Rural Revitalization and Ecotourism

The Influence of Restorative Environment Perception in Rural Tourism on Tourist Experience Quality: The Multiple Mediation Models

  • LI Chuangxin , 1, 2, * ,
  • YE Liqing 1, 2 ,
  • LI Rong 1, 2
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  • 1. School of Tourism Sciences, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing 100024, China
  • 2. Research Center for Beijing Tourism Development, Beijing 100024, China
* LI Chuangxin, E-mail:

Received date: 2023-09-20

  Accepted date: 2024-02-10

  Online published: 2024-12-09

Supported by

The National Natural Science Foundation of China(72172007)

The Research Project of Beijing International Studies University(KYZX23A018)

The Graduate Research Project of Beijing International Studies University(11122026314)

Abstract

Based on the attention restoration theory, this study focuses on rural tourists and utilizes questionnaire surveys to collect data. The research constructs a structural equation model to investigate the influence mechanisms among restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotions, and experience quality. The study reveals that: (1) Restorative environment perception has a significant positive impact on the restorative experience and positive emotions of rural tourists. It serves as an important driving factor for improving the experience quality of rural tourists. (2) Restorative experience plays a significant mediating role between restorative environment perception and positive emotions. Restorative environment perception promotes the development of overall experience quality through the mediation of restorative experience and positive emotions. (3) Both the restorative experience and positive emotions independently mediate the relationship between restorative environment perception and experience quality, and they also play a chain-mediated role. Therefore, rural tourism destination managers should prioritize the restorative function of natural environments, improve the supply of high-quality products and services to enhance tourist restorative experience and positive emotions, and ultimately aim to continuously enhance the quality of tourist experience. This study has theoretical and practical implications for improving the tourism experience of rural tourists, optimizing the supply for rural tourism products, and promoting the high-quality development of rural tourism destinations.

Cite this article

LI Chuangxin , YE Liqing , LI Rong . The Influence of Restorative Environment Perception in Rural Tourism on Tourist Experience Quality: The Multiple Mediation Models[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2024 , 15(6) : 1653 -1665 . DOI: 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2024.06.021

1 Introduction

The rapid progress of modern society and the high level of technological development have brought greater convenience and options to people. However, as freedom expands, new pressures and constraints continue to emerge, including a competitive society, an accelerated pace of life, and heavy work tasks. This disruption of continuity and fragmentation disrupts people’s normal life order. Nowadays, with people’s material needs being fully satisfied, more and more attention is being paid to the importance of maintaining physical and mental health. Therefore, relieving psychological stress and living a healthy and positive life have become not only realistic goals of people but also topics that need to be further explored. Tourist environments, different from regular work and daily living environments, are beneficial to physical and mental health due to their beautiful scenery and leisurely pace. Therefore, more and more people choose to relieve stress and relax through tourism. Previous studies have confirmed that tourism helps individuals maintain enthusiasm and abilities for work (Bloom, 2015), enhances cognitive flexibility, stimulates creativity (Bloom et al., 2014), and reduces fatigue (Chen and Petrick, 2013). To escape from negative living and working environments, people often choose to relax through short-term travel, allowing themselves to recover from physical and mental exhaustion (Zhang, 2020).
Attention restoration theory (ART) suggests that interaction with attractive stimuli in the environment can help individuals restore their attention, leading to reduced attention fatigue and increased positive emotions (Kaplan, 1995; Korpela and Hartig, 1996). Previous research has confirmed that restoration environments have a positive impact on various social and psychological states of individuals, including improving mental health, reducing stress and anxiety levels, enhancing self-esteem and positive emotions, and strengthening self-discipline and creativity (Jo et al., 2013; Tyrvainen et al., 2014; Hartig and Jr Kahn, 2016; Li and Sullivan, 2016; Wolf et al., 2017). Current research on the perception of restoration environments mainly focuses on measuring and exploring dimensions, tourists’ evaluation of restoration, and behavioral intentions. Empirical research on the relationship between the perception of restoration environments and tourists’ emotions and attitudes still needs further exploration. Experience quality is an important criterion for evaluating relaxing tourism for tourists, and scholars evaluate experience quality based on various external functional factors such as food, accommodation, and transportation. However, they neglect the psychological activities and emotional influences of tourists during the travel process. Existing research has confirmed the positive impact of restoration experiences on tourist satisfaction, loyalty, and place attachment, with restoration experiences mostly regarded as independent variables in the research, and only a few scholars have studied them as mediating variables (Li et al., 2020). The mediating role of positive emotions between cognition and behavior has been repeatedly verified, but research in the context of rural tourism is lacking. Therefore, it is worth exploring how the restorative perception inspired by the healing natural environment in rural areas affects the experience quality of rural tourists, and whether restoration experiences and positive emotions play a mediating role and how they work.
To summarize, this study focuses on rural tourists, and based on relevant research and the theory of environmental restoration, explores the inherent connection between restorative environment perception and experience quality. Moreover, it introduces restoration experiences and positive emotions to construct a research framework and mechanism model. By understanding the impact of rural tourists’ perception of restorative environments on their experience quality, this study not only expands the relevant research on factors influencing tourist experience quality in theory but also promotes empirical research in the field of tourism on the perception and resulting outcomes of restorative environments. Furthermore, it provides a basis and reference for rural tourism managers to improve their service quality and provide high-quality products in practice.

