A Review of the Current State of Rural Tourism in the Age of Social

Media and Exploration of Optimization Paths: A Case Study of

Jizhou District, Tianjin

Zishan Liu

School of Culture and Communication, Institute of Disaster Prevention, 065201 Hebei, China

Keywords: Smart Farm, Rural Tourism, Rural Revitalization.

Abstract: With the acceleration of urbanization and city rhythm, it makes most people feel stressed and exhausted. More

and more people choose to return to the countryside to experience the natural landscape, traditional farming

culture, local flavor and slow-paced lifestyle, driving the demand for rural tourism The research theme focuses

on the current situation of rural tourism in Jizhou District, Tianjin, using the rural tourism videos in social

media in Jizhou District, Tianjin, as a specific object of investigation. In terms of research methodology,

various research methods such as PEST analysis and Textual Analysis were used to deeply analyze the

development status, basic conditions and social media marketing status of rural tourism in Jizhou District.

The results of the study show that rural tourism in Jizhou District has made certain achievements, but there

are some shortcomings in the promotion of social media and its related areas. To achieve sustainable

development, it is necessary to pay attention to the power of social media and hit its selling points and

characteristics, and this study mainly affects the development strategy and path selection of rural tourism.

1 INTRODUCTION

Jizhou District has responded positively to the call for

the Full text of the report to the 20th National

Congress of the Communist Party of China to

“Comprehensively Promote the Revitalization of the

Countryside” and has made remarkable progress in

the four areas of politics, economy, society, and

technology. Politically, five villages in Jizhou District

were successfully selected to the national list of key

villages for rural tourism, showing the positive results

of rural revitalization. Economically, the projected

GDP growth is solid, and tourism reception and

comprehensive income have risen sharply, showing

the strong pulling effect of rural tourism on the

economy. Socially, the strategy of cultural and

tourism integration has been deepened, with

innovative projects broadening the breadth and depth

of cultural tourism, while a number of sporting events

and cultural festivals have been successfully

organized, greatly enhancing the region's visibility

and attractiveness. Technologically, Jizhou District

has actively embraced digital services and built a

smart tourism public service platform to enhance the

exposure and attractiveness of rural tourism, while

increasing investment in infrastructure to

significantly improve the accessibility and comfort of

rural tourism.

This study focuses on the development status and

challenges of rural tourism in Jizhou District, Tianjin

in the era of social media, which is of great

significance in promoting the transformation and

upgrading of the rural tourism industry in Jizhou

District, Tianjin, enhancing the attractiveness and

competitiveness of rural tourism, and realizing

sustainable development. It also provides favorable

ideas and methods for solving farmers' problems and

promoting rural revitalization strategy. This study

focuses on the current situation of rural tourism in

Jizhou District, Tianjin, specifically in terms of the

current situation, basic conditions, social media

publicity status and user satisfaction. In this process,

the literature analysis method was used to find and

read relevant information and literature, and the

advantage of this method is that it can well analyze

the status quo and effective strategies of rural tourism,

which provides a strong support for the smooth

progress of the research. At the same time, the PEST

analysis method was combined to grasp the external

environment from the four aspects of politics,

economy, society and technology in a macro way, and

to grasp the development prospect as a whole;

Liu, Z.

A Review of the Current State of Rural Tourism in the Age of Social Media and Exploration of Optimization Paths: A Case Study of Jizhou District, Tianjin.

DOI: 10.5220/0014123600004942

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management (APMM 2025), pages 447-453

ISBN: 978-989-758-791-7

447

moreover, the text analysis method was used to

collect video comments on social media platforms

about the rural tourism in Jizhou District of Tianjin

City, so as to dig deeper into the direct feedback of

tourists, which is conducive to the conduct of the

study. The ultimate research goal of this study is to

promote the prosperous development of rural tourism

industry in Jizhou District, Tianjin, and then lead the

economic prosperity of the countryside and its

surrounding areas. In order to reach this goal, an in-

depth investigation and analysis is carried out to put

forward effective solution strategies and suggestions.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Through China Knowledge Network database,

Google Scholar and other academic platforms, search

for “rural tourism”, “social media”, “leisure farm”

and other keywords to search, collect and review the

rural tourism and rural lodging related literature and

materials, and analyze the latest theoretical research

at home and abroad to summarize some reference

points and conclusions. Rural lodging related

literature, and the latest theoretical research at home

and abroad to carry out an in-depth understanding of

the analysis, so as to summarize some of the reference

significance of the research point of view and

conclusions.

