Abstract:Existing studies on heritage tourism are mostly limited to a single perspective of heritage sites or tourist destinations, with insufficient exploration of tourists' cognition, emotional resonance, and behavioral interaction. Based on the 'cognition-affect-behavior' theoretical framework, this study takes Kaiping Diaolou and Villages as an empirical case to analyze tourists' cognitive structure, emotional preferences, and spatial behavioral characteristics. The results show that tourists' cognitive structure presents a 'core-transition-periphery' characteristic. Their overall affection is predominantly positive, while a cognitive tension exists between their recognition of cultural value and dissatisfaction with tourism services. The spatial distribution of tourists' points of interest forms a 'one core, multiple nodes' pattern, and their behavioral activities are constrained by factors such as the distribution of Diaolou and road networks. This study, by integrating the internal logic of tourists' perception of 'cognitive stratification-emotional tension-behavioral orientation', puts forward corresponding landscape optimization strategies: in terms of cognition, it connects the stories of the overseas Chinese to construct a cognitive system; in terms of affect, it anchors tourists' emotional preferences to create immersive experiences; in terms of behavior, it optimizes the spatial governance to guide recreational activities.
