Sustainable Development and Tourists' Satisfaction in Historical Districts: Influencing Factors and Features

Abstract

Determining how to achieve sustainable development and protection of historical districts is a worthwhile research topic. As a vital way to update urban space, tourism development in historical districts is an effective tool for redistributing urban functions and increasing urban vitality. This paper takes the Insa-dong in South Korea as a case study for the evaluation of tourist satisfaction in historical districts, based on 550 questionnaires. The questionnaire contains 33 evaluation indicators, and the subjects' subjective judgment and satisfaction with Insa-dong are measured in the form of the Likert scale. Using SPSS to analyze tourists' satisfaction with historical districts, this studyfinds that: (1) The tourist satisfaction evaluation of Insa-dong includes six dimensions in total: "Embodiment of historical elements", "The blend of tradition and modernity", "Industry distribution and type", "Consumer demand", " Street layout and function" and "Landscaping". (2) "The blend of tradition and modernity" has the highest weight while "Industry distribution and type" has the lowest one in the analysis of factors influencing overall satisfaction. (3) The analysis of the common factor weights and the common factor satisfaction levels shows that "The blend of tradition and modernity" and "Street layout and function" are the parts that need to be improved. "Consumer demand" also has a lot of room for promotion. The research results will be beneficial for enhancing the tourist experiences of historical districts and they provide a theoretical basis and practical experience reference for effective protection and sustainable development of historical districts.