The Evolution of Cultural Space in a World Heritage Site: Tourism Sustainable Development of Mount Wuyi, China

Weifeng Guo, Xiangmin Zheng, Fang Meng and Xiaonan Zhang
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Weifeng Guo: Department of Tourism Management, College of Tourism, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou 362021, Fujian, China
Xiangmin Zheng: Department of Tourism Management, College of Tourism, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou 362021, Fujian, China
Fang Meng: School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29072, USA
Xiaonan Zhang: School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29072, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 15, 1-17

Abstract: It is necessary to examine cultural space in tourism destinations, including World Heritage Sites, for the long-term sustainable development of these destinations. Existing studies on cultural space mainly concentrate on the conceptual and textural elements. However, factors influencing the evolution of cultural space still need to be explored for the sustainable development of tourism destinations. Taking Mount Wuyi, a World Heritage Site in China, as a case study, this research examines the evolutionary trend of its tea cultural space. Specifically, this study investigates indicators that influence cultural space and explores its evolutionary mechanism. The vector autoregressive model was used to analyze Mount Wuyi’s tea cultural space evolution from 1996 to 2017. The results reveal that culture had the highest overall development in the tea-space evolution; the market supply and demand were the strongest and most enduring exogenous forces. Moreover, the evolution of tea cultural space demonstrated a multi-stranded interactive evolution model. This study not only enriches the understanding of cultural space evolution in tourism destinations but also offers suggestions for the sustainable development and management of World Heritage Sites.

Keywords: cultural space; space evolution; influencing mechanism; World Heritage Site (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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