge a new combination of rural tourism development factors, create rural tourism products with unique features and vitality, and promote the high-quality development of the rural tourism industry.

In recent years, an increasing number of hotels have introduced anthropomorphic robots to enhance customer service. However, service failures inevitably occur. Despite this, limited research has examined the impact of robot anthropomorphism on customer responses in the context of service failures within hotels. This study, grounded in mind perception theory and the Task-Technology Fit Theory, develops a theoretical model exploring the relationship between robot anthropomorphism and customer tolerance for service failures. Results reveal that customer tolerance for robot service failures decreases as the level of robot anthropomorphism increases. Anthropomorphism heightens customers’performance expectations (or empathy), which in turn reduces (or increases) tolerance for service failures. Furthermore, task type moderates the relationships between robot anthropomorphism and customer tolerance for service failures, performance expectations, and empathy. Specifically, when high-anthropomorphism robots fail at performing social-emotional tasks (or low-anthropomorphism robots fail at mechanical tasks), customers exhibit lower tolerance and empathy and have higher performance expectations. This research uncovers two novel mediation paths (performance expectations and empathy) by which robot anthropomorphism affects customer tolerance for service failures, expanding the applications of mind perception theory and task-technology fit theory.

Solo travel is becoming a trend in travel and is attracting considerable attention from domestic and international travel markets. The suitability of destinations for solo travel is important to travelers; however, current research lacks a focus on solo travelers’ destination preferences and their underlying mechanisms. This study adopts a qualitative research approach, based on the “means-ends” model, to explore the destination preferences of solo travelers and their underlying mechanisms at the destination and value levels. The results showed that: (1) Several key destination attributes, including features, landscape imagery, cultural imagery, local people, and local daily life affect destination preference. (2) Solo travelers’ value seeking includes freedom, escape, fun and enjoyment, self-reflection and self-growth. However, the value of “freedom” does not appear in the chain of destination perception and value seeking. (3) The attribute-outcome-value chain reflects the mechanisms inherent in the formation of destination preferences by solo travelers. This chain provides a clearer understanding of solo travelers’destination preferences, such as concrete attributes and abstract values. The findings of the study will help advance the study of solo travelers’destination preferences and the underlying mechanisms, and provide inspiration for the marketing and management in solo travel markets.

The primary goal of rural revitalization is to increase residents’earnings and reduce the urban-rural income gap. Using the tourism resources of scenic spots as an entry point, this study meticulously analyzes the impact of tourism development on household incomes at the provincial, county, and municipal levels, including within the scenic spots. It estimates the incremental pure tourism income that tourism development has generated for households in scenic spots. The findings indicate that the urban-rural divide remains the largest source of income disparity at both micro and macro levels. This is an issue that must be urgently addressed on the Chinese path to modernization in rural tourism. It argues that economies of scale may not be suitable for most rural areas in China. However, economies of scope may provide a more appropriate path for the modernization of the rural tourism industry. The feasibility and existence of economies of scope in rural tourism are demonstrated through mathematical methods. Finally, the paper outlines specific measures and relevant principles for adopting economies of scope to guide the future development of rural tourism in alignment with China’s industrial development objectives.

Karst tourism practice is crucial for the economic and social development of karst regions, necessitating systematic academic research for scientific guidance. Consequently, reviewing and forecasting karst tourism research is imperative. Currently, there is a scarcity of literature summarizing knowledge and reflecting on issues within the domestic karst tourism research system. This article reviews and summarizes representative literature on domestic karst tourism since 1985. It systematically examines research topics and methods in this field, identifies research gaps, constructs a research framework, and proposes future research directions. The study findings are as follows. 1. Domestic karst tourism research has evolved through an embryonic stage (1985-1996), a development stage (1997-2009), and a stable stage (2010-present). 2. Research topics include the basic connotation, development, and utilization of karst tourism resources, the brand image of karst tourism destinations, karst rural tourism, poverty alleviation and development, and the impact and sustainable development of karst tourism. 3. Research methods encompass both qualitative and quantitative analyses, with relatively rich qualitative research findings. 4. Academic attention to karst tourism fluctuates, often with low research quality and lacking a systematic approach. 5. Future research should strengthen foundational, empirical, and contemporary studies of karst tourism.

