Problem presentation is the first step in constructing the network of actors, it is the differentiated problems or obstacles faced by heterogeneous actors in achieving their self-interests and goals, it is based on identifying the types of actors and identifying key actors (Gan and Wang, 2024). In the process of agro-cultural-tourism integration in Wuyi rock tea AHS area, human actors mainly include government, enterprises, rural grass-roots organizations, farmers and media. Among them, the government and rural grass-roots organizations are the key actors. The former can extract common problems from the interests and development goals of heterogeneous actors, construct compulsory passage points that take into account the differentiated interests of all parties, and undertake important tasks such as discovering problems, initiating actions and organizing networks. The latter can accurately represent the collective interests of villagers and grasp the local resource endowment and development reality of the village, has high governance authority and discourse dominance, can guarantee the actual effect of policy implementation through effective uploading and issuing, play equal games with external capital and improve the degree of organization and cooperation of villagers, thus promoting the establishment of close interest connection mechanism among village multiple subjects, and then activating the endogenous power of rural economy and enriching the core of rural development. Non-human actors include policies, funds, land, housing, agricultural heritage resources, facilities and services, etc. Although the rock tea planting and tea-making skills in Wuyishan City are exquisite, which lays a solid resource endowment foundation for the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration relying on rock tea AHS resources, there is still a realistic problem of unbalanced development between villages and urban and rural areas in Wuyi rock tea AHS area, and there is still a big gap between residents ‘income level and quality of life. The root of this situation lies in the differentiated development dilemma faced by heterogeneous actors.

For human actors: The government is not only faced with the contradiction and conflict between the protection, inheritance and activation of Wuyi rock tea resources, the absence of cross-department and multi-subject organization and coordination mechanism, the significant seasonality and high participation threshold of agro-cultural-tourism integration driven by AHS resources, but also necessary to deal with the phenomenon of labor outflow caused by the low income level of tea planting economy, as well as the practical difficulties such as abandoned tea gardens, idle houses, planting skills of AHS resources and no inheritance of folk culture. Enterprises are faced with such problems as unclear ownership division of Wuyi rock tea production resources and related attractions, vague definition of responsibilities for resource development and facility construction, degradation of market consumption and change of customer groups. There are some problems in rural grass-roots organizations, such as vague division of asset ownership boundaries, lack of development and operation funds and experience, lagging infrastructure and supporting service construction, and insufficient endogenous motivation to develop agro-cultural-tourism integration relying on AHS resources. Villagers are constrained by small land management scale, insufficient fund reserve, weak participation ability and high transaction cost. The way to participate in agro-cultural-tourism integration is mainly the requisition and circulation of land and houses, and they cannot enjoy the legal benefits of resource development and operation such as landscape tea garden, rural folk custom and rural settlement. Finally, it is difficult to fully share the dividends of rural development enabled by agro-cultural-tourism integration. Non-human actors: The rural environment has some problems such as inconvenient geographical location, single agricultural industry structure, tourists mainly from surrounding areas and division of tea-cultural-tourism integration departments. The natural landscape resources are not fully utilized, the historical and cultural resources are not fully excavated, and the tea culture is limited to the excavation and the attention to other historical and cultural resources is absent. Facilities and services have low utilization efficiency of idle land, tea gardens and housing resources, incomplete infrastructure such as flushing toilets, parking lots and public rest facilities, and imperfect reception services such as catering and accommodation, tour guide services, tourism products, experience projects and specialty sales. In order to solve the problems faced by heterogeneous actors and realize their differentiated interest demands and development goals, local governments put forward “promoting common prosperity through agro-cultural-tourism integration” as a compulsory passage point to ensure that heterogeneous actors realize benefit giving under the guidance of OPP (Figure 2).

