Page 52 - JCAU-7-1

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Exploring tourist perceptions of calligraphic

landscapes: Insights from social media text
analysis

1
Baifang Xiao 1,2 , Shureen Faris Abdul Shukor * , and
Mohd Sallehuddin Mat Noor 1
1 Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra
Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
2 Department of Primary Education, Faculty of Educational Science, Yulin Normal University, Yulin,
Guangxi, China

Abstract
Calligraphic landscapes, as distinctive cultural symbols and landscapes with Chinese
characteristics, are widely used in urban design, placemaking, and tourism promotion. In
cultural heritage tourism, tourists’ perceptions of the symbolic meanings of landscapes
significantly influence their travel experiences. This study primarily utilizes social media text
analysis to explore the perceptual characteristics and symbolic meanings of calligraphic
*Corresponding author: landscapes in different touristic contexts. Using Python tools, user-generated content
Shureen Faris Abdul Shukor was extracted from the Xiaohongshu app and analyzed with ROST CM6, VOSviewer, and
(shureen@upm.edu.my) NVivo 20 to conduct systematic quantitative and qualitative analyses, including content
Citation: Xiao, B., Shukor, S.F.A., analysis, semantic network analysis, and co-occurrence clustering. The findings indicate
Noor, M.S.M. (2025). Exploring that cultural exchanges on social media significantly enhance public perception of the
tourist perceptions of calligraphic
landscapes: Insights from social symbolic meanings of touristic spaces. As online check-in behavior becomes increasingly
media text analysis. Journal of popular, calligraphic landscapes have gained new esthetic-symbolic meanings among
Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, young tourists, becoming part of fashion culture and reflecting the digitalization of a
7(1): 3825.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.3825 sense of place. In addition, user-generated content reveals that tourists’ perceptions of
calligraphic landscapes are intricately linked to place recognition, cultural symbolism,
Received: June 3, 2024 calligraphic appreciation, heritage value, and esthetic experiences. As a significant
Revised: August 25, 2024 cultural symbol, calligraphic landscapes are frequently encountered during travel, with
Accepted: September 5, 2024 their symbolic meanings varying according to the surrounding environment, thereby
influencing tourists’ preferences in diverse settings. Furthermore, this study proposes
Published online: November 6,
2024 several innovative strategies for designing calligraphic landscapes. This research not
only validates the feasibility of web text analysis for exploring the symbolic meanings
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). of cultural landscapes but also enhances theoretical perspectives on how symbolic
This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the landscapes shape tourists’ psychological and behavioral responses.
Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all Keywords: Cultural landscape; Calligraphy; Symbolic landscape; Symbolic meaning;
non-commercial use, distribution, User-generated content
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with 1. Introduction
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional The relationship between tourism and landscape has been extensively researched.
affiliations. Landscapes play a pivotal role in tourism planning and marketing, serving as visual

Volume 7 Issue 1 (2025) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.3825