1. Introduction
Rural revitalization is China’s basic state policy, and rural homestays play a significant role in the revitalization of rural industries [
1]. Rural homestays are defined as the transformation of idle rural farmhouses or factories into part of the tourist economy, providing tourists with accommodation, catering, and rural experiences [
2]. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a serious crisis for rural homestays [
3]. In particular, it has inflicted psychological damage on rural homestay operators, causing them to experience irritability, burnout, depression and other mental pressures. Damage to mental health is not conducive to sustainable development in the rural homestay industry. Therefore, it is important to explore the mental health problems of operators and how to recover the industry.
According to relevant research, mental fatigue is becoming a growing problem in our modern society, and it has a substantial impact on people’s performance and behavior [
4]. Mental fatigue is defined as a mental state caused by persistently demanding cognitive activities and is characterized by fatigue and a lack of energy [
5]. During the pandemic, individuals’ psychological distress deepened because of long-term exposure to negative news about COVID-19 [
6]. Compared to urban areas, fatigue is worse in most rural areas [
7]. Field research found that rural homestay operators suffered from varying degrees of psychological fatigue and rejected pandemic-related information, which led to negligent behavior due to burnout. Mental fatigue induces homestay operators to negatively perceive and construct events, relationships, and environments in work situations. This can occur through a consumption lens, reducing their motivation and negatively affecting business performance [
8]. Therefore, when rural homestay operators face resource loss, they experience a high level of fatigue [
9]. To counter the stress caused by mental fatigue, operators conserve resources by adjusting their business strategies, thereby affecting the performance of rural homestays.
Value co-creation theory proposes that enterprises gain a competitive advantage by co-creating value [
10]. When value co-creation is extended to the tourism industry, some thoughts emphasized by service-dominant logic are very consistent with the characteristics of the tourism experience [
11]. For example, “value is co-created by multiple participants”. Rural tourism is considered an ideal environment for value co-creation [
12]. In the case of China’s rural tourism, tourists, and the government are vital subjects of value co-creation, and they play important roles in operators’ psychological state and business behavior. The government is heavily involved in business development [
13] and provides an overall regulatory framework for tourism business operations by shaping its economic environment [
14]. Government support can influence the resilience and sustainability of small businesses [
15]. Moreover, the input of tourists’ willingness, knowledge, and experience allows homestays to provide differentiated products and services based on their individual needs. Through this, they can improve product quality, service efficiency, and customer satisfaction [
16,
17].
The mental health of rural homestay operators is a critical factor in promoting the recovery of the tourism industry following COVID-19. Moreover, government support and tourist participation are important for the value co-creation of rural homestays. However, several studies on rural tourism have promoted performance recovery using macroeconomic indicators, and few have focused on the combined effects of rural homestay operators, the government, and tourists. Based on the theory of value co-creation, this study analyzes the influencing mechanism of the performance recovery of rural homestays. Moreover, it also explores how tourists and the government adjust the performance level of rural homestays through various participation methods. Nanjing is famous in China’s rural homestay industry. Currently, there are more than 300 rural homestays in Nanjing City, and 227 are supervised by the Nanjing Smart Homestays Service platform. After COVID-19, more than 60% of rural homestays in Nanjing were adversely affected, thus weakening their performance; therefore, there is an urgent need to seek an effective recovery path. As a result, Nanjing of Jiangsu Province was considered as a case site in this study; we analyzed the problem of how the operators, tourists, and the government affect the performance and development of rural homestays. The purpose of this study is to explore the recovery path of the Chinese rural homestay industry. We try to provide practical inspiration for the development of rural homestays during the post-COVID-19 period, narrowing the gap between rural tourism and urban tourism.
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Research Design
This study employed the partial least squares structural equation model of SmartPLS 3.0 software (PLS-SEM) as a multivariate analysis technique to explore the moderating effects of government support and tourist participation on homestay performance. SPSS 26.0 was used for data entry and the frequency distribution of demographic profiles.
3.2. Sample
Influenced by China’s unique social culture and geographical environment, Chinese villages exhibit distinctive features and charm tourists from around the world. For instance, during the 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival, 24.3% of the tourists in Nanjing’s rural homestays were from outside the province and abroad. Unlike some Western countries, the development of rural homestays in China is readily affected by policies. Therefore, taking China as a case can enable better exploration of the roles of the three main bodies of government, tourists and operators, which aligns with the focus of this study. The development of rural homestays in China builds on the successful examples of foreign countries. In the post-COVID-19 period, China is the largest developing country, and the recovery of rural homestays in China holds important reference value for other developing nations.
According to data from the Nanjing Culture and Tourism Bureau, the number of tourists visiting Nanjing in the first quarter of 2023 ranked first in the province, and the annual tourism key performance indicator was completed in three months. During the May Day holiday of 2023, Nanjing became a popular tourist city in China. Nanjing is a tourist resort with rich and independent cultural resources. Homestay construction reflects the distribution characteristics of tourist attractions and natural resources. Simultaneously, the main body of Nanjing homestays is also very distinct, including humanistic feelings, ecological nature, and retro literature. After the end of the pandemic, Nanjing witnessed a strong recovery of rural homestays, with the number of rural homestays available during the May Day holiday increasing by more than 9.2 times year-on-year. Therefore, we selected rural homestays in Nanjing as the research subject to explore this industry’s performance recovery after the pandemic.