2 Literature review

2.1 Attention restoration theory and restorative environment perception

In the extensive literature on environment and behavior, which involves fields such as environmental psychology, landscape design, education, and architecture, ART has laid a milestone foundation for empirical research on human restoration through interaction with nature (Chen and Petrick, 2013). Building upon previous research, ART divides attention into two parts: directed attention and involuntary attention (Moran, 2019). The cognitive control processes guide the directed attention, while the inherently interesting or important stimuli attract involuntary attention (Berman et al., 2008). ART says that directed attention can be restored by interacting with the natural environment. This is because interacting with naturally interesting things, like forests and rivers, brings involuntary attention to a moderate degree, which allows directed attention mechanisms to be refilled (Basu et al., 2019). Extensive empirical research supports the core tenets of ART, emphasizing the beneficial effects of interacting with restorative environments on individuals’ cognitive and emotional experiences (Kaplan and Talbot, 1983; Pasanen et al., 2018). Natural environments can restore certain cognitive abilities, such as working memory, cognitive flexibility, and cognitive function (Schutte et al., 2017). ART also helps understand the emotional responses restored through interactions with nature, including landscape satisfaction and loyalty, positive emotions, emotional attachment, and happiness (Huang, 2019; Liu et al., 2019; Dang et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2022).
Guided by ART, tourists’ perception of a restorative environment has been conceptualized as the restorative characteristics of a specific destination perceived by tourists, and a large number of studies have solved the dimension exploration of the relationship between restorative environment perception and tourist destinations (Guo et al., 2014). As early as 1995, Kaplan measured the restorative quality of environments using four characteristics: distance, extent, fascination, and compatibility. His pioneering work laid an important theoretical foundation for subsequent research. Other fields and disciplines have conducted research and exploration from different perspectives on the dimensions of restorative environmental perception. In 2013, Lehto (2013) developed a destination restorative qualities scale, which was the first scale in the field of tourism related to restorative environment perception. This scale identified six dimensions: compatibility, extent, psychological away, physical away, incompatibility, and fascination. Chen et al. (2017) made corresponding adjustments to restorative environment perception in a cross-cultural evaluation within the Chinese context, excluding the incompatibility dimension due to its low reliability. Among the remaining five dimensions of perceived destination restorative qualities, compatibility represents the fit between personal goals or motivations and the environmental conditions of the destination, specifically whether the environmental elements of the destination meet tourist expectations and provide a sense of fulfillment (Lee, 2012). Extent refers to the temporal and spatial diversity of environmental elements at the destination. Psychological away refers to tourists psychologically distancing themselves from daily life causing mental fatigue and stress and obtaining restoration from the tourist destination. Physical distance indicates that the tourist destination enables tourists to physically distance themselves from their usual environment. Fascination refers to the attraction of interesting things in the tourist destination that can alleviate or eliminate directed attention fatigue, allowing tourists to fully immerse themselves and relax in the atmosphere. In addition to exploring the measurement dimensions of restorative environment perception, an increasing number of related research findings also include influencing factors, integrated effects, and restoration mechanisms of restorative environment perception, among others.

2.2 Recovery experience and experience quality

Following investigations in psychology and organizational behavior, studies of recovery initially took a physiological perspective. As research expanded across different fields, the focus gradually shifted towards the study of recovery experiences. The dimensional division of recovery experiences has been a key concern for scholars both domestically and internationally, forming the foundation for most research on recovery experiences. The four dimensions that Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) proposed—psychological detachment, relaxation experience, mastery experience, and control experience—are currently the most widely accepted dimensions. The study of factors influencing recovery experiences is also a hot topic. Scholars mostly explore recovery experiences from two perspectives: external factors and individual factors (Li et al., 2021). External factors mainly include time pressure, interpersonal relationships, emotional demands, role conflicts, and work-family conflicts, while individual factors involve self-efficacy, locus of control, occupational fatigue, and work-family segmentation tendencies (Zhu et al., 2020). Research on recovery experiences in the field of tourism is relatively scarce compared to psychology and human resources. More emphasis has been placed on studying the impact of recovery experiences on tourist satisfaction, loyalty, place attachment, and subjective well-being. In most cases, recovery experiences are treated as antecedent variables, although some scholars have studied them as mediating variables. For example, He and Li (2021) investigated the influence of tourism recovery experiences on the psychological well-being of urban residents by introducing psychological capital as a mediating variable and tourism destination type as a moderating variable. Qiu et al. (2021) explored the impact of audio-visual experiences and their interactive effects on the overall quality of life for tourists by using recovery environmental experiences as mediating variables. Xu et al. (2018) examined the influence of hotel employees’ recovery experiences on subjective well-being and found that tourism experiences affect subjective well-being by influencing employees’ job satisfaction.

