ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Tourism’s Impact on Visual Landscape: Residents’
Perceptions from a Traditional Chinese Village
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1
School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
2
School of Fine Arts and Design, Huaihua University, Huaihua, China
3
School of Geography and Resource Science, Neijiang Normal University, Neijiang, China
4
School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Submission date: 2023-08-31
Final revision date: 2023-10-20
Acceptance date: 2023-12-01
Online publication date: 2024-05-20
Publication date: 2024-06-07
Corresponding author
Huaheng Shen
School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2024;33(4):4707-4719
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ABSTRACT
As spending on measures to protect the quality of the visual landscape of traditional villages has
increased, it is important to better understand tourism development’s impact on how visual landscapes
are perceived by residents of these traditional villages. Using Huangdu Dong Village as a case study,
this study examined tourism development’s impact on visual landscape perception from residents’
perspective. A questionnaire was designed that focused on three landscape dimensions-natural, cultural,
and tourism and facilities landscapes; 152 questionnaires were analyzed using the Pearson correlation
coefficient. The results showed that the impact of tourism development on the natural landscape was not
significant, but it exerted a more pronounced influence on village topography. It significantly improved
the tourism and facilities landscape. Additionally, tourism development’s impact on perceived visual
landscape differed according to demographic characteristics; for example, respondents aged 18-30
had perceived less change of some visual landscape elements than older respondents, and respondents
who had lived in the village for 21-30 years asserted that tourism development had impacted the
animal diversity more than other groups. Based on the results, recommendations were made for local
governments, policymakers, and residents.