A Study of Place Attachment of Folklore Tourists

Based on Big Data:

The Case of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture

Zhonghua Sun

, Hai Wang

and Xuefeng Wang

1,* c

School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China

School of History and Culture, Northeast Normal University, Jilin, China

Keywords:

Big Data, Place Attachment, Folklore Tourism, Content Analysis, Grounded Theory.

Abstract:

The age of big data provides a new data source for studying tourists' place attachment. This article digs big

data texts, takes the online travel notes published by tourists who have visited Yanbian Korean Autonomous

Prefecture as data, uses grounded theory to explore the place attachment dimensions of folklore tourists, and

constructs a local attachment model for folk tourists. The results show that: 1) Place attachment of folklore

tourists consists of four dimensions: local imprint, local experience, local identity, and emotional attachment.

2) In the formation mechanism of place attachment of folklore tourists, the local imprint is the internal

motive, local experience is the external motive, local identity is the value guide, and emotional attachment is

the expression of emotion. 3) Local imprint has a guiding effect on local experience; local experience tests

and realizes local imprint and has a direct influence on local identity and emotional attachment; local

identity is directly influenced by local experience but the intensity of influence is regulated by local imprint;

emotional attachment is influenced by local experience and local identity.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1085-9113

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9712-5923

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2836-6958

1 INTRODUCTION

People will have feelings of attachment to specific

places, which was originally called the concept of

"Topophelia" (Tuan 1974). In terms of

consciousness, perception, behavior and emotion,

people and places can interact to form a closer

relationship, which is called "place attachment"

(Williams & Roggenbuck, 1989). Place attachment

is divided into two dimensions which are local

identity and place attachment (Williams 1992).

China has a rich folklore culture, and folklore

tourism is an important part of Chinese tourism. In

the process of folklore tourism, tourists can build an

attachment relationship with the folklore destination

by observing and experiencing the way of life of the

locals and experiencing the strong folklore and

regional atmosphere firsthand. So, what are the

dimensions of place attachment between tourists and

folklore tourism destinations? How is the place

attachment of folklore tourists formed and what is

the mechanism of its formation?

In the era of big data, people's lives are

increasingly inseparable from online social media.

More and more tourists are recording their insights

and feelings during the travel process in the form of

travel notes and comments on various social media,

which provides rich data for studying tourists' place

attachment.

Based on big data text, this article will use the

grounded theory method to study the place

attachment between tourists and folklore destinations.

The main contents are as follows: First, explore the

dimensions of local attachment of folk tourists. Then,

build a model of local attachment of folk tourists,

and explain the formation mechanism of this place

attachment and the relationship between its

dimensions. We hope to use big data to enrich the

research of tourists' place attachment and provide

theoretical support for the actual development of

folklore tourism.

292

Sun, Z., Wang, H. and Wang, X.

A Study of Place Attachment of Folklore Tourists Based on Big Data: The Case of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

DOI: 10.5220/0012074000003624

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2022), pages 292-298

ISBN: 978-989-758-658-3

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 Methods

The paper uses content analysis and grounded theory

analysis to study the local attachment between

tourists and folk culture tourism destinations. First,

the content analysis is used to screen and sort out the

travel notes to form research data. Then the study

uses the research method of grounded theory to

realize text coding and analysis, to build a local

attachment model for folk tourists. The coding

process is implemented in Nvivo12.0 software. The

specific steps are as follows: First, open coding is

carried out to summarize as many basic concepts as

possible from text data and collect the initial

categories. Then, the main categories are extracted

according to the relations in the initial categories by

axial coding. Finally, selective coding is carried out

to further summarize the category and generate the

core category.

2.2 Study Area

Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is selected

as a case study area. Yanbian Korean Autonomous

Prefecture (hereinafter referred to as Yanbian

Prefecture) is a prefecture-level administrative

region in the eastern part of Jilin Province in China,

which is located near the border between China and

North Korea and has a special geographical location.

Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is the only

and largest Korean gathering area in China. Folklore

tourism in Yanbian Prefecture began in the 1980s

and 1990s and based on the policy support for

minority regions in China at that time, folklore

tourism began to emerge and develop well.

Nowadays, several representative folklore tourism

scenic spots have been established in Yanbian

Prefecture, such as the Chinese Korean Folklore

Park, the Red Flag Korean Folklore Village, and the

Korean Cultural Art Center in Yanji City. The annual

folklore expo, folklore festival and other activities

also attract many tourists to experience them.

Therefore，it is one of the representative folklore

tourism destinations in China.

2.3 Data Collection and Process

With the help of Python, the study crawled and

published the travel notes of tourists about the

destination of Yanbian on Ctrip. The timeliness is

from December 1, 2016, to March 31, 2021.

Then gradually screen these notes according to

the following requirements: 1) Remove travel notes

embedded with advertisements and soft articles, and

exclude travel notes whose hometown is Yanbian

Prefecture. 2) The content of the travel notes shall be

as rich as possible, and the number of Chinese

characters in each travel note shall not be less than

2000. 3) The travel notes contain the place names or

scenic spots in Yanbian Prefecture or Yanbian

Prefecture and contain deep positive emotional

expressions. 4) The total number of travel notes

published under the same ID within one year shall

not exceed 10, and the number of travel notes of

other types of tourism destinations other than

Yanbian Prefecture shall not exceed 2, or the number

of travel notes of folk tourism destinations shall

exceed 2. According to the above steps, 8 travel

notes were finally obtained. Then, the 8 travel notes

are reorganized into a word document, and pictures

and words irrelevant to the research are eliminated

while ensuring the integrity of the main content of

the travel notes.

Finally, 29945 Chinese characters of text data are

obtained. The text data are input into Nvivo 12.0

software for three-level coding.

3 CODING

3.1 Open Coding

First, the collected travel notes were open coded in

Nvivo 12.0. In this process, concepts that appeared

less than three times and could not be categorized

were considered invalid. After eliminating the

invalid concepts, a total of 49 initial concepts were

extracted in the conceptualization stage of this

article (Table 1), and 10 initial categories were

formed inductively (Table 2).

Table 1: Initial concept extraction example.

Initial conce

ts Corres

ondin

ori

inal text

aa1 food Culture aa1 The Korean table is characterized by many plates, large or small. There is a large

amount of food, but the small

ortions, and the

all taste the flavors.

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aa2 architectural style aa2 The whole village is built according to the shape of Korean style dwellings, with a

strong sense of ancient simplicity. The building has Korean characteristics. The whole

village is clean and tidy, much better than similar villages in South Korea. Every detail

is ver

uisite.

aa3 local language aa3 Language is one of the biggest characteristics of Yanbian. The first impression after

coming here is that most of the signs are bilingual, Korean and Chinese. Even the

national banks and chain stores that are common to everyone have become bilingual, so

Koreans here keep the habit of speaking Korean.

aa4 national costumes aa4 The little sisters of the tour guide are all dressed in Korean costumes, which are very

eautiful.

aa5 folk performances aa5 There are also a group of aunts over 70 years old performing for us here. It is said

that their leader is the inheritor of intangible cultural heritage. I heard the theme song of

“Arirang” and “Dae Jang Geum”, that I am familiar with here.

Table 2: Initial concepts corresponding to initial categories.

