Public Environmental Experience and Restorative Perception in a Mountain Tourism Village: Field Evidence from Residents and Tourists in Sanpo Town, China

Public-space experiences in mountain tourism villages involve environmental appraisal, bodily comfort, and place-related affect, but their associations with restorative perception require examination based on user feedback. Using Sanpo Town, China, as a case study, this study asks whether Local Environmental Perception (LEP), Perceived Microclimate Comfort (PMC), and Place Attachment (PA), operationalized as shared place-related affect, are distinguishable constructs; how they are associated with Restorative Perception (RP); and whether the findings are consistent across analytical methods and resident–tourist groups. An on-site non-probability survey conducted in May–June 2025 yielded 591 questionnaires from 300 residents and 291 tourists. Robust maximum-likelihood structural equation modeling was supplemented by ordinal-item analyses, coefficient-product decomposition, composite-score robustness checks, and exploratory group comparisons. LEP, PMC, and PA each retained a positive conditional association with RP, with standardized coefficients of 0.329, 0.259, and 0.202, respectively; the model explained 50.7% of the variance in RP. HTMT and alternative-model comparisons provided qualified support for distinguishing LEP from PMC, although their correlation slightly exceeded the square root of PMC’s average variance extracted. The latent-path comparisons did not detect clear resident–tourist differences under the present data and model specifications; this should not be interpreted as evidence of group equivalence. Familiarity-adjusted composite-score analyses retained positive associations, while a nominal group difference in the LEP–PMC path did not survive correction across six comparisons. The findings support a multidimensional evaluation of the experiences of users encountered in the surveyed public spaces. They do not establish causal design priorities, objective microclimatic performance, population representativeness, or measured recovery relative to a pre-exposure baseline.