Tourists’ perception of agricultural cultural experience at Wuyistar Chinese tea garden: An empirical analysis based on 217 questionnaires

¹ School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Jalan Universiti, Gelugor, George Town 11700, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
² Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai Long, Taipa, Macau, 999078, China
³ School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Wuyi University, No. 358 Baihua Road, Wuyishan 354300, China

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

This study focuses on Wuyistar Chinese Tea Garden to explore tourists’ cognition, recognition, and behavioral intentions toward tea garden cultural elements, aiming to provide insights for optimizing cultural experiences in agricultural tourism settings. On-site surveys and contactless questionnaire surveys were conducted, with 217 valid samples collected. The research targeted tourists visiting the tea garden, investigating their demographic characteristics, ability to identify cultural elements (e.g., traditional tea-making tools, cultural allusions), and related behavioral tendencies. The core customer group comprises middle-aged and elderly tourists (46–60 years old), accounting for 41.5% of respondents. This group demonstrated significantly higher recognition of traditional tea-making tools compared to younger visitors. However, first-time visitors showed low understanding of cultural allusions, with a mean score of 2.9±1.1. A notable gap was identified: tourists performed well in recognizing specific tea-making tools but struggled with broader cultural concepts. The findings highlight the need to enhance tourists’ comprehension of tea garden cultural connotations beyond tangible elements. Strategies such as storytelling and reward mechanisms are proposed to bridge the cognitive gap, contributing to more effective design of cultural experiences in agricultural tourism tea gardens.