Initial Conce

ts Initial cate

ories

aa1 food culture, aa2 architectural style, aa3 local language, aa4 national costumes, aa5

folk performances, aa6 folk crafts, aa7 lifestyle, aa8 daily habits, aa9 local manners

a1 Cultural identity

aa10 natural conditions, aa11 scenic spots, aa12 living facilities, aa13 social atmosphere a2 Imagery identit

aa14 eating experience, aa15 accommodation experience, aa16 transportation experience,

aa17 shopping experience, aa18 service experience

a3 Life experience

aa19 charming scenery, aa20 neat and clean, aa21 low temperature, aa22 bright sunshine,

aa23 cold wind, aa24 blue sk

a4 Environment

erience

aa25 topographic landscape, aa26 hydrological landscape, aa27 meteorological landscape,

aa28 vegetation landscape, aa29 folklore landscape, aa30 economic landscape

a5 Viewing experience

aa31 personal desire, aa32 recommendation from others, aa33 unique meaning, aa34 life

experience

a6 Personal imprint

aa35 local labels, aa36 film and television works, aa37 literary works a7 Collective imprint

aa38 sense of excitement, aa39 sense of leisure, aa40 sense of happiness, aa41 sense of

novelty, aa42 sense of mystery, aa43 sense of involvement, aa44 sense of fun

a8 Emotional pleasure

aa45 sense of anxiety, aa46 sense of not wanting to lose a9 Emotional anxiet

aa47 willingness to stay, aa48 willingness to revisit, aa49 willingness to recommen

a10 Emotional loyalt

3.2 Axial Coding

The main axial coding is to analyze the categories

obtained from the previous coding steps in depth, to

find out the inherent connection between the

categories, to find the logical relationship between

them, and to further cluster the categories. In this

stage, we again put the categories into the travel

notes, repeatedly analyzed and compared the

meanings and attributes of the categories, and finally

formed four main categories (Table 3), the

dimensions of place attachment of folklore tourists.

Table 3: Initial categories corresponding to the main categories.

Initial categories Main Categories

a1 Cultural identity, a2 Imagery identity A1 Local identity

a3 Life experience, a4 Environment experience, a5 Viewing experience A2 Local experience

a6 Personal imprint, a7 Collective imprint A3 Local imprint

a8 Emotional pleasure, a9 Emotional anxiety, a10 Emotional loyalty A4 Emotional attachment

3.3 Selective Coding

Selective coding is the process of analyzing the

logical relationships among the main categories,

uncovering the core categories, and using them as a

"story line" to connect all the discovered categories

and concepts, and finally building a complete

theoretical framework.

The study repeatedly analyzes and compares the

original travel notes, and finally determines the core

category of this study as "the formation mechanism

of place attachment of folklore tourists" by sorting

out the logical relationships among the four main

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categories of local identity, local experience, local

imprint and emotional attachment.

The story line formed around the core category

can be described as follows: local imprint is the

internal motivation for the formation of place

attachment of folklore tourists, which has a guiding

role in local experience; local experience is the

external motivation for the formation of place

attachment of folklore tourists, which tests or

realizes some contents of local imprint and directly

influences the local identity and emotional

attachment of tourists; local identity is the value

guide for the formation of place attachment of

folklore tourists, value guidance which is the

spiritual level consensus established between them

and the destination after participating in the local

experience, is directly influenced by the local

experience, but the intensity of the influence is

regulated by the local imprint; emotional attachment

is the emotional expression of the place attachment

formation of folklore tourists, and is influenced by

the local experience and local identity. This article

establishes a model of folklore tourists' place

attachment based on such story development clues

(Figure1).

Figure 1: Place attachment model for folklore tourists.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Local Imprint

Through literature and film works, local labels,

recommendations from others and their own life

experiences, tourists who have not been to the

destination have a certain understanding of the folk

tourism destination, but they cannot fully satisfy the

curiosity of tourists, nor can they achieve their

personal aspirations, thus prompting people to

strongly desire to go to the destination in person, as

mentioned in tourism note y1:"When did I learn

about Yanji? It may have appeared in the food

variety show pursued a few years ago. Maybe I saw

a friend go there to play on weekends and post a

location in my circle of friends. It may also be that

many APPs always send me referrals about Yanji.

