Abstract
The tourism resources of agricultural heritage systems (AHS) are abundant mainly owing to their distinct landscape, farming technology, agro-biodiversity, culture and knowledge of traditional agro-system formed during long-term human-nature interactions. However, AHS tourism differs from mass tourism due to these distinct features, especially its high fragility, sensitivity, and comprehensiveness. Therefore, it is critical that such features be considered during tourism resource development and AHS sites management. Tourism resource evaluation and suitable evaluation indices are the premise of sustainable tourism development and effective site protection. Accordingly, the present study aimed to evaluate the temporal and spatial suitability of AHS tourism resources, such as their seasonality and remoteness or distribution. A three-dimensional evaluation framework was developed that considered resource elements values, spatial suitability, and temporal suitability as the dimension level. Seven criterion levels, historical culture value, art value, scientific research value, natural environment, traffic accessibility, resources scale potential and tourist comfort composed the criterion levels, which were further expressed by 15 indexes. Meanwhile, the weights of criterion levels and indexes, in the evaluation framework, were determined using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Entropy Weight Method (EWM), and the development suitability was analyzed using GIS and Multi-criteria Evaluation (MCE). Finally, the evaluation framework was applied to Qingyuan County in Zhejiang Province, location of the Qingyuan Mushroom Cultural System in Zhejiang Province which was certificated as one of the China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS) sites in 2014. The evaluation results showed that the development suitability of AHS tourism resources in the county was "high in the center and low around the edges". In the central Qingyuan, the towns of Songyuan, Wudabao, Sishan, Xianliang, and Baishanzu were greatest in evaluation scores, which indicated their relatively greater development potential. In southern Quingyuan, the natural tourism resources in the towns of Annan, Jushui, Lingtou, and Longxi were favorable; however, the overall tourism development suitability of the towns was greatly reduced by their poor accessibility. In eastern Qingyuan, the tourism development suitabilities of Zuoxi, Guantang, and Jianggen were limited by the paucity of tourism resources. In terms of temporal distribution, late spring (April and May) and autumn (October) were the most favorable seasons for tourism. The case study confirmed that the evaluation system could be applied to AHS sites. According to the evaluation results, it is possible that suitability of tourism resource development of towns in southern and eastern Qingyaun, which are either difficult to access or insufficient in tourism resources, could be enhanced if local governments intensified the construction of transportation infrastructure and combined agricultural heritage and dispersed tourism resources to promote regional tourism networking and increase the acceptable travel time of tourists. From the perspective of development suitability, the evaluation framework of agricultural heritage tourism resources provides both theoretical support and methodological guidance for the evaluation and development of AHS sites.
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