2.3 Experience quality

The essence of tourism lies in the experience, and the quality of the tourism experience is an essential part of tourism research. It is also an important measure of high-quality development for tourist destinations and plays a crucial role in guiding the development of the tourism industry (Huang, 2015). Experience quality not only affects tourist’ loyalty, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions but also has significant value in promoting the overall high-quality development of the tourism industry. Currently, research on experience quality mainly focuses on three aspects. Firstly, it evaluates experience quality from the perspective of tourists’ perceptions of external functional factors. Bai et al. (2006) measured the experience quality of tourism in Beijing from a holistic perspective, while Ma (2017) analyzed the influence factors of tourism experience quality from multiple dimensions such as food, accommodation, transportation, and sightseeing experiences. These studies mainly focus on the satisfaction of tourists with tourism products and services, treating satisfaction as a fundamental measure of tourism experience quality. The second aspect is the dimensional division of tourism experience quality based on specific contexts. Li et al. (2012) divided tourism experience quality into three dimensions: enjoyment, attractiveness, and involvement, to measure the experience quality of museum visitors. Liu et al. (2021) evaluated the experience quality of historical and cultural blocks from the aspects of physical experience, block characteristics, block reception, and environmental atmosphere. These dimensional divisions of tourism experience quality from different perspectives have certain guiding values for tourism practices. The third aspect is understanding the tourism experience quality from the intrinsic emotional perspective of tourists. Xie (2006) proposed the model of the dual emotions of joy and pain in tourism experiences. Zeng and Li (2019) used five dimensions of emotional experience to measure the experience quality of tourists.

3 Theoretical basis and research hypotheses

3.1 Restorative environment perception and experience quality

ART suggests that interacting with attractive environments can promote restoration, which manifests as reduced attention fatigue and increased positive emotions. Specifically, restorative environment perception, through its intrinsic characteristics, can alleviate mental fatigue caused by excessive attentional demands. Experience quality is an important measure of tourism destination development, and it is intrinsically linked to tourist loyalty, satisfaction, and self-happiness. Burdened by increasing life and work pressures, city residents choose to visit rural areas to relax and engage in closer contact with harmonious and healing natural environments. By immersing themselves in a state of self-forgetfulness, they can forget the trivialities and stresses of daily life and work, thus alleviating physical and psychological exhaustion and fatigue. Moreover, perceiving the restorative features conveyed by natural environments can evoke a sense of relaxation and comfort (Zhang et al., 2019). These unique experiences can enhance the overall experience quality for tourists, making them believe that the trip is worthwhile and rewarding. As a result, their satisfaction and self-happiness regarding the tourist destination are subtly improved. Previous studies have shown that restorative environment perception not only reflects tourists’ objective and rational evaluations of the environment but also positively affects their psychological resources, including satisfaction, self-happiness, and overall experience quality (Kim and Choi, 2018). Based on the above analysis, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1: Restorative environment perception in rural tourism destinations has a significant positive impact on tourist experience quality.

3.2 Restorative environment perception, restorative experience, and experience quality

The application and research of ART reveal a close relationship between restorative environment perception and restorative experience. Different restorative experiences are generated through close interaction between individuals and the environment, further demonstrating the physiological or psychological restoration effects of restorative environment perception on tourists. During rural vacations, tourists constantly engage in positive interactions with the natural environment. The beautiful and peaceful rural environment can not only enhance tourists’ attention and alleviate their anxiety but also create a pleasant mood due to the atmosphere of tranquility and serenity (Pals et al., 2009). The restorative experience resulting from perceiving and interacting with the environment is an important means of reducing mental stress. Current research indicates that restorative experience plays a mediating role between tourist restorative environment perception and their sense of well-being (Kang and Suh, 2020). Zhu et al. (2020) observed that rural tourism environments provide urban residents with opportunities and conditions for restoration, thereby enhancing their life happiness and satisfaction. Ma (2019) clarified the concepts of tourist experience and experience quality and their inherent relationship, pointing out that experience quality is the evaluation of the excellence of tourist travel experiences. Based on the analysis above, it can be concluded that restorative environment perception has a positive impact on restorative experience, and restorative experience can lead to satisfaction and happiness, thereby improving the overall experience quality for tourists. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H2: Restorative environment perception in rural tourism destinations has a significant positive impact on the restorative experience.
H3: Restorative experience has a significant positive impact on tourist experience quality.
H4: Restorative experience mediates the relationship between restorative environment perception and tourists experience quality.