Benefit bestowal is the premise of actor recruitment and mobilization, key actors anchor the role orientation of other actors and transform their own interest goals into common interest goals of the actor network, heterogeneous actors can realize their expected interests and common goals of the network through the OPP, and then construct a stable actor network (Yin et al., 2025). To realize the goal of common prosperity for agro-cultural-tourism integration, key actors in the network need to endow other actors with benefits, integrate the interests of multiple actors into the same actor network framework, and urge heterogeneous actors to actively participate in network collaborative movement for achieving their own interests.

Specifically speaking, Wuyishan City focuses on the agro-cultural-tourism integration centered on Wuyi rock tea, realizing the benefit of common prosperity of agro-cultural-tourism integration to heterogeneous actors (Figure 3). Among the human actors: The local government can promote the activation and utilization of Wuyi rock tea cultural heritage AHS resources and upgrade the format through agro-cultural-tourism integration, optimize the rural development layout, cultivate the momentum of regional economic growth, effectively bridge the gap between villages and urban and rural areas within the region, and realize the goal of common prosperity in the whole agricultural heritage area by point and area. Relying on the advantageous resources such as natural ecology, land and houses, folk customs, farming technology and products, and labor force in AHS areas, the enterprise can extend the industrial chain of Wuyi Rock Tea and promote the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, realize the win-win interest demand of economic income and social benefit with low investment and high return, and drive the economic income level, living environment and civilized style system development of rural multi-subject in rural areas. Rural grass-roots organizations expect to seize the opportunity of coordinated development of AHS resources and cultural-tourism integration, effectively integrate idle resources and cultural landscape, promote village infrastructure construction and industrial optimization and upgrading, improve village living environment, form new economic growth points and improve village autonomy ability based on government policy inclination and enterprise fund intervention, and change the poor and backward situation of villages. Among the non-human actors: The location, land, houses, culture, landscape and facilities of AHS areas jointly constitute the rural environment, resource endowment and facilities and services that attract tourists, and release endogenous development momentum through rational planning, value mining and efficient utilization. At the same time, it adapts to external policies, funds, technologies and other elements, effectively links multiple participants, promotes the internal and external elements of agro-cultural-tourism integration, and realizes the common goal of common prosperity while meeting the interests of all parties.

Recruitment and mobilization is the process by which heterogeneous actors accept the role assigned to them by key actors and integrate into the network. It is the final step in the implementation of benefit assignment and the construction of actor network (Huang et al., 2023). In the practice process of agro-cultural-tourism integration in AHS areas, there are often complex games among government, enterprises, rural grass-roots organizations and villagers, key actors can continuously strengthen the value consensus and interest alliance among heterogeneous actors through recruitment and mobilization, and then attract other actors based on their own interests to join the actor network in multiple ways to promote multiple subjects to act towards the same goal (Zheng et al., 2024b). As a key actor, the government unifies the interests of heterogeneous actors, and recruits and mobilizes heterogeneous actors such as government and functional departments, enterprises, village committees, villagers and resources to join the network alliance of agro-cultural-tourism integration and common prosperity in AHS areas through various forms such as administration, society, resources and emotion. The specific recruitment methods are as follows.

On the one hand, the top-level policy provides an important path for Wuyishan City to promote the goal of common prosperity by relying on AHS resources to develop agro-cultural-tourism integration. The state has issued a series of policies to promote the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, In particular, the Central No.1 Documents focusing on the development of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” over the years, as well as the 《Opinions on Promoting Cultural Industries to Empower Rural Revitalization》 jointly issued by six ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, have provided policy guidance and institutional guarantees for Wuyishan City to cultivate new forms of agro-cultural-tourism integration relying on agricultural heritage resources, thereby achieving common prosperity. On the other hand, the special class of “Three Teas” overall planning provides endogenous impetus for Wuyishan City to promote the realization of common prosperity by taking agro-cultural-tourism integration as the starting point based on the cultural deposits and tea industry resources advantages of Double World Heritage and AHS. Governments and functional departments at all levels will focus on village appearance, industrial development, facility construction, resource development and capital intervention in rural areas to give policy preference and financial support, promote the implementation of infrastructure construction and product project development for agro-cultural-tourism integration in AHS areas, and attract more new actors such as media, enterprises, resources, projects, talents and facilities, to be integrated into the network, thereby providing policy support and talent guarantees for the structural construction and format innovation of agro-cultural-tourism integration development in agricultural heritage areas. Assist in the protection and inheritance of AHS resources, regional economic growth and narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas, and further promote common prosperity. “The government has set up a working group to conduct a general survey of cultural and tourism resources in Wuyishan City, clarify the protection and development ideas of Wuyi rock tea AHS resources, clarify the division of responsibilities and task lists of governments and functional departments at all levels in the process of common prosperity, attract tourists to participate in experience projects such as scenery appreciation, study and tea tasting by planning cultural and tourism routes, enriching product supply and optimizing service quality, drive villagers to develop catering and residential accommodation formats, and promote direct contact between tea farmers and tea merchants and tourists, to provide strong support for the solid promotion of common prosperity” (G02).