Imperceptibly, the name will be quietly printed in the

mind. However, at the same time, there are many

titles and labels such as' Little Korea 'and' Little

Seoul '. I have the idea of visiting here."

Local imprints can guide folklore tourists in their

local experiences. The introduction of film and

television literature, recommendations of others, etc.,

provide knowledge and suggestions for tourists'

upcoming folklore tourism activities, so that tourists

will consciously avoid bad experiences in folklore

destinations and participate in experiences that are

more likely to be satisfying, which has a positive

effect on enhancing folklore tourists' local

experiences. As mentioned in travel note y4: "The

most famous one is probably the cold side of the

service building. Travel notes or guides will

recommend stores basically. Let's try to see if they

are really delicious."

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4.2 Local Experience

Local experience is the external motivation for the

formation of place attachment of folk culture tourists

and is a practical participation activity carried out by

tourists in folk tourism destinations. In this process,

tourists' life experience in food, accommodation,

transportation, shopping and services, natural

environment experience, and tourism viewing

experience all make tourists realize a more adequate

human-ground interaction with folk tourism

destinations. By conducting local experiences,

tourists will make judgments and evaluations on

whether the folklore tourism destination can meet

their tourism needs.

The local experience allows for the testing of the

content of the local imprint. Travelers come to a

folkloric tourist’s destination and test their

knowledge of the destination by experiencing it

firsthand. For example, as mentioned in travel note

y6:"It has been said before that there are more

Russians in Hunchun city than in our country. In

fact, it is not that exaggerated. In the past two days,

we didn't see much in wandering around the street,

but occasionally met some." The repeated testing

process enhances the tourists' perception of the

folklore destination, and at the same time, the image

of the folklore destination is reshaped in the tourists'

mind.

The local experience can also realize the relevant

contents of the local imprint, such as the realization

of the tourists' personal wishes. The motivation for

tourists to come to folklore tourism destinations may

originate from the need for their own wish

fulfillment, so the process of local experience is also

the process of realizing tourists' personal wishes and

satisfying their own needs. As mentioned in the

travel note y2:"My college classmates warmly

invited me to visit here. He was the only minority

student in my class, and I can't drink as much as he

can. It should be said that compared with

Mongolian, Uyghur and other nationalities, I do not

know much about Korean. When I came to Yanbian

this time, I decided to get him drunk!"

4.3 Local Identity

Local identity is the spiritual guidance formed by

the place attachment of folklore tourists, which

means that a spiritual level consensus is established

between folklore tourists and folklore tourism

destinations, that is, the culture and imagery of

folklore tourism destinations are consistent with the

tourists' own ideas, thinking, likes and dislikes.

Using the definition of self as a measure, tourists

evaluate the food culture, architectural style, local

language, ethnic costumes, folk performances, folk

crafts, lifestyle, daily habits, local rituals, natural

conditions, scenic spots, living facilities, and social

atmosphere of folk culture tourism destinations,

seeking consistency between place and self.

Local identity is directly influenced by and is a

direct result of local experience. tourists'

identification with folk culture destinations is further

enhanced through personal involvement in

experiences that are consistent with self-concept

criteria and weakened by involvement in

experiences that are inconsistent with self-concept

criteria. For example, in travel note y5:"It makes

people feel happy when they see the environment

here. It is simply a kind of enjoyment with delicious

food! Entering the store, the national characteristics

are more obvious, and brighten our eyes!"

The intensity of the influence of local experience

on local identity is moderated by local imprinting.

The personal and collective imprints of folklore

tourism destinations that exist in tourists'

consciousness before they come to the folklore

tourism destinations to experience them will, to a

certain extent, interfere with tourists' independent

evaluation and judgment of local culture and

imagery during the local experience, thus regulating

the intensity of local identity influenced by the local

experience. As in Travel notes y1:"For many people,

although Yanji is the capital city of Yanbian Korean

Autonomous Prefecture, it is actually a small county.

