Exploring tourist perceptions of calligraphic landscapes: Insights from social media text analysis

Abstract

Calligraphic landscapes, as distinctive cultural symbols and landscapes with Chinese characteristics, are widely used in urban design, placemaking, and tourism promotion. In cultural heritage tourism, tourists’ perceptions of the symbolic meanings of landscapes significantly influence their travel experiences. This study primarily utilizes social media text analysis to explore the perceptual characteristics and symbolic meanings of calligraphic landscapes in different touristic contexts. Using Python tools, user-generated content was extracted from the Xiaohongshu app and analyzed with ROST CM6, VOSviewer, and NVivo 20 to conduct systematic quantitative and qualitative analyses, including content analysis, semantic network analysis, and co-occurrence clustering. The findings indicate that cultural exchanges on social media significantly enhance public perception of the symbolic meanings of touristic spaces. As online check-in behavior becomes increasingly popular, calligraphic landscapes have gained new esthetic-symbolic meanings among young tourists, becoming part of fashion culture and reflecting the digitalization of a sense of place. In addition, user-generated content reveals that tourists’ perceptions of calligraphic landscapes are intricately linked to place recognition, cultural symbolism, calligraphic appreciation, heritage value, and esthetic experiences. As a significant cultural symbol, calligraphic landscapes are frequently encountered during travel, with their symbolic meanings varying according to the surrounding environment, thereby influencing tourists’ preferences in diverse settings. Furthermore, this study proposes several innovative strategies for designing calligraphic landscapes. This research not only validates the feasibility of web text analysis for exploring the symbolic meanings of cultural landscapes but also enhances theoretical perspectives on how symbolic landscapes shape tourists’ psychological and behavioral responses.