The government of Wuyishan City attracts enterprises, capital, talents and media to participate in the exploitation and utilization of Wuyi rock tea resources, the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, the extension of industrial chain and the improvement of human settlements environment through the implementation of the system of 100 enterprises connecting 100 villages and scientific and technological task force. Under the influence of the triple brands of Double World Heritage, China Agricultural Cultural Heritage and National Park, Wuyishan City attracts a large number of tourists, media, scholars and enterprises to pay attention, experience and report, greatly enhancing the popularity and influence of agro-cultural-tourism integration, and promoting the value transformation and brand building of Wuyi rock tea AHS Resources. Based on the efficacy value, cultural heritage, natural landscape and market prospect of Wuyi rock tea, the model of “enterprise + farmer + base” is adopted to recruit top 100 tea enterprises such as Xiangjiang Famous Garden, Yongxing Tea Industry, Bama Tea Industry and Zhengshan Tea Industry to participate in the co-construction. With Wuyi rock tea planting and processing, product research and development and facility construction as the starting point, tea culture, tea science and technology and tea industry are deeply integrated, and the government, village collectives and villagers are organized to visit and study areas with remarkable achievements in agro-cultural-tourism integration. Continuously explore the projects, products and activities of agro-cultural-tourism integration with Wuyi rock tea as the core, so as to provide mass foundation and advanced experience for the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration in the whole region. In addition, relying on the industrial advantages, ecological landscape and cultural deposits of Wuyi rock tea, the government has set up a platform for village-enterprise joint construction, industry-university-research training and interest rate reduction financing, recruited and mobilized villagers and small and micro enterprises to participate in agro-cultural-tourism integration by operating farmhouses, residential accommodation, supermarkets and stalls, or engaging in tourism reception service activities, so as to drive villagers to obtain employment and entrepreneurship. “Our village is not only the birthplace of Wuyi rock tea and the starting point of Wanli tea ceremony, but also retains a large number of residential buildings and tea market features in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, due to the shortage of tourism development funds and lack of experience, the village collective cannot independently carry out the development and operation of agro-cultural-tourism integration. The government has absorbed enterprise investment through open bidding to participate in the resource integration, facility improvement and project development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, thus promoting the orderly promotion of agro-cultural-tourism integration, both the village collectives and villagers benefited from the bonus” (C05).