Qualitative research methods, represented by grounded theory and case study, are becoming increasingly common in tourism management and business administration research. However, there are still numerous controversies over and uncertainty regarding the essential characteristics, evaluation criteria, and key steps in the process of applying them. This study analyzes how to effectively utilize the grounded theory and case study method and arrives at the following conclusions: (1) The primary characteristics of high-quality qualitative and case study methods are as follows: The research design has high credibility and reliability; the selection of samples and cases should match the research question and research paradigm; the data analysis process should be rigorous and standardized; the theoretical construction should be based on the balance point of “optimal distinction;” and attention should be paid to the uniqueness of the research method when writing essays. (2) Deep reflection is needed among academics on the connotation of grounded theory, while avoiding four typical misunderstandings, and relevant strategies and suggestions for core issues, such as theoretical sampling, coding skills, and reliability and validity testing, should be propounded. (3) Increasing attention has been paid to the standardization of the data analysis of grounded theory, especially to the description and display of the coding process in the essays. However, noteworthily, coding is not performed for the sake of coding itself, and only “continuous comparison” and reasonable interpretation form the core of data analysis. (4) The case study’s data analysis and theoretical construction constitute the logical chain of “data-concept-concept relationships theory,” which includes the following two stages: The first stage proceeds from data to concept—that is, the case data are compressed and abstracted to be associated with the relevant concept. The second stage entails the conceptual relationships and their theoretical explanation—that is, logically linking these concepts, describing the pattern of case phenomena, and explaining their underlying mechanisms. (5) Case studies are conducive to revealing theoretical mechanisms and constructing new theories, and the quality of case studies can be effectively enhanced by selecting matching data processing methods. Per the different types of theories, case studies can be divided into both process and factor theories, which are suitable for different research designs and data processing methods.

The development of artificial intelligence technology has normalized service robots cooperating with front-line employees in restaurants to deliver customer services. The effect of service robots has attracted the attention of several researchers. However, existing research has focused on the relationship between customers and robots, whereas research on employees and robots is limited. This study constructs a conceptual model of the four performance features of service robots and employees’ work well-being from the dual perspectives of innovation resistance theory and conservation of resources theory. Using bootstrapping to test the chain mediation effect of robot anxiety and work engagement, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) the animacy and perceived safety of the service robot have significant indirect effects on employees’ work well-being, and employees’ robot anxiety and work engagement have a significant chain mediated effect on the relationships of “animacy-work well-being” and “perceived safety-work well-being”; (2) the animacy and perceived safety of service robots negatively affect employees’ robot anxiety; (3) employees’ robot anxiety weakens their work engagement and reduces their work well-being; and (4) work engagement can improve employees’ work well-being. This study enriches research on the influence of robots on employees in service enterprises.

With the rapid development and widespread adoption of the internet, online communication between leaders and employees has become commonplace in hotel operations. However, there is scant academic focus on the effects of such communication on employees. This paper, grounded in cognitive appraisal theory, explores through four experimental groups how the use of emojis in online communications between hotel leaders and employees impacts employees’ perceived workplace enjoyment and the underlying mechanisms. The findings indicate: (1) The use of emojis in online communications by leaders affects employees’ perception of workplace enjoyment. (2) In positive contexts, emotional intensity mediates the relationship between leaders’ emoji use and employees’ perceived workplace enjoyment. (3) In positive (negative) contexts, employees’ empathy capability positively (negatively) moderates the relationship between leaders’ emoji use and employees’ emotional intensity. (4) In positive (negative) contexts, the leader-member exchange relationship positively (negatively) moderates the relationship between employees’ emotional intensity and their perceived workplace enjoyment. This study contributes to understanding the mechanisms by which emoji usage in online communications influences employees’ perception of workplace enjoyment, offering practical guidance for hotel management in optimizing online communication strategies and enhancing communication effectiveness.

As the first national standard for the hotel industry in China, the hotel star rating standards have played a pivotal role in promoting standardized operations and effective supervision. However, in recent years, the guiding influence of these standards has been progressively diluted and even questioned, a phenomenon that academia has yet to fully explore. This research employs qualitative methods to compare and analyze the hotel star rating standards of China with those of international markets. By identifying key differences, it investigates the root causes behind the weakened impact of these standards. Key findings: (1) Discrepancies in Standards: Significant differences exist between Chinese and international hotel star rating standards in terms of regulations, content, structure, and evaluation processes. Compared to international standards, Chinese standards have become outdated, diminishing their effectiveness in guiding hotel operations. (2) The“de-star”Phenomenon: The trend of Chinese star-rated hotels abandoning their stars is influenced by governance methods, market dynamics, issues with the star rating system itself, and changing consumer demands. This trend has intensified with the entry of international hotel brands, evolving into a common challenge across the industry. This study is the first to compare Chinese and international hotel star ratings in depth, correlating these findings with real-world hotel operations to unearth the deeper reasons for the declining role of star ratings. It aims to offer valuable insights for the transformation and upgrading of the hotel industry.

