Realms of aesthetic experience of classical Chinese gardens based on semantic analysis of online tourism reviews

The study of classical Chinese garden aesthetics has yielded long-term and extensive insights through the lens of traditional Chinese landscape design theory. However, little attention has been paid to the empirical investigation of the transition pattern between different realms of aesthetic experience using quantitative methods. This research selected seven classical Chinese gardens in southeast China as research cases and analyzed 12,864 online reviews on Ctrip, an online travel agency in China, as the data sources. Garden aesthetic elements were measured using natural language processing and encoding technology. A probability transition model of the realms of aesthetic experience was constructed based on a Markov chain and used to mine the transition pattern of the aesthetic realms. The novel mixed approach of big data mining and the modeling of aesthetic realms enriched the knowledge of aesthetic experience and provided a new research paradigm for the experiences of cultural heritage by tourists.