Mechanisms and effects of the sustainable integration of digital-driven rural cultural tourism from the perspective of symbiosis

On the basis of the principles of symbiosis theory, this paper first analyses the mechanism of the sustainable integration of digitally driven rural cultural tourism and then analyses its driving effect in detail through the construction of an evaluation system and the calculation of the entropy weight via the TOPSIS method. The results indicate that, the sustainable integration system of rural cultural tourism from a symbiotic perspective can be categorized into three subsystems. Specifically, digital technology facilitates the sustainable integration of rural cultural tourism by enhancing the efficiency of symbiotic unit coordination, enabling the visualization of symbiotic environment monitoring, and promoting the intelligence of symbiotic mode innovation. Digital tourism enterprises and merchants, e-commerce platforms, and social engagement levels constitute critical factors influencing the sustainable integration outcomes of digitally driven cultural and tourism resources. These driving forces exhibit a progressive characteristic of “digitalization-digitization-intelligentization” in promoting sustainable cultural-tourism integration. However, problems such as the digital divide, information security, and insufficient talent remain, so the joint efforts of multiple rural actors are needed to achieve innovative, intelligent, and sustainable digital cultural tourism development.