Rafting Tourism Experience from the Perspective of Rhythm Analysis: A Case Study of Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province

Abstract

Rafting has recently emerged as one of the most popular tourist activities in China and is a relatively mature form of adventure sport. Based on Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis theory, we constructed a tourism research framework of embodied rhythm, selected tourists in Qingyuan and Guangdong as samples, and used qualitative methods to explore the role of participants' bodies as "rhythm reflectors" in the actual daily and tourism worlds. This study also examined the rhythmic state of transition between the aforementioned two worlds, focusing on the analysis of the individuals' embodied rhythm cycle and influencing factors in the tourism context. The main conclusions are summarized as follows: (1) We discovered that the motivation driving rafting tourists is rooted in the imbalance between social and natural rhythms. Typically, an individual who participates in rafting experiences multiple rhythms within their body and develops their own embodied rhythm in interaction with the other rhythms. (2) This embodied rhythm is cyclical and can be subdivided into adaptation, immersion, pain, and retention periods. The factors affecting the embodied rhythm of rafting tourists include natural and artificial environmental elements, elements of the individual functions of tourists, and elements of the tourist community. Unlike other slow-paced, relaxed, and leisurely tourist activities, rafting instills a sense of "self-control" among participants in the process of overcoming fear, anxiety, and other negative emotions through intimate contact with nature under a rapid flow. (3) By creating a heterogeneous spatial mirror image, rafting allows individuals to overcome anxiety and other negative emotions, thus achieving a balance between internal and external rhythm, as well as enhancing self-perception. This paper suggests that scenic spots for rafting should satisfy and stimulate tourists' individual perceptions in various ways and assist in the development of quality products that satisfy the needs of different groups to enhance the competitiveness among scenic spots. The findings of this study provide suggestions to localize the practice of rhythmanalysis in Chinese tourism research and compensate for the lack of research pertaining to rafting tourism in China. The study further expands the application of the rhythmanalysis theory in the field of tourism embodiment research on the microscopic scale and explores different context types from the perspective of embodiment.

Keywords

• rafting tourism
• rhythmanalysis theory
• embodied rhythm
• tourism experience
• qingyuan