3.3 Restorative environment perception, positive emotions, and experience quality

Positive emotions refer to individuals’ affirmative evaluations of environmental stimuli. They are relatively transient states that reflect people’s psychological experiences in specific situations. Positive emotions, such as enthusiasm, activeness, and excitement, can stimulate individuals’ approach tendencies by expanding their attention, cognition, and actions, leading to a focus on personal development, improved well-being, and increased happiness (Fredrickson, 2001). Moon (2020) found that tourists with high interaction with nature have higher affective and cognitive abilities and that restorative environmental perceptions of tourists after a nature tourism experience can significantly increase positive emotions. In addition, restorative experience has a positive impact on individual mental stability and subjective vitality. It can be inferred that when tourists visit rural tourism destinations for sightseeing, they can engage in positive interactions with nature through various means. The resulting restorative environment perception helps tourists relax and immerse themselves, leading to diverse positive emotions such as pleasure and enjoyment. These positive emotions not only alleviate tourists’ stress and reduce attention fatigue but also enhance the overall experience quality of the trip, providing them with unforgettable experiences and memories. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H5: Restorative environment perception in rural tourism destinations has a significant positive impact on positive emotions.
H6: Positive emotions have a significant positive impact on tourist experience quality.
H7: Positive emotions mediate the relationship between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality.

3.4 The chained mediating effect of restorative experience and positive emotions

The purpose of restorative environment perception is to evoke restorative experiences in individuals. Obtaining restorative experiences and positive emotions through unique tourism activities is an important source of self-perceived happiness and satisfaction. These experiences satisfy individuals’ psychological needs for leisure, self-improvement, and increased self-confidence, ultimately improving the overall experience quality for tourists. Liu (2021) explored the relationship among restorative experience, positive emotions, and tourist satisfaction and found that restorative experience significantly influenced tourist satisfaction, with positive emotions playing a partial mediating role. She et al. (2019) similarly verified the mediating role of positive emotions in the relationship between restorative experience and experience quality. After investigating Fuzhou National Forest Park, Zhou et al. (2022) found that restorative environment perception significantly influenced both restorative experience and positive emotions, and restorative experience and positive emotions also played mediating roles. It can be seen that tourist restorative environment perception of tourist destinations can influence experience quality through the mediating effects of restorative experience and positive emotions. Specifically, after interacting with attractive destination environments, tourists can gain unforgettable and healing restorative experiences, leading to positive emotions such as enjoyment or pleasure. These positive emotions, in turn, further improve tourists’ overall evaluation of the entire travel process, enhancing the experience quality. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H8: Restorative experience has a significant positive impact on positive emotions.
H9: Restorative experience and positive emotions exhibit a chained mediating effect in the relationship between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality (Fig. 1).

4 Research methods and data sources

4.1 Measurement tools

Data for this study were collected through a questionnaire survey comprising scales on restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotions, experience quality, as well as demographic characteristic items. At the beginning of the questionnaire, a screening question “Have you ever visited any rural tourist destinations in China within the past three years?” was set. Participants who answered “yes” continued with the survey, while those who answered “no” were directed to exit the questionnaire. The research selected a rural tourism destination as the study case, which is rich in natural resources and landscapes such as mountains, lakes, and forests. Rural areas have more green space than urban areas, such as farmland, gardens, parks, etc. At the same time, rural areas retain the traditional farming culture, which has a certain emotional resonance and attraction for modern people, and which emphasizes the natural cycle, the harmonious relationship between man and nature, as well as a simple and peaceful way of life. This cultural value contrasts sharply with the fast-paced, high-stress life of modern society, so rural tourism can bring people an experience of returning to nature and pursuing inner peace, which in turn can promote personal growth and psychological healing. The target population of this study was rural tourists, and the time frame was set to three years, taking into account the temporal nature of the tourism recovery function and the memory capacity of tourists. Due to the differences between rural tourism in different countries and the applicability of the restorative environment perception scale used in this study in the Chinese context, rural tourism destinations were limited to China. The scales in the first four sections were measured using a 5-point Likert scale for data collection. The restorative environment perception scale was adapted from Chen et al. (2017), encompassing four dimensions—compatibility, extent, being away, and fascination—with a total of 15 items. The restorative experience scale was adapted from Shimazu et al. (2012) and includes 4 items. Positive emotions were adapted from Qiu et al. (2008), with a single dimension containing 5 items. Experience quality references Feng and Sha (2007) and Agapito et al. (2014), and 3 items were designed in consideration of the characteristics of rural tourism destinations. Certain items were appropriately modified in the scales of this study to better fit the actual situations according to the basic characteristics and specific circumstances of rural tourists.

