THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANCIENT VILLAGE CULTURAL SPACE AS A SUSTAINABLE TOURISM RESOURCE IN CHINA: A SUCCESS STORY?: THE PERSPECTIVE OF RESIDENTS

The ancient village is a combination of material cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage, a lively carrier of the unique rural features of the countryside, a time projection of rural construction and development, and a traditional cultural space carrying old culture. Tourism in ancient villages is the main way for tourists to understand historical culture and experience live folk culture. Since urbanization, it has been the focus of attention in the development of tourism. However, with the continuous advancement of urbanization and the development of rural tourism, rural space has been reshaped, especially the commercialization of tourism in the ancient village cultural space (AVCS) and the imagination of the residents' good life is in sharp conflict. Therefore, it is necessary to re-examine and adopt sustainable development strategy to fully excavate and make good use of AVCS and make it a sustainable tourism resource. This article takes Cangpo Village, Wenzhou, China as an example, and uses participatory observation and semi-structured interview to explore the related priorities of AVCS as a sustainable tourism resource. Research illustrates that from the perspective of residents, the sustainability of AVCS is a comprehensive concept, influenced by a sense of local identity, cultural pride, and the identity of residents as being exhibited. Residents' attitudes towards the display, dissemination and promotion of living spaces have weakened their positive perceptions and enhanced their negative perceptions, showing a trend of transition from the ‘harmony' stage to the ‘indifferent' stage. In order to make AVCS a sustainable tourism resource, transform the top-down tourism management concept, the residents become the main body of the cultural space display, the development of tourism and the imagination of the residents' good life develop in parallel, so as to seek the harmony between the cultural space and the residents symbiosis is very necessary. This article is a re-examination and revalue identification of the development of AVCS so far. In the era of new technologies, it is of such significance to think of AVCS as sustainable resources and to supplement the literature.