Quantitative Calculation Method Of Tourism Landscape Perception Based On Virtual Geographic Environment

During the tourism industry developing process, some problems, responded to extendingdevelopment mode, have appeared. For examples, there are many similar landscapes withindifferent tourist destination, and the naturalism of tourism resources is losing quickly. So, there isurgent demand for an―internal developing way‖and sustainable development mode for today’stourism industry. And in some academic fields, such as tourism, geography and landscapedesigning, the problems also bring the specialists’ attention. Landscapes are the carriers orsymbols expressing the aesthetic values and cultural content of destination. Thus, the basic wayfor solving previous problems is scientific explaining and mining for naturalism semantic ofnatural and human landscapes within destinations. In the background of tourism’s quickdevelopment and academic researchers’ focusing, this paper aims at exploring the quantitativecalculation theory and methods for tourism destination landscape perception degree from aperspective of the spatial and cognition relation of tourist and landscapes.Based on the term connotation analysis of―Landscape‖,―Tourism Landscape‖, and―landscape sensitivity‖, the author proposes a new academic term―Landscape Perception Degree‖,which is abbreviated to―LPD‖. The LPD aims at describing the tourist’s perception of a landscapeor a group of landscapes at his location. LPD adopts the connotation of―the measurement of theprobability of a landscape being noticed‖contained in the term of―landscape sensitivity‖, andalso considering the cognitive styles in the―landscape‖definition. So, LPD model becomes atheory model which quantitatively describing tourist’s perception from the view of perceivedobjects (landscapes). Following the idea of―landscape is symbol‖, the author also proposes aconcept of landscape semantic and concludes a selection method for semantic characteristic pointsof landscapes, which are the foundation of quantitative calculation of LPD. LPD can be utilizedon different landscapes of both natural and human tourist destination, and goodly fits therequirement of LPD calculation not only for a single landscape, but also a group of landscapes orthe whole landscapes within a destination.The case study area for natural tourist destination is Qixiagu scenery spot, located withinWuan National Geological Park. Based on the Qixiagu Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE), the author designs a calculation procedure for LPD by the raster data type, and gets a series ofLPD calculation results including the21single landscapes, group landscapes of land scenery,human building and facilities, and the whole landscapes. A new sightseeing route is selectedsemi-automatically on the basis of LPD results, topographical factor and local social and culturalbackground. Another case study for cultural tourist destination is the West Royal Tombs of theQing Dynasty, located within Yi County, Hebei province, China. The calculation of LPD for tombsite selection culture is done, with different influencing factor values on different semanticcharacteristic points, perception aspects, and cultural landscape elements, which properly deliversthe cultural connotation and value from landscapes to tourist. The LPD of tomb site selectionculture can reflect both the single Royal Tomb landscape semantic and the landscapes’systematicness, and also reveals the best observation sites for any landscape, and the propersightseeing route location for new design.The two cases give respectively demonstration for LPD model applying on natural andhuman tourist destinations, completely show its theoretical and application value, interpret theresults’ data meaning, and also initially testify the model practicability. The two cases alsosuccessfully complete the systematic theory reconstruction for LPD’s cognition views, andindicate the following applying orientation on tourist destination planning and landscapesdesigning and valuation. And finally the paper enriches the contents of Tourism Geography.Summarizing the research procedure, we have come into being some viewpoints of LPD:(1)LPD sets up the basic of uniform quantitative calculation mode for landscape perception;(2) LPDimproves the flexibility and adaptability of landscape perception calculation;(3)LPD realizes thecomprehensive description of landscape perception from multi-dimension, including the normal3dimension, the time dimension, and the individual perception;(4) LPD provides a way for theintegration of diverse perception values during the tourist destination planning procedure.Comparing the two case studies of natural destination and human destination, there are somedifferences on the LPD application. The LPD calculation for human tourist destinations needmore consideration for the tourists’ knowledge and experience than natural destinations, so acomprehensive and multi-levels weight factors describing landscape semantic of human destinations should be allocated to LPD. For the LPD application of natural destinations, a―fromlandscape unit to entire landscape‖thinking mode should be used, while for human destinations,the thinking mode of―from entire landscape to landscape unit‖would be the most proper modebecause of its common landscape cognition before destination development. For sightseeing routeselection within natural destinations, planners should pay more attention on visual perceptionquality on the basis of accessibility, and the coordination with natural ecological environment.While within human destinations, planners should pay more attention to the influencing oftourists’ knowledge and experience on landscape perception, and focus on the value of landscapesemantic organization.There are two important contribution and innovation points in this paper. First, a newconception of LPD is proposed, which emphasizes the landscapes’ semantic expression and LPDspatial variation following the tourists’ moving. Second，the paper changes the static perceptionresearch mode, builds a pioneering model for quantitative calculation of LPD, and demonstratesits theoretical value and practicality. So, LPD model provides new method for integrating multiplevalues in tourism planning and landscape designing, and will promote the researches level onEcotourism and Tourism Geography.