Cawley and Gillmor, in their article 'Integrated

Rural Tourism: Concepts and Practice', provide an in-

depth study of the concept and practice of integrated

rural tourism. They make important contributions to

the integration of rural tourism resources, stakeholder

roles, and the promotion of the effectiveness of rural

tourism as a rural development strategy. However, the

article does not cover much in terms of the current

situation, challenges and solutions of rural tourism for

specific geographic areas. In addition, although the

article emphasizes the importance of network

cooperation and embedded development to achieve

sustainability of rural tourism. This article will start

from the current situation of rural tourism in Jizhou

District of Tianjin, analyze in-depth the challenges it

faces, and explore how to supplement the existing

research gaps by means of resource integration and

network cooperation, so as to provide practical

guidance for realizing the sustainable development of

rural tourism in this area (Cawley & Gillmor, 2008).

Yeajin Joo, Hwayoon Seok, and Yoonjae Nam in

the article The Moderating Effect of Social Media Use

on Sustainable Rural Tourism: A Theory of Planned

Behavior Model. The article examines the important

factors affecting the potential behavior of rural

tourism tourists and the impact of social media use on

rural tourism, and contributes to the analysis of the

behavioral decision-making process of rural tourism

tourists using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)

model. However, the article does not cover much

about the specific strategies for the sustainable

development of rural tourism and the mechanism of

social media's role in rural tourism. This paper will

start from the strategy of sustainable development of

rural tourism and the specific mechanism of social

media in promoting the development of rural tourism

to conduct in-depth research to supplement the

existing research gaps (Joo et al., 2020).

Laxmita et al. in the article Sustainable Rural

Tourism Development in the Era of Social Media:

Shape Identities and Discourse in Digital Settings

examines how sustainable rural tourism development

in the The article 'Sustainable rural tourism

development in the era of social media: shape

identities and discourse in digital settings' examines

how sustainable rural tourism development in the era

of social media shapes identities and discourse in

digital settings, and contributes to this study in terms

of exploring the impact of social media and digital

settings on rural tourism development. However, the

article does not cover much on the impact of social

media use on the specific behavioral decision-making

process of rural tourism tourists. This paper will

explore how sustainable rural tourism can be

promoted in the context of social media and digital

environments, complementing existing research gaps

and providing useful insights for rural tourism

destination marketers and the industry as a whole

(Laxmita et al., 2021).

In Development Paths and Strategies of

Literature and Tourism Integration in the Age of

Social Media to Help Rural Revitalization in

Xinjiang, Hang Jie examines how the integration of

literature and tourism in the age of social media can

promote rural revitalization in Xinjiang. He analyzes

the characteristics and roles of culture and tourism

integration and describes the current development

status. However, the problems in communication

channels, network facilities construction,

professional talents and other aspects are not covered

much, and the content study is not comprehensive

enough. This paper will start from these aspects and

conduct in-depth research to supplement the existing

research gaps (Hang, 2024).

Huang Zhaoye in the Ctrip Jiangxi Holiday Farm

rural tourism marketing strategy optimisation

research in this article studied the differences

between domestic and foreign rural tourism and rural

lodging, for the high-end rural lodging - Ctrip Jiangxi

APMM 2025 - International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management

448

Holiday Farm marketing the status quo analysis, in

the tourism accommodation market has contributed to

this study, but in the ordinary townships Exploring

the content of the analysis is not much involved, this

paper will start from the ordinary countryside aspect,

the current situation of the farm research, to

supplement the existing research gaps (Huang, 2023).

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

PEST analysis is a method to review the external

macro-environment, which mainly involves the four

aspects of Politics, Economics, Society and

Technology, and is also used as the basis for strategic

decision-making. Its advantage is that PEST can

stand in the macro perspective of a comprehensive

and systematic analysis of the external environment,

in a variety of perspectives, from the change of the

factors on the study of the development potential of

things, the overall grasp of the development

prospects. It is especially suitable for the

development and the field where the research is not

comprehensive and thorough. The disadvantage is

that: the changing factors are large, and there are

many factors to be considered for decision-making.

