The Transition of Soundscapes in Tourist Destinations from the Perspective of Residents’ Perceptions: A Case Study of the Lugu Lake Scenic Spot, Southwestern China

Abstract

As an important part of regional synthesis, the local landscape is a crucial source of attractiveness for tourist destinations, in which soundscapes play a notable and special role. Many studies have investigated changes in the economic, cultural, and environmental aspects of tourist destinations under development, while little attention has been paid to how soundscapes change after tourism development. To this end, we chose the Lugu Lake Scenic Spot as a study area and explored the characteristics of soundscape changes by conducting a survey of residents in six villages at different stages of tourism development. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) Geophony did not obviously change under the influence of tourism. Biophony increasingly lost its influence, while anthrophony increased significantly, causing wide concern among residents. (2) The phenomenon of soundscape commercialization could be attributed to the impact of tourism maturation. Further, the representation of folk songs has undergone a great change. (3) In terms of spatial patterns, residents whose villages were in different states of tourism development had significantly different perceptions of soundscape transition. For example, the one village not undergoing tourism development was in its original soundscape phase. In the other villages, which were in the consolidation stage or the involvement stage, the sound environment had changed significantly, entering a tourism soundscape phase once there were tourism elements involved. Finally, we propose suggestions for enhancing the conservation of local soundscapes, with a focus on both building the tourism industry and enhancing the sustainable development of tourist destinations.

Research on the Impact of Tourism Development on the Sustainable Development of Reservoir Headwater Area Using China’s Tingxi Reservoir as an Example

“…The literature finds that most studies on reservoirs and lakes are conducted from the perspective of residents [27][28][29], while the research conducted from the perspective of tourists [30][31][32] is rarely conducted, from the perspective of residents and tourists. There is even less discussion [33,34].…”

“…Tourism development needs to be considered in a multi-faceted way and the impact of tourism development is more complicated nowadays [6,10,12]. More detailed answers can be obtained through comprehensive surveys [10,11,14,24,28]. Therefore, the authors first reviewed the theories and literature on tourism development , interpreted the research results [38,39], compiled a 60-question questionnaire on the current status of tourism development, and then discussed with experts and scholars to complete the outline of the questionnaire, which was divided into two parts: background information and tourism development.…”

“…Until now, however, the majority of reservoir and lake studies have been conducted from the perspective of residents [27][28][29], while fewer have been conducted from the perspective of tourists [30][31][32], and even fewer have been conducted from the perspective of both residents and tourists [33,34]. Most of the studies that focus on Tingxi Reservoir are about water quality and ecology, water flow, water quality, and power generation [35][36][37], and almost no scholars have focused on tourism issues.…”

Semantic Crowdsourcing of Soundscapes Heritage: A Mojo Model for Data-Driven Storytelling

“…Audiovisual and soundscape-related heritage initiatives also emerge, focusing on historical sound records and landscapes preserved, re-created, and reproduced as means of intangible CH expressions [25][26][27][28][29]. Furthermore, the impact of environmental sounds, noise, and soundscape components is analyzed on various aspects of modern human life, i.e., examining their associations with the residents' physical/mental health, perception, and behavior, aiming to unveil factors of sustainable growth and development and overall quality of life as well [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Social media soundscape information can serve for the prediction of health effects of noise pollution in different areas [38].…”

Estimating the Economic Value of Soundscapes in Nature-Based Tourism Destinations: A Separation Attempt of a Pairwise Comparison Method

“…The study of soundscape has been gradually extended to the fields of ecology [18,19], urban and rural planning [20,21], geography [22,23], and tourist experiences [24,25]. Under the background that "multisensory" tourism experiences receive more attention, soundscapes play an increasingly important role in scenic planning and sustainable development [26]; therefore, the proportions of the soundscapes in overall economic value of scenic spot resources need further study, and a separation method has not been well established [27].…”