According to statistics, by May 2022, there were more than 300 rural homestays in Nanjing, 227 of which were supervised by the Nanjing Smart Homestay Service Platform. According to this information, we conducted research from 1 March to 27 March 2023, with the help of a team of four graduate students from the School of Economics and Management. The survey focused on 19 rural homestay villages located in the mid-south area of Nanjing, as shown in
Figure 2 and
Table 1. We used convenience sampling to interview rural homestay operators face to face, and finally collected 205 questionnaires. The process was not smooth. During the survey, the epidemic in China had not completely ended, and many rural homestays were temporarily closed for investigation. At the same time, some rural hostel operators had serious psychological anxiety, which made the process of investigation and interview difficult. Nonetheless, we managed to complete the survey successfully.
After removing invalid questionnaires, 201 valid questionnaires were obtained, with an effective response rate of 98.05%. We conducted an analysis to determine the representativeness of the 201 questionnaires. Firstly, during the sampling process, the case locations we selected were representative of the operational conditions of typical rural homestays in Nanjing in the post-COVID-19 period. Secondly, the characteristics of the farmers we surveyed were consistent with the basic characteristics of homestay operators reported by the statistics bureau. For example, these rural homestays are the use of local idle tourism resources, and the villagers participate in the reception of tourists. Therefore, despite having only 201 samples, they are highly representative. Thirdly, we employed SmartPLS, a data analysis software with a minimum sample requirement of 60. The 201 samples in this study meet the minimum requirements for software operation. Furthermore, the data analysis results demonstrate that the samples passed reliability and validity tests.
3.3. Variable Selection and Measurement
The questionnaire comprised two main parts. The first section examined the respondents’ demographic characteristics. The second section contained the measurement scale consisting of four modules: mental fatigue, government support, tourist participation, and the performance of homestays (see
Appendix A for the questionnaire).
The measurement items were based on previous studies. Based on a specific theoretical background, items were selected according to their specific performance. “Mental fatigue” incorporates the influence of “pandemic fatigue”; therefore, the scale developed by Cuadrado et al. was used as the basis for this assessment [
28]. In this study, the concept of epidemic fatigue was incorporated into mental fatigue for research. Therefore, based on Cuadrado’s research results, the scale of “mental fatigue” was developed in this study, including 4 questions. “Government support” was primarily based on the research scale developed by Chaminade et al. Chaminade measures the Thai government’s innovation policies [
42]. This study draws on some of his questions to compile the scale of “government support”, including 3 questions. “Tourist participation” was measured using Jiao’s scale [
52]. As it is challenging to obtain the objective performance of homestays, it becomes difficult to select performance indicators to illustrate their overall situation; thus, discriminant bias is prone to occur [
31]. Therefore, this study used Niehm and Frazier’s scale as a reference [
55,
56]. The scale of “Performance of rural homestay” was compiled using subjective indicators to measure performance, including 3 questions. As for the scale of the above researchers, this study modified the characteristics of rural homestays in China in the post-COVID-19 period and finally obtained a scale consisting of 13 items. The questionnaire was designed using a 5-point Likert scale, in which respondents were asked to rate items on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Further details are presented in
Table 2.
3.4. Sample Summary
According to the SPSS description and statistical analysis results, there were slightly more female rural homestay operators than male operators in Nanjing, most of whom were between 25 and 44 years old. This group is generally considered to face greater psychological pressure [
26], and suffered significantly from mental fatigue during the pandemic. While operators with junior college education accounted for the majority (40.3%) of the sample, most rural homestays were established within 10 years, accounting for 93.6%. These rural homestays are dominated by small and micro enterprises, which solve the problem of an idle rural labor force. However, small and micro enterprises are highly vulnerable to external shocks; therefore, several rural homestays struggled during the pandemic and urgently needed to be revived. Owing to the impact of COVID-19, the occupancy rate of rural homestays in 2022 was generally low (
Table 3).
5. Discussion
5.1. Theoretical Implications
First, this study found that the performance of rural homestays was significantly and negatively influenced by operators’ mental fatigue. This finding validates the core idea of resource conservation theory, which states that when individuals face external resource threats, mental fatigue can affect project success [
8]. Our results are consistent with previous academic research proving fatigue’s negative impacts on performance [
57]. By incorporating the concept of pandemic fatigue into mental fatigue, we found that mental fatigue has a significant impact on the rural homestay industry. It is an important variable for the performance recovery of rural homestays in the post-COVID-19 period. This investigation found that after COVID-19, rural homestay operators’ psychological fatigue was no longer just the fatigue of pursuing high performance and high recognition of their homestays. It also increased the negative emotions brought about by the long-term epidemic, resulting in pain, and negatively impacted emotions, cognition, and behavior. Operators were reluctant to talk to people about the outbreak or accept the frenzied media coverage of the crisis. Therefore, when the rural homestay operators’ mental health is significantly compromised, it inevitably negatively impacts their business performance. Adjusting the operators’ mental fatigue is conducive to the sustainable development of the rural homestay industry and rural tourism culture [
58].