4.2 Data collection

Due to uncontrollable factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, offline questionnaire collection faced unprecedented obstacles, and online distribution of questionnaires became the only viable option. From December 12 to 21, 2022, questionnaires were distributed on two platforms: WJX.cn and wenjuan.com. Afterward, the questionnaires were shared in social circles, leading to the participation of a portion of the sample through friends’ questionnaire completion and positive sharing. Considering the limited scope of friends in social circles, questionnaires were subsequently distributed on various platforms, including Litter Red Book, QQ, Weibo, etc., aiming to obtain data samples from different target groups. In the end, 398 questionnaires were collected. Considering the possibility of respondents’ lack of seriousness when filling out online questionnaires, a common-sense question was included in the survey. After excluding invalid questionnaires with incorrect answers or excessively short response times to the common-sense question, 351 valid questionnaires remained, resulting in an effective response rate of 88.1%.
Among the research sample, 30.2% of the respondents were male, and 69.8% were female. The age distribution of the sample was mainly between 18-24 years old and 25-30 years old, accounting for 49.3% and 25.4% of the total sample, respectively. The educational level was predominantly undergraduate and graduate or above, accounting for 62.4% and 15.7% respectively. In terms of occupation, apart from students, the most common occupation was employees in the corporate sector, accounting for 24.5%. Therefore, it can be seen that residents who visit rural areas for tourism are mostly highly educated students and young workers. They often experience sub-health status due to various factors such as heavy workloads, study tasks, and fast-paced lives, which lead to high levels of stress and physical and mental exhaustion.

4.3 Analysis methods

This study used a multiple mediation model to find out how the effects of restorative experience and positive emotion on the influence of restorative environment perception affect the quality of the tourist experience. The specific data processing steps were as follows: First, the collected sample data were cleaned by excluding data with obvious errors or a negative impact on the results. Second, the model was tested by conducting descriptive statistical analysis of the collected sample data and using AMOS 24.0 and SPSS 26.0 for the goodness-of-fit test and reliability and validity tests of the measurement model. The reliability and validity of latent variables were evaluated by examining convergent validity, discriminant validity, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE). Third, the paths of the model were analyzed to examine the hypotheses about which direct effects are significant. The final step was to test the multiple mediation effects. The process plugin in SPSS 26.0 was used with the Bootstrap method to test the multiple mediation effects of the model (Liu and Ling, 2009). First, the direct effect of restorative environment perception on experience quality was tested, followed by the separate mediation effects of restorative experience and positive emotion. Then, the chain mediation effects of restorative experience and positive emotion were analyzed. Finally, all mediation effects were compared to identify the strongest pathway of influence (Fang et al., 2014).

5 Empirical research and results analysis

5.1 Reliability and validity analysis

To ensure the goodness-of-fit evaluation of the model and the validity of hypothesis testing, the SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 software were used to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The specific results are shown in Table 1. The reliability test for restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality includes internal consistency reliability and construct reliability. The Cronbach’s α coefficients for being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility were 0.79, 0.824, 0.738, and 0.822, respectively, all greater than 0.7. The Cronbach’s α coefficients for restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality scales were 0.832, 0.871, and 0.804, respectively, all greater than 0.8. This indicates that restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality have high internal consistency. In addition, the CR values of the four dimensions of restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality were all greater than 0.7, and four variables had CR values greater than 0.8, indicating good construct reliability for these scales.
Table 1 Measurement model check
Variable Items Factor loading Cronbach’s α CR AVE
Being away In the countryside, there is a sense of detachment from the world. 0.737 0.79 0.747 0.427
The countryside is a break from the routine of city life. 0.652
The countryside is a place of complete rest 0.595
Traveling to the countryside helps me to relax and unwind 0.62
Fascination There is so much to discover and explore in the countryside 0.733 0.824 0.804 0.507
The countryside has many interesting things to attract my attention 0.691
The countryside is charming 0.71
I want to spend more time observing 0.713
Extent The countryside is coherent 0.678 0.738 0.713 0.453
I am curious about the unseen landscape of the countryside 0.654
Landscapes in the countryside remind me of beautiful things 0.687
Compatibility I can do what I like in the countryside 0.729 0.822 0.784 0.477
I can adapt quickly to the countryside 0.746
I can find ways to enjoy myself 0.634
The things I want to do are consistent with the environment 0.647
Restorative experience I feel more relaxed in the countryside 0.777 0.823 0.82 0.533
The countryside relieves my tension 0.767
My concentration and attention span increased significantly in the countryside 0.674
The countryside helps me to clear my mind 0.698
Positive emotions I feel energized 0.82 0.871 0.872 0.578
Gain new enthusiasm 0.708
Feeling at ease 0.749
Feeling hopeful 0.774
Feeling satisfied 0.747
Experience quality Often forgetting the passage of time 0.72 0.804 0.803 0.576
Getting absorbed and forgetting what's going on around you 0.752
Forgetting everyday worries and enjoying the moment 0.803
Addicted to the beauty of the scenery 0.685
The experience of traveling to the countryside was very rewarding 0.786
This study examined the construct validity of restorative environment perception, restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality from two aspects: convergent validity and discriminant validity. Convergent validity was tested using average variance extracted (AVE). The AVE values for restorative experience, positive emotion, and tourist experience quality were 0.533, 0.578, and 0.566, respectively, all greater than 0.5. The AVE values for being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility were 0.427, 0.507, 0.453, and 0.477, respectively. Although the three dimensions had AVE values less than 0.5, they were close to the standard threshold of 0.5 and also above 0.36, indicating that the observed variables can measure their corresponding latent variables. Additionally, the goodness-of-fit of the four-factor, three-factor, two-factor, and one-factor models were compared using AMOS 24.0 software. From Table 2, it can be seen that the four-factor model had the best fit. CMIN/DF < 3, RMSEA < 0.08, SRMR < 0.05, and IFI, TLI, and CFI were all greater than 0.9, indicating good discriminant validity for the four-factor model.
Table 2 Structural model fit indices and discriminant validity tests
Measurement models CMIN/DF RMSEA SRMR IFI TLI CFI
One-factor model 2.741 0.071 0.033 0.901 0.892 0.831
Two-factor model 2.647 0.069 0.033 0.907 0.898 0.906
Three-factor model 2.634 0.068 0.032 0.908 0.899 0.907
Four-factor model 2.446 0.064 0.031 0.919 0.910 0.919

