Tourism image perception of living historical and cultural neighborhoods under the HSSPR framework: A comparative study of three cases in Yunnan, China

Abstract

Living historical and cultural neighborhoods (HCNs) integrate heritage conservation, community life, and tourism functions. Their tourism image is not shaped solely by historical resources or commercial provision, but is dynamically formed through interactions among material space, everyday settings, and visitor experience. Existing destination image studies still provide a limited explanation of this spatially situated process. Focusing on three issues—the construction of an analytical framework and evaluation system, the identification of perceptual differences under different degrees of tourism development, and the diagnosis of bottlenecks hindering image optimization—this study examines three living HCNs in Yunnan, China: Longwei Pass in Dali, Santai Mountain and its surrounding historic area in Chenggong Old Town, Kunming, and the Ming Walled Town–Qing Old County Seat area in Tonghai, Yuxi. It proposes an exploratory HSSPR framework (Human–Space–Setting–Place–Realm) and integrates UGC text analysis, TextCNN-based sentiment recognition, and adaptive importance–performance analysis (IPA) to identify elements of visitor perception, measure sentiment tendencies, and assess optimization priorities. The results show that: (1) the HSSPR framework helps translate fragmented UGC expressions into four hierarchical dimensions: basic spatial support, recreational and consumption experience, historical landscape cognition, and emotional meaning and resonance; (2) the three sites all show perceptual features in which historical continuity, spatial environment, and everyday life are interwoven, but differ in tourism development intensity and spatial organization. Longwei Pass represents a living neighborhood in which mountainous border-pass streets and alleys, and everyday marketplace life are continuously generated through low-intensity, largely spontaneous leisure consumption. Santai Mountain Historic Area is a composite historic area where the park, surrounding communities, and religious, cultural, and educational nodes coexist and interact amid limited tourism development. Ming-Qing Tonghai Old Town represents an established ancient-town neighborhood in which the mountain–water ancient-town structure, Confucian Temple culture, and local life are integrally coupled under moderate cultural-tourism renewal; (3) historical and cultural relics are a shared strength across the three sites, whereas selected elements of basic spatial support, recreational and consumption experience, natural ecological landscape, and physical and mental experience show high-attention–low-performance mismatches across the cases. These findings indicate that the main bottlenecks hindering tourism image enhancement in living HCNs lie not in insufficient resource appeal but in the inadequate transformation of resources, local life, and experience. This study extends research on tourism image perception in living HCNs from a spatialized and contextualized perspective and provides an operational analytical reference for living heritage conservation, service improvement, and image formation in similar neighborhoods.