Stage performance and background layout: process of rural tourism development, land use and human settlement environment evolution based on the micro empirical study in China

Purpose Rural tourism and human settlement environments are both complex systems, and existing studies have only explored their interrelation from visible aspect perspectives (stage performance), such as tourism arrivals, economic growth and landscape fragmentation, while invisible power (background layout) – rural tourism development and investment – and its process and mechanism have not been fully considered. Rural tourism investment is regarded as the engine for rural tourism industry and leisure atmosphere enhancement. This study aims to learn the driving mechanism of rural tourism investment (RTI) and reconstruction process of the rural production-living-ecology functional structure, and results can help us deeply understand the interrelation between RTI and local human settlement environment evolution in destinations.