The method of Textual Analysis is to analyse the

contents of web travelogues and reviews and draw the

corresponding conclusions. Given the openness,

diversity and freedom of the website, tourists are able

to express their own travelling experience and

experience etc. genuinely. In this paper, we collect

videos of rural tourism in Jizhou District of Tianjin

through descent collector, Jisooker, and Dadoduo

Shake data website, and analyse them with the help

of various functions of micro-word cloud software,

which is mainly involved in data pre-processing,

word division data processing, word frequency data

analysis, sentiment analysis, etc., and finally obtain

the image perception of tourists on rural tourism in

Jizhou District.

4 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

FOR RURAL TOURISM IN

JIZHOU DISTRICT

Social media are tools and platforms that people use

to share opinions, insights, experiences and views

with each other, which at this stage mainly include

apps such as Jitterbug, Weibo, WeChat, blogs,

Xiaohongshu, etc. These platforms allow users to

spontaneously create, share and disseminate

information, forming a huge social network. Utilising

the interactive convenience provided by social media,

companies and brands can also receive real-time

feedback and suggestions from consumers and fans

about their attitudes and opinions on specific products

or brands (Zhuang, 2023).

4.1 Textual Analysis

In this study, more than 100 videos related to Tianjin

Jizhou District on popular social media platforms

such as Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, and Tik Tok were

collected, and the comment data underneath these

videos were deeply mined by using crawler

technology, descent collector, set searchers and

manual statistics. After a strict data cleaning process,

we successfully screened out the comment

information with high relevance and validity,

totalling close to more than 300. The comments are

subjected to lexicographic processing, after removing

deactivated words and removing words for word

frequency statistics as in Fig. 1 and making word

cloud map as in Fig. 2.

Figure. 1: Top 15 keywords in terms of word frequency.

(Picture credit: Original)

Figure. 2: Keyword word cloud map. (Picture credit:

Original)

A Review of the Current State of Rural Tourism in the Age of Social Media and Exploration of Optimization Paths: A Case Study of Jizhou

District, Tianjin

449

An in-depth analysis of the top fifteen keywords in

the word frequency of social media video comments

in Jizhou District, Tianjin, clearly shows the

multifaceted interests and concerns of tourists and

social media users in Jizhou District. People attach

great importance to the four aspects of eating, drinking

and playing in rural tourism.

In terms of natural landscapes, visitors showed

great interest in the winter skiing activities in the

Jizhou District, the natural landscape of the Banshan

Scenic Area, the autumn foliage viewing and the

overall natural scenery. In terms of humanistic

landscapes, people were very interested in the cultural

heritage and folklore of the Jizhou District, with the

Dule Temple being very popular. In terms of tourism

activities, tourists were very concerned about the

overall tourism planning, accessibility,

accommodation, as well as recreational facilities and

amusement programmes.

4.2 Sentiment Analysis

This study covers the comments under social media

videos in Jizhou District, Tianjin, and through the

division of emotional tendencies, we obtained 159

positive emotional comments accounting for 49.69%,

56 negative emotional comments accounting for

17.5%, and 105 neutral comments accounting for

32.81%. This data provides a direct feedback about

the tourist experience in the Jiju district. As shown in

Figure 3 Distribution of Sentiment Values vs.

Number.

Figure 3: Distribution of Sentiment Values and Quantities. (Picture credit: Original)

Positive comments accounted for a larger

proportion of the comments. These comments express

positive sentiments such as appreciation of the beauty

of the Jizhou district, satisfaction with the tourist

experience, and fondness for the local culture.

Negative comments, although relatively few in

number, are equally noteworthy. These comments

relate to complaints about inconvenient transport,

poor service attitudes, and poorly maintained

attractions. There is still room for improvement in the

development of tourism services and facilities in the

Thistle District. This includes both the construction

of transport infrastructure such as roads, bridges, car

parks, etc. used to improve the accessibility of visitors

to the countryside and scenic spots. It also includes

the construction of living infrastructure such as public

toilets and resting pavilions to provide a more

comfortable environment for tourists. Through

investment and planning, the completeness of the

infrastructure is ensured, and the overall

attractiveness of rural tourism is improved (Song,

2025).