Resources and environment are the basic elements of agro-cultural-tourism integration, and orderly integration, coordinated development and sustainable utilization are the keys to promote the high-quality development of agro-cultural-tourism integration. By leveraging the distinctive resource bases of Wuyi Rock Tea AHS areas, including natural ecology, geographical location, historical culture, housing and land, and supporting facilities, it has built agro-cultural-tourism integrated development formats focusing on leisure agriculture, sightseeing agriculture, tea art and tea skills. This has promoted the transformation of Wuyi rock tea from agricultural production resources into cultural and tourism symbolic resources, and launched cultural and tourism projects such as green ecological tea garden sightseeing and tea culture research experiences, as well as cultural and tourism products like Impression Dahongpao and Tea Picking. Work such as renovation, utilization, and relocation of ancient residential buildings has been carried out. Through corresponding compensation standards and resettlement measures, villagers living in ancient residential buildings have been mobilized to relocate and receive centralized resettlement. Furthermore, agro-cultural-tourism integration development in traditional villages has been promoted on the original sites of ancient residential buildings. Relocated villagers can participate in agro-cultural-tourism integration by engaging in catering, homestays, convenience stores, services, and guided tours, thereby increasing their tourism-related income. In this context, villagers’ sense of identity and belonging to their villages and resource endowments will be significantly enhanced. At the same time, the multiple values of Wuyi rock tea can recruit preferential policies, financial investment and social capital to gather villages, which will provide positive help for the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration relying on Wuyi rock tea, and then provide social and financial guarantee for sustainable agricultural production, environmental improvement optimization, facility construction and farmers employment and entrepreneurship in Wuyi rock tea AHS areas, promote the stability, continuous protection and utilization of agro-cultural-tourism integration resources and environment, and promote the improvement of quality and product brand building. Promote the development of rural economy in AHS areas through the agro-cultural-tourism integration, narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, and realize common prosperity. “The village integrates resources such as mountains, water, forests, fields, lakes, tea and ancient dwellings, integrates special agricultural products such as lotus seeds, taro, smoked geese and tea leaves, and attracts a large number of tourists by setting up free tea places, holding tea fighting festivals, cultural and natural heritage days and other tourism festivals. Many villagers increase their economic income by selling local specialties, providing catering and accommodation, and strengthen their sense of identity and responsibility for Wuyi rock tea AHS resources” (S02).

Rural areas in China have typical social characteristics of acquaintances. Trust and human feelings are important concepts in the operation logic of local society, which can affect the value cognition, emotional attitude and behavior choice of multiple subjects in rural areas (Sun et al., 2023). The local society forms a social relationship network through kinship and geographical relationship. The villagers who obtain significant employment income increase effect through participating in agro-cultural-tourism integration play a demonstration and leading role for other villagers. Based on the trust connection of acquaintance society, they can recruit other villagers to participate in the activities related to the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration relying on Wuyi rock tea, so as to promote the integration of villager’s livelihood resources, the widening of livelihood channels and the shaping of livable environment. “In the tourist season, the operators of catering, residential accommodation and tea gardens will find acquaintances to help their own business, and will also introduce tourists beyond the reception scope to acquaintances, which not only enables villagers to share the economic surplus and self-value of agro-cultural-tourism integration, but also drives the rural collective economy to grow” (C03). Meanwhile, village cadres and virtuous rural elites are familiar with the interpersonal relationship networks within the village. With exemplary roles in morality, words, deeds, and achievements in rural society, they have accumulated a certain amount of social prestige and favor in the acquaintance-based rural society. They can not only mobilize villagers to participate in the protection, inheritance, and tourism-oriented utilization of Wuyi Rock Tea AHS resources but also encourage villagers to integrate resources, return to their hometowns for entrepreneurship and employment. By establishing specialized agricultural cooperatives and rural tourism cooperatives based on Wuyi rock tea resources, they promote multiple stakeholders to share interests in the agro-cultural-tourism integration of Wuyi rock tea AHS resources, thereby achieving common prosperity for farmers and rural areas. “I am a native of this place. My family has been deeply cultivating rock tea field for generations. Now I serve as secretary of the village party branch, and the villagers still trust me. In the process of leading the development of tourism, facing the difficult work of integrating resources, perfecting facilities and overall relocation, it is still very useful for me to negotiate with the villagers. Now, the village collective has taken the lead in establishing the cooperative and creating the brand of “Daan Red”, taking agro-cultural-tourism integration as the starting point to drive villagers to return home to generate income” (C08).