Based on the theory of planned behavior “TPB” and TAM, this study introduces the construct of “worry” to integrate this theoretical model and then proposes some relevant hypotheses. The results of using PLS-SEM to test the data reveal that subjective norms, reservation attitude, and perceived behavioral control have a direct significant impact on the behavior intention of attractions reservation. Compared with perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness has a greater influence on perceived behavior control. The “worry” caused by the epidemic exhibits a direct influence on subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. The model exhibits good explanatory and predictive power. This study also provides a theoretical basis and practical suggestions for tourist attraction reservation from the perspective of technology and management.

Music can guide audiences on a journey, with urban folk songs enabling them to“walk into”a tourist destination, travelling through musical time and space. However, the internal psychological processes require in-depth interpretation. Based on the theory of tourism encounters, this study employs the concept of mental time travel and applies proceduralized grounded theory to analyze music reviews of the song Chengdu on the NetEase Cloud Music platform across three levels. This analysis constructs a process model of mental time travel between audiences and urban folk songs. 1. Urban folk songs work like a“triggers”for mental time travel; the present functions as the“anchor point,”while memory and self-act as the“machines,”allowing audiences to traverse subjective time, encompassing both the past and future. 2. The audience’s body is an“emotional interleaving field,”with accumulated subjective emotions acting as the “lubricant” for the mental time travel “machine.” This process facilitates the audience’s journey within the musical time-space travel, enabling them to “enter” the tourist destination across time and space.

This research innovatively integrates the theory of tourism encounters with the concept of mental time travel to reveal the internal psychological process of the musical time-space journey experienced by listeners of urban folk songs. Additionally, it offers practical insights for tourism destination marketing organizations.

Digital transformation facilitates the integration of digital resources with other production factors in the hotel industry, thereby minimizing resource misallocation, fostering continuous green innovation, and advancing eco-efficiency. This has heightened academic interest in the theoretical exploration of the impact of digital transformation on green behavior within hotels. This study investigates nine hotels that have adopted digital transformation and green practices, using grounded theory to delineate the mechanisms through which digital transformation influences green behavior and to develop a corresponding theoretical model. The results indicate that digital transformation in hotels influences green behavior across five key dimensions: 1. optimization of resource allocation, 2. enhancement of operational efficiency, 3. strategic direction from top management, 4. employee competency, and 5. the external environment. In this framework, resource allocation serves as the foundation; operational efficiency functions as the driving force; strategic direction provides guidance; employee competency acts as the guarantee; and the external environment operates as a moderator. These five dimensions are interrelated and collectively influence green behavior. This study contributes to the literature on digitalization and sustainability by enriching the theoretical understanding of these phenomena and offering practical recommendations for hotel enterprises.

Tourism enterprises have long face the dilemmas of human resources shortage and talent loss, mainly due to the mismatch of labor supply and demand in the external market, and the simple and sloppy internal job setting and human resources management (HRM). The wave of digitalization provides opportunities for solving the aforementioned problems, but it also poses new challenges. The main manifestations are: (1) the digital era has shaped a new scene of tourism, giving rise to new tourism demand, and the new period of tourism enterprise labor demand characteristics and skills structure have been transformed; thus, tourism practitioners need to possess digital management, analysis, innovation, service, and learning abilities. (2) Digital technology (DT; e.g., intelligent machines and big data analysis) is reshaping the division of labor and service functions of tourism services, and its wide application partially replaces human employees (especially in programmed repetitive labor); however, it may also be possible to enhance employees through system support, human-computer collaboration, and so on. Thus, its impact is structural. HRM in tourism enterprises must pay attention to the potential digital divide and digital equity issues in the digital transformation of tourism and ensure that the intelligence and convenience of DT can benefit every stakeholder equally. (3) DT has also enlivened flexible labor, thereby changing the shape of flexible labor through three aspects: new work arrangements, nature of work, and status of workers. In the digital era, the flexible employment management of tourism enterprises must be optimized by deepening the governance of the flexible employment platform and improving the workers’ rights and interests protection system. (4) The digital era poses challenges to the internal HRM of tourism enterprises in terms of responsibility attribution, lack of digital capacity, data security, and customer privacy protection, and also brings opportunities to enhance and optimize the scientific management of talent identification and recruitment, training, performance management, employee relations, and employee retention. In the digital era, HR managers of tourism enterprises must bridge the gap between technology and human nature, pay attention to the ethical dilemmas brought about by the application of DT, and adopt an open and adaptive mindset. (5) DT can also empower the matching of market supply and demand of labor in tourism enterprises, that is, make the quantity of labor supply and demand in such enterprises dynamically balanced through informatization changes, improve the structure through intellectualization, and optimize the docking through platformization.

Sports parks are key sports and leisure service facilities based on urban green space systems that play a pivotal role in enhancing the physical activity levels of individuals. This article scrutinizes the literature pertaining to sports parks within the Web of Science journal database, analyzing its research context, scholarly characteristics, scientific issues, and research trends by adopting analytical perspectives that consider the effects of sports parks, human-environment relationships, and other pertinent aspects. Additionally, it examines topics such as sports park planning and construction to provide theoretical and practical directions for high-quality research aimed at advancing the development of sports parks in the future.