5 PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL

MEDIA VIDEOS FOR RURAL

TOURISM IN JIZHOU

DISTRICT

5.1 Serious Homogenisation

The homogenisation of rural tourism marketing

content on new media platforms is becoming

increasingly significant, and has become an important

obstacle to rural development. Agricultural

enterprises at all levels tend to imitate successful

cases, resulting in a large number of promotional

materials with similar styles and serious

homogenisation on online marketing platforms,

which not only diminishes the uniqueness and

freshness of the information, but also makes it

difficult to stimulate the interest and purchase desire

of potential consumers (Ye & Ping, 2024).

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450

Famous sites such as Panshan Scenic Resort and

Dule Temple are often featured as the main content in

videos about Jizhou District, but the angles and ways

of displaying them often lack novelty. For example, a

large number of videos focus on the magnificent

scenery of Banshan, but the shooting angles, camera

use and narration are all similar, making it difficult

for viewers to distinguish the characteristics of

different videos. At the same time, the narrative is

limited by thinking, most of the videos are in

accordance with the ‘introduction + display +

summary’ or ‘background introduction + event

development + results presentation’ fixed mode to

carry out the narrative. This monotonous narrative

structure makes the video lack of ups and downs and

changes in the plot, and it is difficult to attract the

audience's attention.

In the videos popularising the history and culture

of the Jizhou district, only some basic background

information is briefly introduced, without digging

deeper into the stories and connotations behind them.

This shallow presentation makes the historical and

cultural content seem monotonous and boring,

lacking depth and attraction. When introducing the

food specialities of Jizhou, many videos only listed

the names of some common dishes and specialities,

without detailing their production process, taste

characteristics and cultural background. This kind of

general introduction makes the content of the food

specialities seem bland and uninteresting, and it is

difficult to stimulate the audience's appetite and

curiosity.

5.2 Network Information Overload

With the popularity of social media platforms and the

rise of short videos, video information related to

Jizhou District in Tianjin has shown explosive growth

on social media. These videos cover a wide range of

aspects such as natural scenery, history and culture,

food specialities, tourism activities, etc. However, the

lack of an effective information screening and

integration mechanism has led to a large amount of

repetitive and redundant information flooding into

users' view. Browsing a large amount of video

information for a long time, users are prone to fatigue

and boredom. This fatigue not only affects the user's

viewing experience, but may also reduce the user's

sensitivity to information and processing ability.

Thistle's video content lacks a clear target

audience positioning on social media and does not

build a clear user profile. Due to the lack of in-depth

knowledge of the target audience, the video content is

overly generalised and tries to reach all possible

audience groups. This results in content that lacks

relevance and depth, making it difficult to capture the

attention of a specific audience. This results in video

content that is difficult to accurately reach potential

viewers, and a lack of resonance and interest among

viewers, which reduces the content's dissemination

efficiency and impact.

6 RURAL TOURISM STRATEGY

FOR JIZHOU DISTRICT

The biggest highlight of rural tourism lies in its rural

characteristics (Chen & Xu, 2021). If the rural

tourism in Jizhou District does not have its own

positioning and characteristics but just copy the ‘

successful experience ’ of other regions, blindly

imitating all kinds of Netflix attractions. In the long

run, rural tourism will become the same, and the local

characteristics of cultural and tourism resources have

not been developed (Gao, 2024). In order to change

this situation, it is necessary to constantly explore and

develop new tourism projects, and strive to create

new and diversified rural tourism routes.

6.1 Differentiated Rural Tourism

Products

According to Delineation and labelling of natural

selenium-rich land (DD2019-10) and Administrative

Measures for the Identification and Labelling of

Natural Selenium-rich Land (Trial), 37 land parcels,

including the natural selenium-rich parcels in Xiaying

Township of Jizhou District, Tianjin City, are

recognised as natural selenium-rich land. Jizhou

District, Tianjin is blessed with a unique ecological

environment where the soil is rich in selenium, an

element that is beneficial to human health. This

natural advantage provides a unique selling point for

Dongshan Village's agricultural and healthcare

products.

