寻找精神家园：边地旅游的概念模型与实证

Seeking Spiritual Home: The Conceptual Model and Empirical Study of Borderland Tourism

旅游的精神意义一直是学者们关注的焦点,但旅游的精神性体验如何产生,包含哪些内容,是否存在一种旅游类型以精神性体验为核心,却少有研究探讨。为探索精神性体验与特定旅游类型的关系,文章基于精神意义和文学领域的边地研究构建了边地旅游概念模型,以郎木寺镇和束河古镇两个边地小镇旅游接待场所内的1183条游客留言文本为研究资料,运用质性分析方法从游客主体体验视角对边地旅游进行实证分析。研究表明,边地旅游以精神性体验的主体地位和与客源地较高的隔离程度为主要特征,是满足游客精神性需求的重要旅游类型,其精神性体验有追求个体与世界的联系,追寻个人生命意义、自我超越、旅行仪式感与神圣性4个子范畴。远离现代性是游客在边地旅游中寻求精神意义的驱动力,边地空间相对偏远的地理位置、匮乏的物质条件、原始的自然风光和独特的文化氛围是游客产生精神性体验的环境条件。该研究有助于厘清体验与旅游产品类型的关系,促进旅游体验理论的具体化,进而指导旅游产品开发实践。

The spiritual meaning of tourism activities has long been the research focus among the domestic and foreign tourism scholars. However, there is a lack of research on how spiritual experience is formed in tourism activities, what contents the spiritual experience of tourism contains, and whether there is a tourism type focusing on its spiritual experience? In order to explore the relationship between spiritual experience and a specific type of tourism activity, this study established a conceptual model of borderland tourism based on the research of tourism’s spiritual meaning and Chinese modern literature of borderlands. We chose Langmusi Town and Shuhe Town as the case studies, because these two small towns representing particular features that have been demonstrated in the previous research on the cultural space of borderlands, and they could be called the Border town. Collecting 1183 pieces of texts from guest books in the tourist reception places in Langmusi Town and Shuhe Town, we employed a qualitative method to empirically analyze the conceptual model of borderland tourism from the perspective of tourists’ experiences. Considering those texts were generated in a naturalistic condition,this study has made up for the lack of attention on the subjective perceptions of tourists in the existing tourism experience research. The study results have indicated that borderland tourism included four experience categories: travelling experience of secular life, travelling experience of special life,emotional experience and life inspiration, and spiritual experience. With the key features of a major focus on spiritual experience and a high degree of isolation from the tourist-generating regions, we found that borderland tourism was an important type of tourism activities which could meet tourists’ spiritual needs. Such spiritual needs were met by connecting the spiritual experience pursued in the borderland with the daily-life experience at home. Meanwhile seeking the connection between the individual and the world, seeking the personal life meaning, seeking the self-transcendence, seeking the sense of ritual and sacredness during travel were the four sub-categories of the spiritual experience of borderland tourism. Furthermore, we found that escaping modernity was the major motivation driving tourists to seek spiritual meaning through the borderland tourism. The relatively remote geographical locations, the deficiency of material conditions, the original natural sceneries and the unique cultural atmosphere were the environmental conditions for tourists to form spiritual experience in borderlands.In general, we believe this research has made contributions to clarify the relationship between experience and types of tourism products, to promote the embodiment of tourism experience theory in order to further direct the practice of tourism product development.