214 International Symposium on World Ecological Design

F. Ying et al. (Eds.)

© 2024 The Authors.
This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).
doi:10.3233/FAIA240024

Research on Service Design of Virtual

Village Chief for Island Ecotourism Based on
Kano Model
Feifan GONGa and Xianghui CAO a,1
a
School of Art and Design Beijing Institute of Fashion China

Abstract. Villages with islands as the main geographical environment have their
unique needs in the process of tourism development. With the further development
of digital technology, the concept of virtual village chief has been involved in the
process of rural revitalization in China, becoming a digital medium to serve
tourists to increase their sense of closeness and convenience. This paper
scientifically analyzes the problems and pain points faced in the process of island
rural tourism, proposes the necessity of designing virtual village chiefs through
digital technology to develop island tourism from the perspective of solving
practical problems, and designs questionnaires based on the Kano model to
transform diverse and complex demands into clear levels of user needs, so as to
scientifically guide the design process of virtual village chiefs. We will promote
the development of coastal island rural ecological tourism.

Keywords. Rural digital technology; Kano model; virtual IP; island ecology

1. Introduction

The Chinese government's decision to comprehensively promote the rural revitalization

strategy is a historic shift of the "three rural areas" problem in China after the
completion of the poverty alleviation strategy. Different types of villages cannot be
generalized, and should be adapted to local conditions. In the process of practical
research on China's sea island villages such as Zhoushan Islands and Dalian Guanglu
Island, the author found that the villages with the natural geographical environment
dominated by islands have great potential for developing eco-tourism, but there are also
problems such as traffic instability and relatively fragile ecological environment.
Digital technology, as the new driving force of China's social development, provides a
good motivation for promoting rural revitalization. Based on the concept of "virtual
village chief" generated by the development of digital technology, the innovative
concept is applied to the development process of rural tourism to create a new model of
high-quality island tourism development.

1
Xianghui CAO (1971-), is a professor at Beijing Institute of Fashion. Address: Cherry Blossom
Garden Campus, Beijing Institute of Fashion, Chaoyang District, Beijing.E-mail: 814161909@qq.com.
 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism 215

2. The virtual village chief’s intervention in island eco-tourism to break the

circle

In recent years, with the development of digital technologies such as the Internet and
virtual interaction, the Chinese central government once again emphasized the need to
deepen the "Internet + Tourism" development model in the "14th Five-Year Plan for
Tourism Development" released in early 2022. It can be seen that island tourism in the
new era needs to comply with the development of the digital age and the needs of new
tourism development, and find a way to break the circle of island tourism combined
with digital technology.
In recent years, digital technology has been fully integrated into the tourism
industry, and traditional single forms of tourism are gradually developing towards new
digital tourism models driven by technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things,
cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. The Chinese government once
again emphasized the need to deepen the development model of "Internet plus tourism"
in the 14th Five Year Plan for Tourism Development released at the beginning of 2022.
The non-contact tourism services provided by digital technology, such as virtual
tourism and cloud exhibitions, can reduce operating costs, provide high-quality
services, and enhance the tourism experience. The digital economy plays a crucial role
in empowering high-quality and innovative development of tourism, as it can enhance
the tourism industry's ability to respond flexibly to emergencies.
The virtual village chief refers to the virtual image of the village chief of an island
village generated based on digital technology to help expand some of the functions of
the real village chief and intervene in the entire process of tourism. On the one hand, it
has tool value, which is reflected in the combination with the mini program function to
serve as a virtual person during the journey. The role of guides and housekeepers
provides solutions and pre-departure planning for problems encountered by tourists,
eliminates the problem of inconvenient communication in local dialects, reminds
tourists to pay attention to island ecological protection, and helps the sustainable
development of the village; on the other hand, it has emotional value and is a virtual
village chief. Interact with tourists with lively and interesting images and characters,
establish a distinctive and personalized rural brand image, and accompany tourists
online and offline to reduce the uneasiness of tourists in the unfamiliar environment of
the island countryside when they first arrive, and enhance the sense of intimacy and
companionship.
Based on the analysis of pain points at different stages of tourists’ sea experience
in island rural tourism from the perspective of service design in Figures 1 and 2, as well
as the hierarchical survey of local tourists, most tourists are more inclined to intervene
in the lively and interesting virtual village chief Escort tours use digital technology to
analyze tourist needs and solve problems encountered during the tour. Therefore, the
development of a model in which a virtual village chief leads tourists to experience the
island scenery will become a new way to experience the sea in island villages.
216 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism

Figure 1. Target user profile and journey map.

