ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Research on the Construction of City Walk Tourism Routes from the Perspective of Cultural Heritage Conservation: A Case Study of Beiyuanmen Historic and Cultural District in Xi'an

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 18 | TOURISM

Speaker

Mr Qihang Cheng (Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology)

Description

The immersive tourism model represented by City Walk is reshaping the spatial narrative logic of historic districts. While this pedestrian-centric spatial practice enhances visitors' deep perception of historical layering in urban spaces, it also risks homogenizing commercial formats and fragmenting the historical-cultural environment. In high-density, multi-ethnic historic districts like Xi'an's Beiyuanmen, the spatial organization of tourism routes faces multifaceted contradictions: the negative correlation between cultural heritage display intensity and conservation status, spatial conflicts between tourists and residents' daily lives, and the misalignment of linear tourism routes with the district's "courtyard-alley-market" spatial morphology. Addressing these challenges necessitates a City Walk tourism route system that balances cultural heritage conservation with tourism development. Taking Beiyuanmen as a case study, this research employs space syntax analysis to deconstruct spatial morphological characteristics, identifies cultural heritage perception gaps through kernel density hotspot detection of heritage distribution and geotagged social media data, and constructs a supply-demand-balanced cultural heritage display route by integrating GIS-based spatial accessibility simulations with tourist behavior preference mining via social media semantic analysis. Findings reveal that City Walk routes in historic districts must prioritize balancing heritage display with vulnerability protection to establish a resilient spatial foundation for cultural conservation. By organizing a main cultural tourism route alongside community-integrated micro-circulation paths rooted in the "courtyard-alley-market" spatial hierarchy, this study proposes a dual-loop City Walk route system. The research ultimately develops a heritage conservation-oriented route construction methodology, forming a new paradigm that harmonizes "heritage conservation, tourist behavior matching, and urban form adaptation." This framework aims to provide replicable strategies for revitalizing cultural heritage in historic districts, enhance tourists' recognition of heritage values, and promote sustainable cultural preservation.