**1. Introduction**

Energy is the basis for human survival and development and an essential resource for enhancing socioeconomic development. With the decline in global energy reserves, the issues of energy production and consumption have become a global concern. Although humans use science and technology to create a high quality of life, they also cause increasingly serious environmental pollution [1]. Energy and tourism are closely related; energy not only becomes an attraction but also a limitation to the tourism industry, where there is an increasing trend of energy consumption in tourism catering, accommodation, and transport [2]. There needs to be a coordinated effort between residents and tourists to effectively reduce the consumption of energy and emissions from tourism activities and protect the tourism landscape and ecological environment.

Energy literacy is an important concept related to the multifaceted phenomenon of energy consumption, and it has gained attention in many related fields and applications [3]. This concept can be explained as a person who is aware of the energy consumption of the appliances in their home, how to take the necessary measures to save energy, and the relationship between energy use and climate change [1–4]. Previous energy studies have focused on the concept of energy literacy [5,6], the relationship between energy knowledge, literacy and behavior, energy literacy scales, and factors that influence energy literacy [6,7];

**Citation:** Wu, S.; Li, Y.; Fang, C.; Ju, P. Energy Literacy of Residents and Sustainable Tourism Interaction in Ethnic Tourism: A Study of the Longji Terraces in Guilin, China. *Energies* **2023**, *16*, 259. https:// doi.org/10.3390/en16010259

Academic Editors: Junpeng Zhu and Xinlong Xu

Received: 30 October 2022 Revised: 12 December 2022 Accepted: 21 December 2022 Published: 26 December 2022

**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

however, few studies have discussed the relationship between energy and other social developments from a cross-disciplinary perspective. It is not surprising that the energy literacy of residents in ethnic tourist destinations remains unclear, as well as how energy literacy affects the development of tourist destinations.

Currently, tourism is an integrated industry in modern society that drives the flow and consumption of large numbers of tourists and logistics, and the energy behavior of its stakeholders is crucial for environmental sustainability [2]. Most of the energyrelated tourism studies have discussed the benefits [8,9] and the constraints [10,11] that energy poses to tourism development, as well as the energy consumption and behavior in tourism [12,13]. Yet the relationship between tourism development and the energy literacy of residents remains unclear, particularly on how the energy literacy of ethnic village residents in remote areas has changed as a result of tourism development. Previous research on ethnic village tourism has mainly focused on the preservation of ethnic and cultural heritage [14], the participation of community residents in tourism [15], and the interaction between host and guest [16], with less attention paid to the energy environment of ethnic tourism destination. However, understanding how ethnic areas can escape poverty and gain knowledge of development for local economic and environmental sustainability are important for harmonious social development. Thus, this study focused on the Ping'an Zhuang Village in the Longji Terraces Scenic Area as an ethnic tourism site to explore the impact of the energy literacy of ethnic residents on sustainable tourism development by conducting field surveys and in-depth interviews and using qualitative research methods. Two questions answered in this study are as follows: How has tourism development brought about changes in residents' energy literacy? How does a change in energy literacy affect the sustainable development of local tourism? The results of this study can increase the understanding of the relationship between energy literacy and tourism development from a transdisciplinary perspective, enrich empirical research on energy literacy from the perspective of ethnic residents, and promote energy conservation and sustainable tourism development in ethnic areas.
