Exploring the Embeddedness of Cultural and Tourism Integration in Traditional Villages for Common Prosperity: A Case Study of the "Tai Guan Ren" Festival in Huanggang Dong Village, Qiandongnan, Guizhou, China

The common wealth in China must benefit everyone, and inhabitants of traditional villages should be included in this process. Owing to historical, social, and natural environmental factors, most traditional villages in China have a poor starting point for development. They are relatively economically backward, making the question of shared prosperity even more complex, arduous, and time-consuming. Rural tourism plays a key role in promoting rural economic development, optimizing industrial structure, fostering social progress, and achieving rural revitalization. It is critical in reviving rural economies, preserving and inheriting rural cultural heritage, fostering rural modernization and change, and helping local communities to increase their income and become wealthy. Although academics have recognized the importance of integrating traditional village cultural resources into tourism with the goal of creating common wealth, most have examined traditional village culture and tourism integration strategies while ignoring the impact of social embeddedness on traditional village tourism development. The central question of how to transform the low-market traditional cultural resources generated by the embedded environment into a sustainable development force for the revitalization of rural distinctive industries needs to be addressed. However, existing research has not investigated the endogenous causes of low integration of village culture and tourism, ignoring the impact of social relations on economic activities; second, there has been insufficient attention paid to how to adapt to local social rules during the integration of culture and tourism. Therefore, this paper employs the case study method to study the traditional festivals of Huanggang Dong Village in Qiandongnan, Guizhou Province, to explain two questions: one is the root cause of the non-economic behaviors of villagers in traditional villages under the structure of 'embeddedness' in the integration of culture and tourism, and secondly, whether the endogenous forces under the context of 'embeddedness' can achieve the marketization of tourism development. The main findings of this paper are that Huanggang Dong Village inhabitants' economic behavior in traditional festivals is influenced by multiple embeddedness; structural and institutional embedding affect residents' non-economic behavior, whereas cultural and cognitive embedding influence residents' non-economic behavior. Overall, the conflict of multiple embeddedness impacts the effectiveness of the cultural and tourism integration project, as well as the realization of common prosperity for the people. The main contribution of this paper is to empirically demonstrate the importance of multiple embeddedness in terms of providing local resources for cultural and tourism integration, paving the way for the development of a collaborative economy, and empowering community participation. Moreover, this paper makes recommendations for local governments to consider the social and local nature of the villages in which they are located, to update the village value and target orientation, and to shift from market-driven economic growth to the presence of social human values and practical needs. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider how to employ internal and external forces in the holistic development of traditional villages, as well as to set 'common prosperity' as the ultimate goal of cooperative action, to fully exploit the advantage of 'embeddedness.'