System Construction, Tourism Empowerment, and Community Participation: The Sustainable Way of Rural Tourism Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper describes the positive influence of rural tourism destination mechanism on tourism empowerment and community participation by using empirical verification while also proposing a regulatory model with community resident's  participation ability. Using the structural equation model to explore the relationship between system construction, tourism empowerment, and community participation, it verifies the intermediary effect of individual tourism empowerment and the positive significance of system empowerment for solving this problem.

The proposed reserach is valuable, however, following points are highlighted after going through the paper: 

1) While the authors claim their novelty of work as:

Line: 80 ..., while previous studies on community empowerment and community participation have  primarily focused on measuring individual empowerment and its relationship with community participation in tourism development, this paper investigates the mechanism of collective community empowerment and individual empowerment through the lens of system construction.

However, Some recent works are excluded from the study which are pointing towards this aspect, such as:

[1] Empowerment process in community-based tourism: Friend relationship perspective

(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0376835X.2020.1806783)

[2] Community Empowerment and Sustainable Tourism Development: The Mediating Role of Community Support for Tourism (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6248)

2) Line 342: 'Study Case' should be 'Case study'

3) In the proposed model design, no extraneous variable is indicated in the model and the pathway analysis. Some examples of extraneous variables include economic factors, infrastructure and accessibility, environmental factors, cultural and social factors, Govt policies etc.

4) What about the impact of the proposed culture on enviromental conservation, economic benefits distribution with in the community as well as on the local empowerment that needs to be analyzed and/or predicted to develop a strategic approach to fostering innovation.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer ,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as important in guiding significance to our research. We have addressed all the points raised and consequently revised the manuscript based on the comments. Revised portion are marked in red and in bold in the paper. Please find the detailed responses below, and the corresponding revisions are highlighted in the resubmitted files. We have great pleasure in submitting our revised manuscript along with our responses to the reviewer's comments for your kind perusal and consideration.

Best wishes.

 

The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:

Comment 1:

While the authors claim their novelty of work as:

Line: 80 ..., while previous studies on community empowerment and community participation have  primarily focused on measuring individual empowerment and its relationship with community participation in tourism development, this paper investigates the mechanism of collective community empowerment and individual empowerment through the lens of system construction.

However, Some recent works are excluded from the study which are pointing towards this aspect, such as:

[1] Empowerment process in community-based tourism: Friend relationship perspective

(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0376835X.2020.1806783)

[2] Community Empowerment and Sustainable Tourism Development: The Mediating Role of Community Support for Tourism

(https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6248)

 

Response 1:

Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have added relevant paper and revised the expression of this theoretical contribution. These modifications can be found on page 2, paragraph 2, and line 85-94.

 

Comment 2:

Line 342: 'Study Case' should be 'Case study'

 

Response 2:

Thank you very much for your professional suggestions. We agree with you and have accordingly changed 'Study Case' into 'Case study'. This change can be found on page 8, and line 371.

 

Comment 3:

In the proposed model design, no extraneous variable is indicated in the model and the pathway analysis. Some examples of extraneous variables include economic factors, infrastructure and accessibility, environmental factors, cultural and social factors, Govt policies etc.

 

Response 3:

Thank you for pointing this out and we agree with your suggestion. The addition of control variables is a very meaningful idea, which provides new research ideas for our research. To further understand this process, we searched several papers on the application of control variables in structural equation models (some of which are listed below).

The results show that there is no unified conclusion on whether to add the control variables in the structural equation model, and the main conclusions can be roughly three categories: first, the addition has little effect on causal derivation, and may affect the results; second, control variables should be added in the rigorous theoretical support and derivation; third, there may be a risk in adding categorical variables, such as demographic information, to the structural equation model, whether the results are scientific remains to be verified.

Therefore，we will combine your suggestions in future studies to further explore how different realistic backgrounds and demographic situations will have on tourism empowerment and community participation, this part of which is also shown in the Future Research, and on page 18, paragraph 3-4, and line 701-720.

[1]Causal Inference and Analysis in Empirical Studies. DOI:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20170130.

[2]Preliminary Work for Modeling Questionnaire Data. DOI:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20180130

[3]Control Variable Usage in Organizational and Management Research: Problems and Recommendations. DOI:10.16471/j.cnki.11-2822/c.2020.8.004.

 

Comment 4:

What about the impact of the proposed culture on enviromental conservation, economic benefits distribution with in the community as well as on the local empowerment that needs to be analyzed and/or predicted to develop a strategic approach to fostering innovation.

 

Response 4:

We strongly agree with your suggestion. Based on your suggestion, we have added one paragraph about "consolidate and strengthen the mechanism for sustainable development in rural tourism destinations, with a focus on cultural sensitivity" in the Managerial Recommendations, which is located on page 17, paragraph 2, and line 640-666.

In the context of China, the development of rural tourism is an important link in integrating the integration of cultural and tourism industries. Rural communities have a large amount of cultural resources, which is of great practical significance to explore the influence of culture on the environment, economic benefit distribution, and empowerment.

This study is conducted from the perspective of system construction, mainly discussing explicit and clear formal systems, which do not involve informal systems such as culture, history, and so on. Your suggestions open up a new idea for our research direction, and we will carefully take your suggestions as the main focus of our future research.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper explores the sustainable development of rural tourism through system construction, tourism empowerment, and community participation, focusing on Wuzhen area in China as a case study. It underscores the pivotal role of tourism empowerment as a mediator between system construction and community participation, with participation ability as a moderating factor.

