 Spatial Optimization Strategies for Rural Tourism Villages: A Behavioral Network Perspective—A Case Study of Wulin VillageJingkun Xu,
Zhixin Lin,
Mingjing Xie (),
Huan Liu and
Yigao Tan
Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-24 Abstract: As tourism increasingly drives the revitalization of traditional villages, rural spaces are undergoing a transformation from functional living areas to spaces for cultural display and leisure. This shift has amplified the spatial usage discrepancies between multiple stakeholders, such as tourists and villagers, highlighting conflicts in spatial resource allocation and behavior path organization. Using Wulin Village, a typical example of a Minnan overseas Chinese village, as a case study, this paper introduces social network analysis to construct a “spatial–behavioral” dual network model. The model integrates both architectural and public spaces, alongside behavior path data from villagers and tourists, to analyze the spatial structure at three scales: village-level network completeness, district-level structural balance, and point-level node vulnerability. The study integrates two dimensions—architectural space and public space—along with behavioral path data from both villagers and tourists. It reveals the characteristics of spatial structure under the intervention of multiple behavioral agents from three scales: village-level network completeness, district-level structural balance, and point-level node vulnerability. The core research focus of the spatial network includes the network structure of architectural and public spaces, while the behavioral network concerns the activity paths and behavior patterns of tourists and villagers. The study finds that, at the village scale, Wulin Village’s spatial network demonstrates good connectivity and structural integrity, but the behavior paths of both tourists and villagers are highly concentrated in core areas, leading to underutilization of peripheral spaces. This creates an asymmetry characterized by “structural integrity—concentrated behavioral usage.” At the district scale, the spatial node distribution appears balanced, but tourist behavior paths are concentrated around cultural nodes, such as the ancestral hall, visitor center, and theater, while other areas remain inactive. At the point scale, both tourist and villager activities are highly dependent on a few high-degree, high-cluster nodes, improving local efficiency but exacerbating systemic vulnerability. Comparison with domestic and international studies on cultural settlements shows that tourism often leads to over-concentration of spatial paths and node overload, revealing significant discrepancies between spatial integration and behavioral usage. In response, this study proposes multi-scale spatial optimization strategies: enhancing accessibility and path redundancy in non-core areas at the village scale; guiding behavior distribution towards multifunctional nodes at the district scale; and strengthening the capacity and resilience of core nodes at the point scale. The results not only extend the application of behavioral network methods in spatial structure research but also provide theoretical insights and practical strategies for spatial governance and cultural continuity in tourism-driven cultural villages. Keywords: spatial optimization strategies; behavioral network; spatial network; tourism village; rural culture (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9710-:d:1784533 Access Statistics for this article Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu More articles in Sustainability from MDPI |
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