Its scale and construction may not catch up with the

small county if it is placed in other rich provinces.

However, for me, after staying in the mountain area

for more than ten days, it seems like a big city." And

in travel note y6:"When we arrived in Yanji, we

stayed in a local hotel, and then we went to taste

Korean flavor. The Bibimbap here is very different

from what we had before. The taste here seems more

authentic. It may also be psychological.", reflecting

the personal imprint of the traveler's local identity

adjusted by the intensity of the local experience.

4.4 Emotional Attachment

Emotional attachment is the emotional expression of

place attachment of folklore tourists. The main

emotional attachment aspects of the tourists change

at different periods of the tour. Before and during

participation in folklore tourism, tourists show

emotional pleasure, such as excitement, leisure,

happiness, and novelty; towards the end of folklore

tourism, tourists show emotional anxiety, expressed

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as anxiety and reluctance; at the end of folklore

tourism activities, tourists develop emotional loyalty

to the folklore tourism destination, highlighted by

the tourists' willingness to stay in the destination and

the desire to revisit the destination, and the

willingness to voluntarily recommend others to visit

the destination.

Emotional attachment is influenced by both local

experience and local identity. Tourists make

emotional responses and feedback according to the

content and effects of the local experience. As

expressed in the travel note y3:"I talked a lot with

the guide. He was not a little impatient, and the

whole person was enthusiastic and interesting. We

felt the cool wind in the mountains, looked at the

vast rice fields swaying in the wind, and were also

moved by the hospitality of the Korean people."

Tourists’ emotional attachment is simultaneously

influenced by local identity; the higher the degree of

local identity of the tourists to the folklore

destination, the stronger the emotional attachment

generated by the tourists is likely to be. As

expressed in the travel note y5: "I am about to say

goodbye to Yanji. I feel very reluctant to part with

the photos taken here. Maybe what I ate was just a

drop in the bucket of Yanbian food. Maybe the local

customs I saw were just a small epitome of this place.

However, it also reflected the strong food attraction

and cultural connotation of this land. "

5 CONCLUSION

Uses big data and based on the method of

grounded theory, this article explores the

composition of place attachment dimensions

generated by tourists to folklore tourism

destinations and constructs a model of place

attachment for folklore tourists, using Yanbian

Korean Autonomous Prefecture as a case.

In terms of dimensional composition, the study

found that tourists' place attachment to folklore

tourism destinations is composed of the following

four dimensions: local imprint, local identity, local

experience and emotional attachment.

The article constructs a place attachment model

for folklore tourists. The model explains the

composition and mechanism of place attachment of

folklore tourists: 1) local imprinting can guide

folklore tourists in their local experiences. The

collective imprint provides tourists with knowledge

and suggestions for their upcoming folklore tourism

activities, while the individual imprint influences

their personalized and preferred choices for the

content of local experiences. 2) Local experience

can test the content of local imprint, and the

repeated testing process will enhance and enrich the

perception of folklore tourism destinations and

reshape the image of destinations in the minds of

tourists. The local experience can also realize the

content of the local imprint. Local experience also

has an impact on local identity and emotional

attachment. 3) Local identity is directly influenced

by local experience and is a direct result of local

experience. The tourists' sense of identity with the

folk culture destination is further strengthened by

participating in experiences that are consistent with

self-concept criteria and weakened by participating

in experiences that are inconsistent with self-concept

criteria. The local imprint in tourists' consciousness

will, to a certain extent, influence their evaluation

and judgment of local culture and imagery during

the local experience, and thus play a moderating role.

4) Emotional attachment is influenced by both local

experience and local identity. tourists' emotions are

stimulated and fluctuate throughout the process of

local experience, and they give emotional responses

and feedback according to the content and effects of

local experience. Also influenced by local identity,

the higher the degree of local identity of the tourists

for the folklore tourism destination, the stronger the

emotional attachment is likely to be.

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