The vision goals of key actors are usually a set of goals formed by integrating the multiple interests of heterogeneous actors on the basis of anchoring the role positioning of other actors (Yu et al., 2023). The key actors play a central role in identifying forced passage points, coordinating interest demands and forming interest alliances. They are the key engines to promote the integration and agro-cultural-tourism integration development in Wuyi rock tea AHS areas, so as to construct a dynamic network of agro-cultural-tourism integration enabling common prosperity (Huang et al., 2023). In this process, Wuyishan City government and rural grass-roots organizations (especially village two committees) become key actors, recruiting and mobilizing enterprises, villagers, media and other multi-subjects through administrative, social and emotional strategies, so as to make heterogeneous actors recognize their role orientation and benefit endowing in agro-cultural-tourism integration development and its promotion of common prosperity, and promote the multi-subjects to realize coordinated efforts for the integration and common prosperity of agro-cultural-tourism integration in Wuyi rock tea AHS area.

As the coordinator, the government plays the role of guidance, coordination, supervision and guarantee, and assumes the macro-control responsibility for agro-cultural-tourism integration to enable common prosperity (Li et al., 2023). First, Wuyishan Municipal Government has thoroughly implemented the development concept of “Three Teas” Coordination, through scientific planning, it has explored a practical path taking agro-cultural-tourism integration as the starting point, providing support for the high-quality development of the tea industry, the creative transformation of tea culture, and the adaptive empowerment of tea technology. In doing so, it has created policy space for promoting agro-cultural-tourism integration across the region to empower common prosperity by leveraging Wuyi Rock Tea resources. Furthermore, Wuyishan Municipal Government has established a special working group for “Three Teas” Coordination, simultaneously promoting the “100 Enterprises Linking 100 Villages” initiative and the science and technology commissioner system. Through the coordinated efforts of policy support, financial investment, talent sinking, and technical support, it has advanced the transformation of the Wuyi Rock Tea industry from a traditional scattered smallholder planting model to a leisure agriculture model characterized by multi-stakeholder collaboration and multi-format integration. Second, relying on Wuyi rock tea AHS resources to develop the practical path of agro-cultural-tourism integration, Wuyishan City was successfully selected as the classic case of “Famous Rural Action” by the Ministry of Civil Affairs; several villages under its jurisdiction were successively awarded honorary titles such as National Leisure Agriculture and Rural Tourism Demonstration Site, National Rural Tourism Key Village, China Characteristic Landscape Tourism Famous Village, China Historical and Cultural Famous Village, etc. This series of achievements has enabled Wuyishan City to obtain policy dividends, financial support, media attention, and villagers’ recognition, effectively promoting the revitalization, integration, and innovative transformation of resources. It has also mobilized multiple entities, including research institutes, enterprises, village collectives, and villagers, to participate collaboratively in the planning and design, project operation, service provision, and local specialty sales of agro-cultural-tourism integration, thereby promoting multiple entities to share the dividends from the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration.