5.2 Structural model analysis

The maximum likelihood method was used to perform hypothesis testing on the model, and the results of the direct effect analysis are shown in Table 3. The restorative environment perception of rural tourists has a significant positive impact on overall tourist experience quality (β=0.279, P<0.001), supporting hypothesis H1. Restorative environment perception of rural tourists has a significant positive impact on restorative experience (β=0.865, P<0.001) and positive emotion (β=0.589, P<0.001), supporting hypotheses H2 and H5. Restorative experience (β=0.248, P<0.001) and positive emotion (β=0.443, P<0.001) have a significant positive impact on overall tourist experience quality, supporting hypotheses H3 and H6. Additionally, restorative experience has a significant positive impact on positive emotion (β=0.344, P<0.001), supporting hypothesis H8 (Fig. 2).
Table 3 Structural model validation results
Hypothesis Path Path coefficient t value S.E. Results
H1 REP→EQ 0.279*** 3.687 0.076 Support
H2 REP→RE 0.865*** 25.749 0.033 Support
H3 RE→EQ 0.248*** 3.849 0.065 Support
H5 REP→PE 0.589*** 11.598 0.05 Support
H6 PE→EQ 0.443*** 6.547 0.068 Support
H8 RE→PE 0.344*** 7.22 0.048 Support
Fig. 2 Structural model analysis

5.3 Mediation effect analysis

Based on the mediation analysis method and testing method proposed by Wen et al. (2014), Bootstrap mediation effect testing was done on the data using the SPSS 26.0 software and the Process macro. The results are shown in Table 4.
Table 4 Chain multiple mediating effect test
Hypothesis Path Effect coefficient S.E. Bootstrap 95% CI
Boost LLCI Boost ULCI
H4 REP→RE→EQ 0.215 0.077 0.07 0.371
H7 REP→PE→EQ 0.262 0.071 0.119 0.399
H9 EP→RE→PE→EQ 0.312 0.039 0.058 0.212
Specific mediation effects of restorative experience and positive emotion between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality were analyzed. There are three mediation paths between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality, and specific mediation effect analyses were conducted for each path. The results are shown in Table 4. Between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality, restorative experience plays a mediating role independently. The value of the independent mediation effect is 0.215, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.070,0.371]. Since the confidence interval does not include 0, it indicates that the mediation effect of this path is significant, supporting hypothesis H4. This means that even after controlling the level of positive emotion, the restorative experience can still play a mediating role between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality. Similarly, between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality, positive emotion also plays a mediating role independently. The value of the independent mediation effect is 0.262, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.119,0.399]. Since the confidence interval does not include 0, it indicates that the mediation effect of this path is significant, supporting hypothesis H7. In the relationship between restorative environment perception and tourist experience quality, the chained mediation effect of restorative experience and positive emotion is 0.312, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.058,0.212]. Since the confidence interval does not include 0, it indicates that the chained mediation effect is significant, supporting hypothesis H9.

6 Discussion

6.1 Theoretical contributions

Based on the rural tourism context, this paper constructs a process model centered on the restorative environmental perception of rural tourists with the help of ART, and the theoretical research progress achieved in this paper is reflected in the following two aspects.
First, the study introduced the ART from environmental psychology, revealing the impact mechanism of restorative environmental perception on the quality of tourist experiences. ART focuses on the restorative function of the environment, emphasizing the types of environments that best support physical and mental recovery. Thus, restorative perception is considered a variable closely linked to mental health benefits and is directly associated with the overall quality of the visitor experience. According to attentional restoration theory, when people perceive the environment to be more restorative, the more likely they are to achieve physical psychological, and even social, restoration in that environment (Briere et al., 1983; Hartig et al., 2007). Most of the current research on restorative environmental perception focuses on the built environment of different sites, such as urban parks, to study the psychological restoration brought to residents by recreational sites in the city. However, very few in-depth studies have been conducted on the perception of restorative environments in tourist destinations, while very few have focused on the restorative and healing role of the environment in rural tourist destinations. This study explored the dimensions of restorative environmental perception among rural tourists and investigated its influence on the overall quality of their experiences by focusing on the natural scenery of rural tourism destinations. The study clarified the mechanisms and pathways through which different dimensions of restorative environmental perception functioned, expanding the application of environmental psychology theories in rural tourism research.
Second, the study examined the mediating role of tourist’ restoration experiences and positive emotions in the relationship between restorative environmental perception and the quality of tourist experiences. It analyzed how the healing and restorative rural environment influenced the overall quality of tourist experiences based on tourists’ internal perceptions. The findings preliminarily validated the mediating effects of restoration experiences and positive emotions in the relationship between functional restorative environmental perception and the quality of tourist experiences. The conclusion of the study is to give a new explanation for the process of recovery experience and positive emotions based on the interaction between rural tourists and the natural tourist environment, exploring the effective path of psychological health benefits obtained by tourists’ in-depth contact and experience with the natural environment in the process of rural tourism, which provides a certain empirical basis for the restorative and healing mechanisms generated by the rural tourist sites. At the same time, the restorative environmental perception of rural tourists has been expanded and recognized in a more detailed and in-depth way, which is of great theoretical significance for effectively improving the quality of tourist experience.

