Assessing the Tourism Carrying Capacity of Cultural Heritage From Socio-Spatial Integration: Dual Perspectives of Subjective Perception and Objective Evaluation

Abstract

This study establishes a dual-perspective evaluation system that synergizes spatial configuration analytics with social perception dynamics, proposing a socio-spatial integration perspective for tourism-carrying-capacity assessments in Suzhou, China, via the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. Geotagged natural language processing-processed expressed-sentiment analytics and visitor-satisfaction surveys for subjective perception, and integrating geo-spatial objective modeling, findings show that (1) cultural heritage and hotel proximity significantly enhance visitors’ satisfaction, but subway accessibility shows a negative impact. (2) Sentiment polarity analysis via social media helps identify service weaknesses; targeting frequent complaints can refine tourism carrying capacity. (3) Online-expressed sentiment (organism) as a mediating variable can enhance onsite visitor satisfaction (response). (4) Transport and catering facilities’ positive contributions may emerge or diminish beyond specific thresholds. Theoretically, it proposes a dynamic, process-oriented assessment paradigm that links socio-spatial configurations with psychological mechanisms. Practically, it provides a decision-making framework that utilizes real-time, multidimensional on-site and online data to inform destination management.