Study On Tourist's Spiritual Experience In Ancient Villages

With the enhancement of material living standard,tourists' spiritual needs are increasing gradually,but there are still few studies on tourists' spiritual experience in China.At the same time,the vigorous development of rural tourism provides a broad space for the study of tourists' spiritual experience.This study explores the spiritual experience of tourists in ancient village by combining qualitative and quantitative research methods,providing supplements for related research fields.As a specific type of tourist destination,Xidi Village in Huangshan City was selected as a study case.Qualitative research emphasizes the focus on individual tourist.Text data are collected from Mafengwo.com,with a total of 300 travels.Analysis of High Frequency Words reveals the constituent elements of Xidi tourism field from the perspective of tourists.Textual analysis finds out that tourists' spiritual experience can be classified into six dimensions: 1)connection with self;2)connection with environment;3)connection with time;4)connection with others;5)connection with culture;6)pursuit of meaning.Further quantitative research aims to quantify the intensity of tourists' spiritual experience.It contributes to grasp the status of tourists' spiritual experience and understand its general rules.A questionnaire survey was conducted at Xidi Village in the process of the research.The questionnaire includes two parts: demographic information and "Ancient Village Tourism Spiritual Experience Scale".The design of the scale was based on qualitative research and literature review.After analyzing and optimizing the scale with SPSS 22.0 software,the number of items was reduced from 22 to 16.Besides,the validity and reliability were tested.The result shows that the status of tourists' self-rebuilding is the least significant on the specific measurement items;the spiritual experience of tourists' "connection with environment" is the most obvious at the dimension level,but the experience of tourists' "pursuit of meaning" is not deep.This study indicates that Xidi possess the special value to meet the spiritual needs of tourists and the great potential to develop into a spiritual tourism destination.When developing tourism industry,local government and residents must maintain prudent to protect the spiritual core of the village and facilitate the sustainable development of rural tourism.