6.2 Practical implications

The text provides a basis and reference for potential tourists to go to rural tourism destinations to realize their recovery needs and to obtain a satisfactory tourism experience. In the modern fast-developing society, the fast-paced lifestyle makes many young people face more and more work challenges and life pressure. When more and more unpredictable disasters occur, Chinese people’s ideology and consumption concepts change dramatically, and they are no longer only pursuing material prosperity, but also paying more attention to their mental health. The effects of rural tourist restorative environmental perceptions on the recovery experience, positive emotions, and experience quality can help guide tourists to choose destination elements that can release stress and help them recover from attention fatigue, thus helping them reap the benefits of a satisfying rural tourism experience. On the other hand, the findings of this paper not only provide useful references for potential tourists to find a suitable destination for relaxation but also provide new perspectives on the environmental management and marketing management of rural tourism destinations.
First of all, the restorative environmental perception of tourists should be enhanced, and for this purpose, the attractiveness of rural tourism destinations should be improved. The study confirms that the restorative environmental perception of rural tourists is an important factor affecting the restorative experience, positive emotions, and the quality of the experience, and suggests that managers of rural tourism destinations should start from the basic elements of restorative environmental perception to improve the overall quality of tourist experience. From a compatibility perspective, rural tourism destinations should define their market positioning and direction based on their environmental elements and characteristics, consolidate and enhance their inherent advantages, and focus on meeting the needs of tourists whose needs match those of the destination. Rural tourism destinations have a slow pace of life and a beautiful environment, and can further contact with nature, which is the preferred destination for urban residents to relax and relieve stress. Therefore, the managers of rural tourism destinations should make efforts to build and maintain the tourism image of “nature” and “healing”, pay special attention to the protection and construction of the original ecological environment, and establish an effective environmental protection mechanism to unite residents, government departments and scenic area managers to promote rural tourism. Effective environmental protection mechanisms can be established to unite residents, government departments, and scenic area managers to jointly promote the sustainable development of rural tourist destinations. From the perspective of fascination, while increasing the input of tourism resources, we should combine the local characteristics and develop more high-quality tourism products in line with the restorative experience, so that tourists can better interact with the natural environment of the destination, thus stimulating the independent participation of tourists to meet the requirements of their in-depth experience. From the perspective of being away, rural tourism destinations should focus on creating a safe and comfortable atmosphere in the tourism environment, so that tourists can enjoy the beauty of nature in the process of releasing their stress, to achieve the purpose of getting away from the trivial daily work life and remodeling physical and mental health.
Secondly, the process of restoration experience and emotional change of tourists should be emphasized. At the level of improving the recovery experience, it is necessary to strengthen the ecological environmental protection and landscape optimization and coordination of rural tourism sites, forming a human-earth relationship in which tourists and destinations are closely linked. Focus on strengthening the embodiment of the original characteristics of the natural environment, highlighting the beauty of the original natural and biological landscapes of the rural tourism sites, while maintaining a high-quality air environment, water environment, acoustic environment, etc., and utilizing the nature of the rural tourism sites to enhance the accessibility of the tourists, and to further stimulate the intrinsic need to alleviate the pressure of work and life, and to maintain their physical and mental health. On the other hand, it is also necessary to focus on showing the richness of the natural landscape to ensure the coordination of the overall environment of the rural tourism destination. Avoid the introduction of certain “Internet Celebrity” elements for the sake of high traffic flow, which will destroy the overall harmony of the original rural tourist destination. It is necessary to establish the concept of harmonious healing and a green natural environment to improve the loyalty and satisfaction of tourists to rural destinations. In terms of improving the positive emotions of tourists, local managers should first continue to strengthen the environmental protection and landscape optimization of rural tourist destinations, locking the attention of tourists with a green, beautiful, and coordinated natural atmosphere, and at the same time, using more cultural creativity to update the product system, which can be used to create experiential and participatory tourism projects based on the seasons, festivals, and other backgrounds that are characteristic of rural areas, so that more intimate and diversified interactions can be created with the natural and destination environments. The environment produces more intimate and diversified interaction so that tourists can be better integrated into the rural tourism environment so that tourists in the diversified experience of lingering and thus wholeheartedly integrated into the rural environment, truly away from the daily trivial life and the pressure of constant work.
Lastly, the overall quality of rural tourists’ experiences should be prioritized. Implementing a tourist satisfaction strategy is important. Apart from providing tourism products and services that meet tourists’ restoration and healing needs during their relaxation process in rural destinations, long-term relationships with tourists should be established. Rural tourism destinations should become the primary choice for tourists to relax and maintain physical and mental well-being. Managers of rural tourist destinations should at the same time pay attention to occupation, purpose of travel, etc. as market segmentation criteria, conduct in-depth surveys on the physical and mental recovery status of different groups of tourists and their practical feelings, and pay close attention to the changes in the demeanor and emotions of tourists before, during, and after their travels. Targeted provision of different categories of tourism products and services, timely adjustment and optimization of the supply of tourism products to match the specificity of their needs, the use of satisfaction strategies to improve their loyalty and the overall quality of the experience, as a way to promote the interest and motivation of tourists, and promote their willingness to revisit and recommend.

