基于VEP实验法的江南水乡古镇游客感知意象研究——以上海枫泾古镇为例

江南水乡古镇已成为城市居民和游客回归自然、追忆乡愁的休闲旅游新标的。为获取游客对此类旅游目的地客观、真实的感知,避免游客自述性反馈的主观干扰,广泛借助格式塔心理学、凝视理论、符号学等相关理论,采用游客受雇拍摄法——邀请游客在游历过程中拍摄一系列照片,通过对照片编码和拍摄点的分析,解构游客凝视的元素、结构和空间流动,归纳游客对江南水乡古镇的感知意象特征。结果表明,游客对江南水乡古镇的感知意象呈现具有原真属性、创意属性以及功能属性的三维耦合结构。其中,最具传统江南文化表征的原真属性占据感知意象的主导,代表新式文化与传统文化融合的创意属性具有提升和开发的潜力,而带有旅游功能属性的感知意象相对最弱。从空间角度看,随着旅游活动的不断展开与深入,游客感知意象流动易在古镇入口、特色通道与景观带、园林标志物处高度聚焦、聚集。

Using VEP Method to Understand Tourists' Perception on Ancient Water Towns in Southern Yangtze River: A Case Study of Shanghai Fengjing Ancient Town

Ancient water towns in Southern Yangtze River have become new weekend destinations for people to reconnect with nature and for nostalgia purpose.When designing and improving the product and service,it is crucial to understand how the tourists observe ancient towns and sort out the key attractions of the target market.Although ancient water towns have acquired increasing focus by a group of domestic academicians since last decades,empirical investigation of tourist experience in ancient towns from tourists' perception are still limited.In order to gain more insights into tourists' real experience and perception of ancient towns and avoiding the subjective influence from previous research by using self-report data,this study has adopted a potential of visual data analysis technique,generally known as visitor-employed photography (VEP),based on the tourists' gaze and related theories in cognitive psychology.As an exploratory attempt,this paper based on participant observations of 60 tourists in Fengjing Ancient Town of Shanghai,China.Tourists were given cameras and maps,during their visiting they were asked to take 5 pictures of what they appreciate about this area and record each node the captures being taken on the given map,and used Nvivo qualitative analysis,content analysis and spatial analysis methods to explore the construction of tourists' perception.On the basis of previous tourism and tourism heritage image research,this paper propose that the tourism image of ancient water towns is a three-dimension structure which coupling authentic attribute,creative attribute and functional attribute.What is more,the results also indicate that the original living elements which represent the authentic attribute of tourists' image on ancient water town contributed the highest level of concentration according to the pictures,following by the creative attribute which shows a mixture of present and past.Contrastly,the contribution of functional attribute is very limited.On the spatial perspective,findings suggest several key dominating perceptions on the entrance,typical path and gardens.Through this case,the paper also examined the appropriateness of VEP as a tool for tourism research.As a means of visually representing participants' views,VEP can be a powerful data collection and analysis tool,making a significant addition to reveal tourists' real experience and perception.This paper will assist businesses by providing important information about customer perceptions of ancient towns.