Abstract:

The construction of characteristic towns initiated in Zhejiang Province, then promoted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development, has resulting in a climax of the construction of domestic characteristic towns. Tourism is one of the most important functions of characteristic towns. Relevant literature has revealed that residents′ participation plays a key role in the development of local tourism. The social exchange theory provides an ideal perspective for the study of residents′ participation. According to this theory, the reason for which residents participate in tourism development is that through participation they are able to obtain economic, social and cultural, and environmental benefits. Although these tourism benefits drive residents to participate in the basic consensus, there have been few studies performed regarding how the interaction among tourism economic, social and cultural, and environmental benefits affects residents′ participation. The research value to compensate for the above deficiencies lies in the fact that it can capture the change of benefit participation that cannot be reflected by the independent effect of influencing factors.Bagozzi′s theory of self-regulation attitude is often widely used to explain the behavior mechanism of individuals. Based on the theory of self-regulation attitude and social exchange, 130 characteristic towns (including creation and cultivation) in 10 prefecture level cities of Zhejiang Province were selected in this paper as the research field. The perception of tourism benefit of characteristic towns is taken as the antecedent variable and the residents′ participation as the outcome variable, and the influence mechanism of tourism benefit perception of characteristic towns on residents′ participation is explained by introducing residents′ satisfaction and local attachment.Descriptive statistics show that there is a low to moderate correlation among the perceptions of tourism economic benefits, social and cultural benefits, and environmental benefits, and a moderate correlation between independent variables and residents′ participation. The moderating variables (local dependence, local identity) have a either low or moderate correlation with independent variables, and low correlation with residents′ participation, with no high correlation found.The regression analysis in this paper show the following results: firstly, the perceptions of tourism economic benefits, tourism social and cultural benefits, and tourism environment benefits have a significant direct positive impact on residents′ participation, with the effect of tourism social and cultural benefits being the strongest. The residents′ participation behavior in the tourism development of characteristic towns mainly depends on the strongest dimension (tourism social and cultural benefit perception) in the benefit structure, rather than the weakest dimension (tourism economic benefit perception), thus showing a "long board effect". Secondly, residents′ participation in the tourism development of characteristic towns is shaped not only by the main effect of tourism benefits, but also by the interaction and coordination of various tourism benefit perceptions, thereby painting a vivid picture of residents′ participation. In addition, the positive interaction effect of tourism economic benefit perception and tourism social and cultural benefit perception of characteristic towns is significant. These two dimensions create a coupling effect of "amplification" with each other, with "relevance and resonance", which is a kind of "promotion of interdependence". The higher the perception of tourism economic benefits is, the stronger the influence of tourism social and cultural benefits on residents′ participation will be. The role of tourism benefit perception in residents′ participation is very complex. We must go beyond the simple main effect paradigm and enter the research paradigm of interaction. Thirdly, residents′ satisfaction plays either a partial or complete intermediary role between the benefit perception and residents′ participation in the tourism development of characteristic towns. This specifically shows that residents′ satisfaction plays a partial intermediary role between the benefit perception of tourism economy - residents′ participation and the benefit perception of tourism social culture - residents′ participation, and that it has a complete intermediary role between the benefit perception of tourism environment - residents′ participation. To a certain extent, tourism benefit perception first affects residents′ satisfaction, then affects residents′ participation by changing residents′ satisfaction. Therefore, in order to promote residents′ participation in the tourism development of characteristic towns, in addition to optimizing the residents′ perception of tourism benefits, it is necessary to build high-quality residents′ satisfaction. Finally, the influence of tourism economic benefit perception and tourism social and cultural benefit perception on residents′ participation is seldom regulated by local attachment, which possesses a certain degree of stability and universality. The participation mechanism of tourism environment benefit is regulated by local attachment between local residents and characteristic towns. When the local attachment is high, this signifies that the residents have a strong connection with the town. At this time, the perception of tourism environment benefits can promote the residents′ participation. When the local attachment is low, then the promotion effect is significantly smaller. From the perspective of adjustment degree, the adjustment power of local identity is greater than that of local dependence. This shows that the benefit mechanism of tourism environment has certain boundaries.This paper analyzes the individual effects of the perception of tourism economic benefits, the perception of tourism social and cultural benefits, and the perception of tourism environment benefits on residents′ participation, which is helpful for us to recognize and distinguish both the effects and differences of different benefit mechanisms. It also discusses the interaction among the three, and, from the perspective of interest interaction, how to promote residents′ participation. This idea helps us to clarify the internal relationship between different benefit mechanisms when residents participate in the tourism development of characteristic towns, and in turn enriches the theory of residents′ tourism benefit participation.In addition, this paper also expands and refines the relationship between tourism benefit perception and residents′ participation, and systematically analyzes the boundary conditions of tourism environment benefit perception mechanism, making the theoretical model more complete. The results of this paper show that the optimization of tourism benefit perception is conducive to improving residents′ satisfaction, and that the improvement of satisfaction is conducive to promoting residents′ participation in the development of characteristic town tourism. The relationship between the perceptions of tourism economic benefit residents′ participation and that of tourism social and cultural benefit residents′ participation is not regulated by the local attachment of residents. This is universal. However, the relationship between the perception of tourism environment benefits and residents′ participation in the tourism development of characteristic towns is restricted by certain boundary conditions (i.e. local attachment). When the residents have a high degree of attachment, the perception of tourism environment benefit can more effectively promote residents to participate in the development of characteristic town tourism. Therefore, if we wish to play the role of the mechanism of tourism environment benefit more effectively, we require a precondition, namely that residents have high local attachment.

Key words: tourism benefit perception, resident participation, self-regulating attitude theory, characteristic town