 

Strengths

Relevance and originality: The paper addresses a contemporary issue in rural tourism development, offering insights into the dynamics of system construction, tourism empowerment, and community participation. The focus on Wuzhen provides a valuable case study, contributing original empirical evidence to the field.

Theoretical framework and methodology: The paper's grounding in institutional economics and the use of structural equation modelling are adequate. The approach is well-suited to the complexities of the topic, allowing for an in-depth analysis of the relationships between the constructs.

Data analysis: The variable reliability analysis and model testing are thorough, with Cronbach's alpha values exceeding 0.7, indicating strong stability and internal consistency. The validity tests further strengthen the reliability of the findings.

 

Areas for Improvement

Broader contextualization: While the focus on Wuzhen is valuable, integrating comparisons or insights from other rural tourism sites could enrich the paper's applicability and generalizability. This broader perspective would also contextualize Wuzhen's experiences within a larger framework of rural tourism development.

Practical implications: The paper could benefit from a more detailed discussion of practical implications, particularly regarding policy recommendations for rural tourism development. While the discussion section touches on this, expanding on specific strategies and their potential impact would be beneficial.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer ,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as important in guiding significance to our researches. We have addressed all the points raised and also consequently revised the manuscript as comments. Revised portion are marked in red and in bold in the paper. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions highlighted in the resubmitted files. We have great pleasure in submitting our revised manuscript with the response to the reviewer’s comments for your kind perusal and consideration.

Best wishes.

 

The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:

Comment 1:

Broader contextualization: While the focus on Wuzhen is valuable, integrating comparisons or insights from other rural tourism sites could enrich the paper's applicability and generalizability. This broader perspective would also contextualize Wuzhen's experiences within a larger framework of rural tourism development.

 

Response 1:

We strongly agree with your suggestion. Therefore, we will incorparate your suggestions in future studies to further explore how different realistic backgrounds and demographic situations will have on tourism empowerment and community participation, this part of which is also shown in the Future Research, and on page 18, paragraph 3-4, and line 712-720.

 

Comment 2:

Practical implications: The paper could benefit from a more detailed discussion of practical implications, particularly regarding policy recommendations for rural tourism development. While the discussion section touches on this, expanding on specific strategies and their potential impact would be beneficial.

 

Response 2:

Thank you very much for your professional suggestions. We agree with you and have accordingly added several managerial recommendations looking forward to providing more operational and practical guidance. The details of the revision can be found on page 16-17, and line 594-684.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The literature review addresses various interesting elements. The research question is significant and original, and the methodology is sound. The findings are well-supported by the data, and the implications for sustainable rural tourism development are clear. They use structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data. SEM is a powerful tool for examining complex relationships between variables, and it is well-suited for the research question in this paper. The data come from Wuzhen scenic area as a case study. The authors collected data from a sample of 300 participants and validated 275 responses.

The results are very interesting as well. The key findings of the study are that tourism empowerment and community participation are both important for sustainable rural tourism development. It also found that tourism empowerment is a mediator between system construction and community participation, and that participation ability moderates the impact of system construction on tourism empowerment.

Please correct the title 5 into “Managerial recommendations” instead of “Management recommendations”.

I had a great interest and pleasure in reading this first version of the paper, may the authors be thanked and encouraged. I give this paper a favorable opinion.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some phrases deserve to be reviewed as they suggest that they are a "word-to-word" translation. Proofreading will improve the quality of the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as important in guiding significance to our researches. We have addressed all the points raised and also consequently revised the manuscript as comments. Revised portion are marked in red and in bold in the paper. Please find the detailed responses below, and the corresponding revisions are highlighted in the resubmitted files. We have great pleasure in submitting our revised manuscript along with the response to the reviewer's comments for your kind perusal and consideration.

Best wishes.

The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer's comments are as following:

Comment 1:

Please correct the title 5 into “Managerial recommendations” instead of “Management recommendations”.

 

Response 1:

Thank you very much for your professional suggestions. We agree with you and have accordingly changed 'Mangement Recommandations' into 'Mangerial Recommandations', and this change can be found on page 16, line 588.

 

Comment 2:

Some phrases deserve to be reviewed as they suggest that they are a "word-to-word" translation. Proofreading will improve the quality of the manuscript.

 

Reponse 2:

Thank you very much for your professional suggestion regarding the ‘word-for-word' translation and we agree with it. As non-native English authors, for us, there are much space of improvement in English writing, so we have examined and corrected the article again with the help of native English speakers and hope that your questions can be improved. The grammar modification part and the content modification part are jointly marked in red, please find details in the re-submitted manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for this informative, clearly written and generally very well done article, which I enjoyed reading. I like the clear structure and the clear argumentation of your contribution. The current state of research is well presented and integrated into the article. I also find the research question examined very relevant to sustainability research. For this reason, your article fits very well into the journal. I was also fully convinced by the methodological approach. I like both the focus of the case study analysis on Wuzhen and the quantitative-empirical approach. The latter convinced me with its comprehensible hypothesis derivation and the clear empirical research model. I have no serious objections to the statistical data analysis conducted using a structural equation approach. The descriptive statistics on the study sample and the measurement models leave me no room for critical questions. I also like the fact that the results of the empirical work were discussed in detail and clear implications from the analysis were provided. In my opinion, your article is therefore a great piece of work.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer ,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as important in guiding significance to our research. We are so glad of receiving your encouragement and will continue to explore the impact of institutional construction in tourism empowerment and community participation in our future research. It's really a great pleasure in submitting our revised manuscript with the response to the reviewers' comments, for your kind perusal and consideration.

Best wishes.