Slow-Living Experience of Ancient Town Tourism: Grounded Theory Analysis on Travel Notes of Lijiang Ancient Town

Abstract

Accelerated development of modern society has harmed people's physical and mental health. It has become a trend to achieve physical recovery and spiritual reshaping through the deceleration of tourism. However, further research is required to understand how consumers experience and realize time deceleration in the context of tourism. In this study, Lijiang acient town, which has the unique charm of a slow-living experience in the eyes of tourists, was selected as the case study, and the text materials of online travel notes and interviews were used. The coding method of grounded theory was adopted to analyze the connotation and occurrence mechanism of the slow-living experience. The results were as follows: 1) The slow-living experience of ancient town tourism is an immersive experience in which tourists visit the tourist destination of the ancient town and enjoy the passage of time under the influence of spiritual arousal of relief needs, memory, and emotion. 2) Time practice, space practice, and adding meaning to life are the main ways of a slow-living experience, which run through the entire process of tourists' slow-living on-site experiences. 3) The slow-living experience of ancient town tourism includes four stages: spiritual arousal, state relaxation, life immersion, and value realization. Each stage is interconnected and promotes the realization of tourists' deceleration experiences. The theoretical value of this study is that through the explanation of the slow-living experience model, the occurrence mechanism of tourists' slow-living experience was discussed in detail, and the core proposition of how tourists experience and realize deceleration was answered. Among them, the slow-living experience emphasizes the drive of spiritual arousal, relaxation of physical and mental states, immersion in life at the time and space levels, and sublimation of leisure value. This realization process differs from other types of tourism experiences. In addition, this article emphasizes that time practice, space practice, and adding meaning to life can create leisure value, emotional value, and a spiritual sense for tourists' time use and promote the depth of tourists' slow-living on-site experience. The research conclusions provide guidance for tourism development of ancient town tourism. Ancient town tourism operators should focus on tourists and formulate targeted programmes according to their behavioral trends. However, the extensibility of slow-living experiences should be considered comprehensively. Operators should consider the influence of other tourist destination landscapes on the slow-living experience, pay attention to the correlation between the two, create a relaxed and lazy slow-living atmosphere for tourist destinations, and stimulate tourists' environmental awareness. This can provide tourists with an excellent slow-living experience and promote the sustainable development of tourist destinations. Overall, starting from the micro level of tourists, this study constructed a slow-living experience model in the context of ancient town tourism, providing a new perspective and practical guidance for a deeper understanding of tourists' experiences.

Keywords

• ancient town tourism
• slow-living experience
• grounded theory
• lijiang ancient town