Born in the 1980s,China’s rural tourism has gained tremendous economic and social benefits through years of development.The "comfortable natural environment"is an important factor for tourists to consider for rural tourism,and the natural environment is the basis for the survival and development of rural tourism.With the promotion of new rural construction,the development and promotion of rural tourism has led to a continuous influx of tourists.In addition,the lack of awareness of environmental protection among them has caused more and more pressure on the rural environment.In response,some rural tourism scenic spots to raise ticket prices,fines,limit the scope of the tour,set environmental warnings and other measures,but the effect is not obvious.As an important concept in human geography and tourism,place emotion plays an important role in the conservation of tourism resources.Based on the place emotion theory,this paper introduces two elements of tourists’environmental attitudes and tourists’ place attachment,incorporates tourists’ place emotion,place attachment,environmental attitudes and tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviors into a unified theoretical framework,and explores the relationship between the four in the context of rural tourism,so as to make suggestions for natural environmental protection in rural tourism.Based on the comprehensive domestic and international literature,this paper introduces tourists’ place emotion into the study of the relationship between environmental attitude,place attachment and environmental responsibility behavior,proposes the theoretical hypothesis and constructs a conceptual model of the four relationships with Xidi&Hongcun,a world cultural heritage site,as a case study.The following main research findings were obtained:Place emotion significantly and positively influences environmental attitudes.Place emotion significantly and positively influences place attachment.Place emotion significantly and positively influences tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior.Place emotion not only have a direct influence on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior,but also have an indirect influence on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior through environmental attitudes and place attachment.Based on the above findings,this article proposes feasible suggestions on how to guide and cultivate tourists’environmentally responsible behaviors and thus effectively protect the rural tourism environment from three angles:strengthening the cultivation of tourists’ place emotion,changing tourists’ environmental attitudes,and enhancing tourists’ place attachment.The article concludes with the shortcomings of the study and the directions for future research. |