Social space evolution of rural tourism destinations in suburban areas from the perspective of sharing between host and guest:a case study of Baiquan ancient town in Wuhan
Suburban areas are an important zone in the transition between urban and rural areas,and also a hotspot for the development of rural tourism.Suburban rural tourism sites are subject to the dual role of tourism and urbanization and the social space evolution is relatively more complex.Based on the theory of host-guest interaction,space production and tourism destination life cycle,in this study,non-participatory observation,participatory observation,in-depth interview,and grounded theory were applied to examine the social space evolution process and mechanism of Baiquan Ancient Town,a typical suburban rural tourist destination.Findings are shown as follows.1)Baiquan Ancient Town is still in the participation stage of the tourist destination life cycle,and the overall social satisfaction is high.The contradiction between different power subjects is weak,showing a positive interaction between the host and the guest relationship.2)From the perspective of space production,the evolution process of social space in Baiquan Ancient Town is able to be divided into three levels:the gradual improvement of physical environment,the gradual accumulation of policy capital,and the coordinated development of host and guest sharing.3)The power interaction of"host-visitor"has become the dominant force in the social space evolution of Baiquan Ancient Town,which is manifested in three aspects:host-visitor production driving the change of spatial practice,host-visitor demand affecting the direction of spatial representation,and host-visitor shared experience characterizing spatial harmony.The host-visitor sharing drive is also the basis for the whole-domain practice and related research.
social spacehost and guest sharingrural tourist destinationsBaiquan ancient town