3. Analysis of design requirements for virtual village chief of island eco-tourism

under Kano model

3.1. Overview of Kano model

The Kano model was formally proposed by the Japanese scholar Kano Noriaki in 1984.
It is used to study the relationship between product properties and consumer
satisfaction. See Figure 3s. In the Kano model, the demand for products within a
certain range is divided into five categories: Necessary needs, desired needs, attractive
needs, indifferent needs, and reverse needs. Among them, the necessary requirements
refer to the attributes that users think the product must meet. When the necessary
requirements are reflected in a high degree, user satisfaction will not increase
significantly, but when the necessary requirements are not met, user satisfaction will
increase sharply. Decrease; the degree of expectation demand is directly proportional to
user satisfaction, it is the core that determines the success of a product, and it is also the
demand that designers should focus on; the icing on the cake of products with attractive
demand, and products with high attractive attributes will make users feel Unexpected
surprises, which quickly generate a favorable impression on the product; the degree of
expression of reverse demand is inversely proportional to satisfaction, and the more
obvious this attribute is, the more dissatisfied users will be caused, leading to the
failure of product promotion. Designers need to pay attention to avoid The emergence
of reverse attributes.

Figure 2. Kano model.

 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism 217

3.2. Collection and arrangement of user requirements

Integrate the pain points of users presented in the island eco-tourism process in the user
journey map, and conduct interviews with different local groups for insights, and
organize eight people including senior designers and product engineers to conduct
expert group discussions, and discuss the explicit needs and implicit needs of users.
Exploring needs, collecting the design needs for the virtual village chief objectively
and equally from different perspectives of multiple subjects, classifying the needs
through the chart affinity method, and dividing all needs into four categories according
to different directions of design (see Table 1).

Table 1. Different directions of design.

Category Serial Number Requirement content

A1 Imaginative and youthful interesting
appearance
A2 Integrating island village elements
Styling
A3 Intuitive and distinctive shape

A4 The outline features are easy to remember

B1 Colors without clutter and memories

Color B2 Island-style colors

B3 Color matching with regional

characteristics
C1 Background story setting that
combines local culture
C2 Rich social network

Content category C3 Have distinct and unique character

traits
C4 Have independent and complete
values and worldview
C5 Have knowledge about marine
ecological protection
D1 You can recommend the plan to
catch the tour route
D2 Accommodation plans based on user
Service category characteristics
D3 Improve the credibility of rural
specialty products
D4 Can be applied to the various offline
event materials
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3.3. Data calculation and classification based on Kano model

After cleaning the data collected in various comprehensive ways through the graph
affinity method, in the process of questionnaire design, each requirement is divided
into positive and negative two questions, the positive question "when it has this
attribute", and the reverse question " When it does not have this attribute”, the five
answers under the question are “I like it very much, I like it a lot, I can do it, I hate it, I
hate it very much.” The user chooses the answer according to his real feeling, and
determines the corresponding coefficient according to the answer of the positive and
negative questions, see Table 2 for the corresponding answers and coefficients.
It is necessary to use the Kano model formula to calculate the detailed coefficients
for each item. The necessary attributes, expected attributes, attractive attributes,
indifferent attributes, and reverse attributes correspond to M, O, A, I, and R
respectively. According to the formula (1) (2) Get SI (satisfaction coefficient obtained
by adding a certain trait) and SDI (dissatisfaction coefficient caused by removing a
certain trait), and further subdivide user needs according to the scope of the two, and
the necessary attributes must meet SI<0.5 and ｜DSI｜>0.5; the expected attribute
needs to meet SI<0.5 and |DSI|>0.5; the attractive attribute needs to meet SI>0.5 and
|DSI|<0.5; the indifferent attribute needs to meet SI<0.5 and |DSI|<0.5. See Table 3 for
statistics and classification of specific demand types.

SI=(O+A)/(A+O+M+I) (1)

DSI=－(O+M)/(A+O+M+I) (2)

Table 2. Requirement type evaluation.