Against the background of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial change, a complex domestic and overseas environment, and the transformation of China’s economic development mode, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively puts forward the concept of “new quality productivity,” which points out the way forward for tourism development and provides a fundamental guideline. This study summarizes the difficulties and directions for new quality productivity in tourism. First, it proposes that new quality productivity is an inherent requirement for the deepening of tourism development and expounds on the important role that scientific and technological innovation plays in it. Second, it proposes a two-way influence mechanism for the development of new quality productivity of tourism from the two dimensions of the overall driving power of tourism and its huge market demand. Third, it elaborates on the role of science and technology in the new quality productivity of tourism from both positive and negative perspectives. Finally, we highlight six major difficulties in developing new quality productivity in the tourism industry: data quality, human capital, means of production, industrial ecology, financial support, and production relations.

Monitoring customers to ensure they finish their meals (“clean plate campaign”) in catering enterprises is a significant measure to prevent food waste. However, this practice may provoke negative responses from customers. With the rise of intelligent dining services, service robots are becoming more prevalent. There is limited research examining whether using service robots can mitigate the adverse effects of monitoring customers’ plate waste in buffet settings. To address this gap, the present study employs the theory of mind perception to investigate how buffet customers respond to varying intensities of plate waste monitoring conducted by service robots compared to human waitstaff. A pilot study and scenario-based experiment reveal the following key findings: 1. Compared to low monitoring intensity, high monitoring intensity increases negative customer responses, specifically manifested as more negative customer attitudes and a higher willingness to engage in negative word-of-mouth behavior. 2. Service provider type interacts with monitoring intensity: when plate waste monitoring is low, service robots reduce negative customer responses compared to human waitstaff; however, with increased monitoring intensity, the ability of service robots to mitigate negative customer responses diminishes. 3. Perceived restrictiveness mediates the interactive effects of service provider type and monitoring intensity on customer responses.

In conclusion, this study enriches theoretical research by revealing the novel role of service robots in influencing customers to reduce plate waste. Furthermore, it offers practical insights for catering enterprises aiming to optimize their plate waste monitoring strategies.

With the rapid development of technology, contactless services have gradually become an important emerging phenomenon in the field of tourism and hospitality consumption. This study aims to systematically and comprehensively examine the research progress of contactless services. Based on a comprehensive review of existing literature in English and Chinese, this paper: (1) presented the types of contact-free services and a summary of published papers; and (2) identified four types of research focus and provided a detailed report for the progress for each research theme: ①antecedents, experience and outcomes of consumers’ use of contactless services, ②antecedents and outcomes of organizations’ use of contactless services, ③service failure and recovery, and ④ literature review. Finally, the paper put forward fruitful directions for advancing the current understanding of contactless service.

To construct a logical analytical framework for the development of new quality productivity in the tourism industry, this study applies Schumpeter’s innovation theory to determine logical deductions of new quality productivity from the perspective of China as a whole and the tourism sector. It is believed that the development of new quality productivity in the tourism industry is essentially a process of innovation diffusion. Technological, economic, social, and cultural changes all contribute to the evolution of tourism demand and public policies, promoting a series of upgrades of tourism enterprises and the tourism industry, thus forming positive feedback to the social system. Based on the research results of this logical analytical framework, reducing tourism transaction costs and enchancing the cost-effectiveness remain the core of tourism innovation, and the development of virtual tourism enterprises is a foreseeable and important trend.

Realizing that common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of Chinese modernization is primordial. This study focuses on the internal relationship between the two development strategies of high-quality tourism development and common prosperity, aiming to explore whether high-quality tourism development can promote common prosperity. It conducts an empirical test using provincial panel data from 2011 to 2019. The findings are as follows: First, the high-quality development of tourism can significantly promote common prosperity, and promote “making the cake bigger” in the two sides of the integration of common prosperity, but only when the high-quality level of tourism crosses a certain threshold. At the same time, the high-quality development of tourism is more conducive to the provinces with a middle level of common prosperity, affluence, and common degree; Second, the positive effect of high-quality tourism development on common prosperity and affluence presents a trend of “central > western > eastern,” whereas the northeast does not show the influence effect at this stage. As far as common degree is concerned, it only shows a positive effect in the central and western regions, showing "the central region > the western region". Third, opening up and urbanization can affect the impact of high-quality tourism development on common prosperity. Based on this, it is concluded that the high-quality development level of tourism should be further improved, the overall income level of society should be promoted, and income distribution should be improved to promote the realization of common prosperity.