Redesigning Sustainable Rural Tourism: A Stakeholder-Centered Approach to Interest Symbiosis in Post-Planning Villages

Pingping Fang, Yonghong Liu, Xiangtian Bai () and Zhengbei Niu
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Pingping Fang: School of Design, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Yonghong Liu: School of Design, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Xiangtian Bai: School of Design, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Zhengbei Niu: School of Design, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 611730, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-22

Abstract: Rural tourism has become a crucial engine of economic growth in traditional villages, with numerous regions completing planning and development stages. However, along with the growth of tourism, challenges such as cultural conflicts, resource competition, and conflicting interests have emerged, threatening the long-term sustainability of tourism in these villages. Based on the unique characteristics of traditional villages, this study proposes a stakeholder-centered system design approach to address and improve these issues. This approach focuses on governing existing traditional village systems by constructing a stakeholder interest map through an analysis of the behavioral traits and interest demands of key stakeholders and identifying the main factors that hinder the flow of benefits. Furthermore, a large-scale symbiotic model is developed to explore the optimal path for the rebalancing of interests within traditional village systems. In terms of practical research, the study takes Gangtou Village in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, as a case study. Through interviews, expert consultations, and tracking experiments, the research comprehensively analyzes the interests and flows of stakeholders within the system. A symbiotic interest model is collaboratively established, and based on this model, a redesigned planning scheme for Gangtou Village is proposed. In the design validation phase, expert ratings and the Wilcoxon non-parametric test were employed to compare the sustainability of the new and old plans. The results indicate that the new plan outperforms the old one, thereby validating the feasibility of the proposed holistic system design approach.

Keywords: stakeholder theory; interest symbiosis; sustainable tourism; rural development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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