Second, we found that government support has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between operators’ mental fatigue and the performance of rural homestays; however, it can directly and effectively affect the performance of rural homestays. This conclusion reveals that the government is an important participant in the rural tourism industry according to the value co-creation theory [
24]. This is consistent with the conclusions of previous studies that government support has a direct impact on firm performance [
59]. However, based on the situation in China, the government often guides macroeconomic policies and creates a fair market environment for rural homestays by promulgating and implementing relevant support and talent introduction policies. Therefore, the role of government support may not be directly reflected at the micro level in operators’ mental health.
Furthermore, this study found that in the co-creation of tourist value, tourist participation can significantly moderate the negative impact of mental fatigue on the performance of rural homestay operators. This finding supports the conclusions of previous studies, and further validates the importance of tourist participation in rural operators’ mental health and business performance [
50]. Tourism is characterized by high-contact services, and tourists play an important role in the co-creation of tourism services. Tourists can improve the performance of rural homestay operators by sharing information about their needs and providing them with ideas for new operations and services. When tourists experience the characteristics and customs of rural homestays, they spend a lot of time communicating with the operators. This interaction not only alleviates the tourism fatigue of tourists, but also effectively reduces the anxiety of operators, thereby decreasing the mental fatigue of operators.
5.2. Practical Implications
First, the mental fatigue of rural homestay operators negatively impacts the performance of rural homestay operations. During the field investigation, we found that most rural homestay operators were majorly troubled by the pandemic and experienced varying degrees of fatigue. They were eager for rural homestays to recover; however, the lingering effects of COVID-19 have made recovery difficult. The conflict between demand and reality leads to mental pain and burnout among rural homestay operators and deepens their mental fatigue. It is not conducive to the sustainable development of rural homestays. Therefore, operators should pay attention not only to the adjustment of their own mental fatigue, but also to the sustainable development of individual mental health. For example, operators can adjust their own emotional state and improve the service level and professional skills of rural homestays, digital innovation, and other perspectives to alleviate mental fatigue for a long time.
Second, our research found that in the context of China, government support has no significant effect on operators’ mental fatigue. However, the government, as a powerful body, can directly and effectively affect rural homestay performance. This finding reveals the role of government support in performance recovery during the post-COVID-19 period. Therefore, from the perspective of the government, on the premise of continuing to use macroeconomic policies to promote performance recovery, more attention can be paid to the mental health of operators. More humanized care measures rather than forced administrative means can be taken to achieve psychological and economic recovery.
Third, tourist participation in the value co-creation of rural homestays can moderate the negative effects of operators’ mental fatigue and play an important role in the recovery of rural homestays. Therefore, from the perspective of tourists, they can exert their subjective initiative through interactions with operators and governments. Based on their own experiences with rural homestays, tourists can propose innovative suggestions for improving rural homestay services and facilities for operators. Tourist participation in the value co-creation of rural homestays is sufficient to care for the mental health of operators. This is conducive to jointly promote the recovery of rural homestay performance in the post-COVID-19 period.
6. Conclusions
Based on the theory of value co-creation, this study conducted interviews and questionnaires with 201 operators of rural homestays in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, employed a structural equation model to explore the recovery path of rural homestay performance, and analyzed how the government and tourists participate in this performance recovery. Our research results indicate that the mental fatigue of operators has a significant negative impact and hinders the performance recovery of rural homestays in the post-COVID-19 period. This conclusion verifies the validity of hypothesis 1, that is, the operators’ mental fatigue can affect the performance of rural homestays, and we find that the impact is negative. In this process, government support has a direct and effective impact on rural homestay performance recovery. This conclusion verifies that hypothesis 2 is not valid, that is, government support cannot regulate the relationship between operators’ mental fatigue and the performance of rural homestays. Moreover, tourist participation can influence the mental fatigue and performance of rural homestay operators, thereby significantly moderating the relationship between operators’ mental fatigue and rural homestay performance. This conclusion verifies hypothesis 3 and finds that the moderating effect of tourist participation is positive. Therefore, through value co-creation among rural homestay operators, the government, and tourists, the mental fatigue of operators can be effectively alleviated and the business performance of rural homestays be restored. Before this study, there were also foreign scholars who carried out relevant research on rural tourism and rural homestays in China [
60,
61]. We learned from their research experience and combined it with the actual situation, hoping that the research results can provide a theoretical basis for the recovery of the rural homestay industry and promote the sustainable development of the industry and tourism.
Our study has some limitations that need to be addressed. First, although the samples we collected were representative, as the survey was conducted within a limited time and location, not all rural homestays in Nanjing were included within its scope. Therefore, the next step is to compare different types of rural homestay operators. We will expand the scope of the sample, while tracking the existing sample. Second, the research method is relatively simple. In future, we can consider collecting long-term panel data through interviews, ethnography, and follow-up surveys, for a comparative analysis.