Property not implemented
Like it very much Prefer Generally Rather Loathing
annoying
Attribute Like it very Q A A A O
realization much
Prefer R I I I M
Generally R I I I M

Rather R I I I M
annoying

Loathing R R R R Q
 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism 219

Table 3. Kano model classification.

According to the long-term practice of the Kano model, the order of functional
priority in product development is generally: essential attributes (M)>expected
attributes (O)>charm attributes (A)>indifference attributes (I). The next step is to
calculate the weight of each group of demand attributes based on their importance
according to the formula Wi and sort them in Table 4.

SIi ∣DSIi ∣
Wi = max [ m , m ] (3)
∑i=1 SIi ∑i=1∣DSIi ∣

Table 4. Ranking of Weights.

Pattern Demand Sort Numerical value
Intuitive and distinct appearance 1 0.266
Essential
requirements
（M） This is a foreign symbol of memory 2 0.259

can recommend the plan to catch the 3 0.249

sea and the tour route in the village

Colors without clutter and memories 4 0.247

220 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism

Have knowledge about marine 1 0.256

ecological protection

Expected demand
（O） Recommend personalized catering 2 0.255
and accommodation plans according
to user characteristics and needs

Have distinct character traits 3 0.254

The island village elements are 4 0.251

integrated into the creation of the
virtual village head
Have a rich social network 1 0.213

It has the color of island 2 0.208

Charm demand
（A） It can be used in the production of 3 0.208
promotional materials for various
offline activities

Have an independent and complete 4 0.203

set of values and worldviews

Imaginative, young, fun look 5 0.198

4. Virtual village head service design based on Kano model island tourism
demand

Based on the Kano model, this paper organizes and groups the needs to guide the
design of virtual village chiefs for island eco-rural tourism. Among them, essential
needs (M) are the core basic needs that constitute the product. The SI value of M is
within the range of 0.38-0.439, and the SI of expected attributes and charm attributes is
relatively low. However, if necessary, attributes are ignored, the dissatisfaction
coefficient of users | DSI | will be high. According to the analysis of digital technology,
compared with complex colors, users prefer colors that are not messy and have
memory points. Therefore, in the specific design, there are not too many kinds of colors
to choose. The contrast colors of blue, green and yellow are mainly used. Recommend
the plan of catching the sea and the tour route of the village to the users with digital
images, and solve the traffic pain points before the user’s land on the island in the user
journey map.
The realization of expected demand (O) can significantly enhance user loyalty and
improve the communication efficiency of virtual village head for island tourism. The
design can be divided into two aspects. In terms of content and functions, first,
combined with the knowledge related to island ecological protection, the virtual village
head can popularize environmental protection knowledge in a vivid form. On the one
hand, the users of the parent-child tour can educate their children on Marine knowledge
during the tour; on the other hand, the tourists' behaviors that may pollute the
environment during the tour are timely reminded, so as to protect the sustainable
 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism 221

development of the rural environment on the island. Second, create a new form of
digital island rural tourism, input the information of local folk dining points into the
digital platform, and the virtual village head can push personalized dining and
accommodation plans to tourists accordingly.
The satisfaction of charm demand (A) can attract users' attention and stimulate
emotional and aesthetic resonance, which is a powerful driving force to gain
competitiveness in rural tourism. Among the five demands, the first one is that users
expect virtual village chiefs to have rich social networks, so virtual village chiefs can
have emotional interaction with each other and tourists through digital APP. As
partners of tourists, they can participate in the process of catching the sea, and
designers and village managers can design knowledge background about Marine
environmental protection, rural art, lifestyle and other aspects for the virtual village
chief, so that the virtual village chief can pass on new concepts of rural ecological
development while accompanying the tourists. In terms of appearance design,
exaggerated modeling methods and modern plane expression are used to meet the
aesthetic needs of young groups, and cold colors with island style are selected. By
combining online and offline publicity methods, the virtual village head image is
applied to island activities to increase exposure and form an overall brand image. It is
applied to local night and market activities as the main visual attraction for tourists to
take photos and punch cards and upload them to social platforms.

Figure 3. Virtual beach comb village head image design

Figure 4. Virtual beach comb village head image design

222 F. Gong and X. Cao / Research on Service Design of Virtual Village Chief for Island Ecotourism

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