Positioning Jizhou's products as ‘healthy, green

and high-end’. By emphasising the selenium content

of the products and the advantages of the ecological

environment, it creates a unique brand character and

attracts consumers who pursue a healthy lifestyle.

The core concept of ‘Selenium for Health, Green for

the Future’ conveys the health benefits of Jizhou

products and the protection of the ecological

environment. Through this concept, it builds

emotional resonance with consumers and enhances

brand loyalty. Use social media, e-commerce

platforms and other online channels to promote the

A Review of the Current State of Rural Tourism in the Age of Social Media and Exploration of Optimization Paths: A Case Study of Jizhou

District, Tianjin

451

products. Attract consumers' attention by posting

content such as product introduction and health

knowledge.

6.2 Rural Tourism Characterisation

Strategy

Creating special humanistic and flavourful tourism

routes, the opening of Dule Temple, Yuyang Ancient

Village and the surrounding areas shuttle bus routes

cover a wide range of Buddhist culture, ancient

architecture, rural culture, artisan culture, etc., which

provide tourists with a rich and diverse tourism

experience, appreciate the unique flavour of different

cultural backgrounds, and satisfy different tourism

needs. Meanwhile, relevant information about the

featured attractions, such as route introduction,

attraction recommendations, activity highlights, etc.,

is posted on social media platforms to attract tourists'

attention and interest. Encourage tourists to share

their own experiences and feelings on social media,

and set up interactive topics or challenge activities to

stimulate tourists' participation and creativity.

Marketing for specific seasons. In winter, for

example, live broadcasting at the ski resort site to

show the ski slopes, facilities, atmosphere, etc., to

attract potential tourists; releasing the wonderful

moments taken by tourists at the ski resort, such as

skiing skills demonstration, beautiful photos of the

snow scene, etc., to increase user interaction and

participation; launching online activities such as

skiing skills challenge, snow scene photography

contest, etc., and encouraging users to participate in

them and share them on social media to Expand brand

exposure; co-operate with travel agencies and online

travel platforms to launch co-branded ski packages

for joint promotion; co-operate with ski equipment

brands for product implantation and joint marketing.

Virtual reality technology has been actively

introduced to provide tourists with a brand-new

tourism experience. For example, in the ‘Hip Hop

Carnival VR Experience Pavilion’ project at Yuyang

Ancient Street in Jizhou, tourists can experience a

variety of high-tech amusement facilities through VR

equipment, and feel the cyberpunk decoration style

and sci-fi sense of the VR world. In addition, the

opening of VR live broadcasting allows consumers to

experience the natural scenery and unique charm of

Jizhou District. This kind of live broadcast not only

enhances the interactivity and participation of

tourists, but also improves the visibility and

reputation of Jizhou District.

7 CONCLUSION

The findings of this study are a comprehensive review

and analysis of the current situation of rural tourism

in Jizhou District, Tianjin. The situation of rural

tourism in Jizhou District of Tianjin is the specific

object of investigation, and various research methods,

such as PEST analysis and text analysis, are used to

deeply analyse the development status of rural

tourism in Jizhou District, as well as the status of

social media marketing. The study found that rural

tourism in Jizhou District has made certain

achievements, but there are some deficiencies in

social media promotion and its related areas, and a

lack of characteristics and differences, which limit the

further development of rural tourism and affect the

tourists' travel experience and satisfaction. From this,

it further concludes its study that in order to achieve

sustainable development of rural tourism in Jizhou

District, Tianjin, it is necessary to focus on the power

of social media, hit its selling points and

characteristics, and improve the relevance and depth

of content to attract the attention of specific audiences.

This study highlights the importance of content

innovation and differentiated development, providing

new ideas for the transformation and upgrading of

rural tourism. At the same time, this study also reveals

the important role of social media in the promotion of

rural tourism, which provides useful reference for

future marketing strategies. Future research should

focus more on the sustainable development path of

rural tourism for in-depth investigation. The current

situation and problems of rural tourism development

in different regions and cultures can be further

analysed, and more targeted and effective

development strategies can be explored. At the same

time, we can also pay attention to the deep integration

of rural tourism and new media technology, and study

how to use new technology to enhance the popularity

and reputation of rural tourism and promote the

prosperous development of rural tourism industry.

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