Research on Environmental Perception and Preferences of Traditional Villages from the Perspective of LocalGaze: A Chinese Case Study

The advent of mass tourism has endowed traditional villages with multiple identities as heritage sites, communities, and tourist attractions. As hosts, local villagers have begun to introspect and reevaluate the village environment that was once a part of their everyday landscape, giving rise to new spatial perceptions. As the primary stakeholders in village communities, indigenous inhabitants' perceptions, preferences, and identifications with village spaces hold significant significance in preserving rural characteristics and sustaining village vitality. Using Hongkeng Village in southwest Fujian Province, China, as a case study, this study investigated local villagers' perception of traditional village daily life space and activity paths from three dimensions: cultural cognition, emotional preference, and behavioral activities through observation, questionnaire surveys, and cognitive maps. The results show that villagers generally have high cognitive and low emotional perceptions of the exhibition space and the former staging space; they have high emotional perceptions of the neighborhood interaction space and the collective memory place; the activity path spreads from home to the surrounding area, and there are gender differences in the scope of activities. The study suggests that the development of the tourism industry has often overlooked historical context and the spirit of places. It emphasizes the need to rekindle the identity of "home" within the Tulou clusters of Hongkeng Village while maintaining a balanced distribution of public facilities and enriching residents' leisure lives. This study is expected to provide insights for improving the living environment of tourism-oriented villages in China.