INFLUENCING FACTORS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CARRYING CAPACITY OF SCENIC SPOTS AND RISK AVOIDANCE IN RURAL CULTURAL TOURISM

Recent years has seen an upsurge of rural cultural tourism in China. Developing rural cultural tourism can enhance the influence of rural culture and promote the inheritance of traditional culture. But scenic spots only have a limited capacity for human activities. Thus, this paper examines the influencing factors of the Environmental carrying capacity (ECC) of scenic spots in rural cultural tourism and looks for ways to avoid ECC risks. The main factors affecting ECC were quantified with 21 indicators in 5 dimensions: ecological environment, resource and space, economic environment, tourist psychology, and resident psychology. The results show that the ECC of rural scenic spots is significantly affected by atmospheric environment, space of scenic spot, layout rationality of scenic spot, accommodation capacity, service income of cultural tourism, management level of administrators, attitude of village committee, and publicity of cultural tourism. On this basis, several ways were proposed to avoid ECC risks, and help policymakers formulate pertinent policies.