7 Conclusions

This study used ART to make a model of how rural tourists perceive a restorative environment. The recovery experience and positive emotions were used as mediators, and the overall quality of the experience was used as the outcome variable. Through data collection from tourists who have experienced rural tourism, empirical tests were conducted, and the following conclusions were drawn:
(1) Restorative environment perception is an important driving factor for improving overall experience quality for rural tourists.
The research results have verified the healing and restorative nature of tourism from the perspective of individual cognition. Rural tourism enhances tourists’ contact and interaction with nature, allowing them to understand stress from multiple perspectives and at a deeper level, release stress, grow and transform in the face of pressure, achieve comprehensive relaxation of body and mind, and maximize the improvement of rural tourists’ experience quality. Furthermore, the study also demonstrated that the perceived restorative environment for rural tourists enhances their recovery experience and generates positive emotions. The recovery experience and positive emotions contribute to the improvement of overall experience quality, while the recovery experience significantly influences positive emotions.
(2) Restorative environment perception promotes the development of overall experience quality through tourists' recovery experience and positive emotions.
Berto (2005) verified through three experiments that contact with restorative environments contributes to the recovery and alleviation of mental fatigue. Su and Xin (2010) also pointed out that a restorative environment helps people recover from psychological fatigue, negative emotions, and physiological reactions associated with stress. When tourists visit rural destinations and interact with the restorative environment characterized by nature, the perception and understanding they develop effectively enhance tourist overall experience quality and relieve negative emotions. Building upon ART, this study also indicated that tourists immersed in a restorative environment experience relief from physical and mental fatigue and stress, resulting in the transformation of negative emotions into positive emotions. This change affects individuals’ psychological and emotional states, touches their mental models, and helps them gain a deeper understanding of the essence behind stress and fatigue, as well as their true needs. Consequently, it leads to the unity of physical and mental comfort and health, and the acquisition of high-quality travel experiences.
(3) Restorative environment perception for rural tourists can improve overall experience quality through a chain path of recovery experience and positive emotions.
Wang et al. (2020) pointed out that ART is the theoretical basis for empirical research on individual psychological recovery through human-environment interaction. When rural tourists immerse themselves in the beautiful and relaxed atmosphere of nature, combining the restorative nature of tourism with the experience of recovery, they can free themselves from negative emotions and gradually develop lasting positive emotions as stress dissipates and fatigue diminishes. This enables tourists to experience high satisfaction, lasting happiness, and even loyalty to rural tourism destinations. The stepwise psychological changes contribute to enhancing tourist experience quality. Song et al. (2018) constructed a model of factors influencing tourism experience quality in ethnic minority areas, finding that aesthetic experience, service experience, knowledge experience, and interactive experience all affect the final tourism experience quality. Different travel experiences, to varying degrees and through various diverse paths, change tourist experience quality. Being in a restorative natural environment, whether through interaction with nature or with other tourists, or through tourists' own recovery experiences, all impact overall experience quality.
This study has several limitations. Firstly, due to the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to distribute questionnaires offline, resulting in hindered questionnaire quality and scientific rigor. In the future, targeted offline data collection can be conducted for different target groups to scientifically validate the model. Secondly, this study focused only on the influence of restorative environmental perception on the quality of experiences among rural tourists. However, restorative environments not only affect tourists' psychological and emotional states but also have potential impacts on their physical health. Moreover, there might be mutual influences between psychological and physiological changes. Therefore, future research can consider selecting appropriate indicators to measure physiological health benefits and comprehensively examine the multifaceted impacts of tourism’s healing and restorative functions on tourists. Lastly, due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, this study collected questionnaire data from respondents and conducted limited interviews. Future research can include multiple scenarios and destinations for different experiments to explore the mechanisms and processes of tourist restorative environmental perception in different contexts.
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