Willingness of the New Generation of Farmers to Participate in Rural Tourism: The Role of Perceived Impacts and Sense of Place

Binbin Li,Zengyu Mi,Zhenghe Zhang

doi:10.3390/su12030766

Abstract

This study aims to assess the willingness of the new generation of farmers in China to return to their hometowns for the purpose of contributing to rural tourism. Based on the hierarchy of effects models (HOE) and the social representation theory (SRT), this study utilized an analysis model of perceived rural tourism impacts (P), sense of place (SoP), and willingness to participate (WTP) by the new generation of farmers, where sense of place was deconstructed into the two independent dimensions of place identification (PI) and place attachment (PA). A total of 263 valid questionnaire surveys were collected in Yanling County, a demonstration county for leisure agriculture and rural tourism in China. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the data. The results show that the perceived impacts of rural tourism on the new generation of farmers had a significant positive impact on their willingness to participate in the development of rural tourism. It was also found that sense of place played a mediating role in the perceived impacts of rural tourism and willingness to participate. Additionally, perceived impacts of rural tourism had a significant positive effect on place identity, where place identity played a mediating role between perceived impacts of rural tourism and place attachment. Place identity had a significant positive effect on place attachment, and place attachment played a mediating role between place identity and willingness to participate. The practical implications of these findings for future research and rural tourism development are also discussed.

Highlights

As rural areas have gradually become marginalized during the process of urbanization, rural decline has become a major challenge for developing countries in the 21st century
Six classic model-fit statistics were used in this study: χ2/degrees-of-freedom (χ2/df), goodness of fit index (GFI), standardized root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), comparative fit index (CFI), incremental fit index (IFI), and normed fit index (NFI)
This study uses survey data collected at the rural level to examine the intergenerational replacement of rural tourism management, and used the hierarchy of effects (HOE) model to design a three-stage model based on “cognition-emotion-willingness”, which takes the positive impact of rural tourism development as an external stimulus

Summary

Introduction

As rural areas have gradually become marginalized during the process of urbanization, rural decline has become a major challenge for developing countries in the 21st century. After nearly three decades of development, China’s rural tourism initiative has achieved some success. Rural tourism has changed residents’ perception of the countryside and themselves, generating great interest among the second generation of farmers. Rural tourism transforms farmers’ living space into consumption space for urban residents, while the productive space is transformed into consumption space [2]. The development of rural tourism has changed the identity of people in rural China and diversified management has made farmers perceive themselves as both entrepreneurs and producers [4]. The development of rural tourism has changed the perception of rural residents, clearly increasing their available opportunities and contributing significantly to making rural areas more attractive to young adults [5]

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