As organizations directly responsible for village management and services, rural grassroots organizations can not only analyze the development opportunities and suitability of agro-cultural-tourism integration on the basis of fully clarifying the village’s resource endowments and idle assets, but also, rooted in local interpersonal networks, they hold a sense of reverence, identity, and responsibility towards Wuyi rock tea. With close geographical ties with villagers, these organizations can effectively connect internal and external village networks, serving as a “bridge” for communication between internal and external heterogeneous actors such as the government, enterprises, and villagers (Kong et al., 2024). On the one hand, within the existing policy and institutional framework, rural grassroots organizations introduce external enterprises to jointly participate in the resource development, asset revitalization, and project operation of agro-cultural-tourism integration. In doing so, they have built a complete agro-cultural-tourism integration industrial chain covering all links including agricultural product production, processing and sales, tea-related activities and tea culture experiences, sightseeing and leisure, as well as catering and accommodation. This has enriched the internal rural agro-cultural-tourism integration products and formats, which not only increases tourists’ consumption opportunities and retains more profits in rural areas, but also secures various subsidy measures, training services, and employment opportunities for villagers, thereby promoting the transformation of farmers’ livelihoods and the growth of their incomes. On the other hand, rural grassroots organizations serve as organizational carriers for farmers’ cooperation. They not only promote the standardization and unification of internal rural operational order and foster a sound development environment for agro-cultural-tourism integration but also directly coordinate and connect with the government and external enterprises to secure policy support and financial investment from higher-level departments. This reduces the transaction uncertainty and high costs faced by smallholder farmers when independently engaging with the market, effectively safeguarding the basic subsistence and development rights of villagers in vulnerable positions within agro-cultural-tourism integration, and thus ensuring that multiple stakeholders can share the development outcomes. Meanwhile, as coordinators and managers, rural grassroots organizations strengthen the village collective economy through means such as obtaining rent and dividends. They allocate funds from collective revenues to support the protection and inheritance of agricultural heritage resources, the improvement of rural appearance, and the enhancement of supporting facilities. This enables the multiple benefits of agro-cultural-tourism integration to circulate within rural areas, effectively narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas and solidly advancing common prosperity.

As the masters of villages in agricultural heritage areas, villagers are not only the creators, protectors, and inheritors of agricultural cultural heritage, but also the shapers of tea garden landscapes and performers of tea culture, as well as the core attractive elements of agro-cultural-tourism integration in agricultural heritage areas (Dong et al., 2024a). Therefore, villagers have become the primary targets for mobilization by heterogeneous actors such as the Wuyishan Municipal Government, rural grassroots organizations, virtuous rural elites, and enterprises. Their participation intensity and benefit levels in the practice of agro-cultural-tourism integration directly affect the effectiveness and quality of common prosperity in Wuyi rock tea agricultural heritage areas (Yin et al., 2025). The process of achieving common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas is accompanied by the continuous improvement of villagers’ participation in agro-cultural-tourism integration. When villagers actively respond to the calls of heterogeneous actors and take the initiative to enhance their participation, it can promote the standardized and organized development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, ensure that villagers fairly share the development achievements of agro-cultural-tourism integration, and accelerate the progress and improve the level of common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas. Through the positive cycle of “participation-benefit-re-participation,” villagers promote the high-quality development of agro-cultural-tourism integration and the steady advancement of common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas. Villagers’ participation is reflected not only in economic activities such as project operation and service provision in agro-cultural-tourism integration, but also in various aspects including Wuyi rock tea cultivation, tea culture inheritance, agricultural heritage resource preservation, and rural settlement construction. The intensity and mode of villagers’ participation directly affect the resource utilization efficiency of agro-cultural-tourism integration and the sharing of achievements among villagers. Meanwhile, villagers’ benefits include practical economic gains such as expanded employment channels, increased economic income, transformed livelihood patterns, and improved social welfare, as well as social benefits such as better living environments, fostered civilized rural customs, strengthened ecological environmental protection, and effective organizational governance. The level of villagers’ benefits directly affects their enthusiasm for participating in agro-cultural-tourism integration, forming a positive cycle.

Constrained by limited cognition, insufficient experience, lack of funds, and inadequate capabilities, only a small number of villagers can be effectively organized and mobilized to initially participate in agro-cultural-tourism integration activities through operating farm stays, homestays, and retail stalls. However, the majority of villagers remain excluded from interest alliances and actor networks, maintaining low connectivity with heterogeneous actors. Their main sources of income still rely on the traditional cultivation of Wuyi rock tea and the sale of primary agricultural products, with minimal participation in the operation and service activities of agro-cultural-tourism integration. In response to this issue, under the guidance of rural grassroots organizations and virtuous rural elites, villagers are mobilized to join specialized cooperatives or enterprises in forms such as capital, land, and housing shares. Alternatively, they participate in the development, operation, and management of agro-cultural-tourism integration based on Wuyi rock tea agricultural heritage resources through means like operating homestays and farm stays, selling agricultural and sideline products, and providing reception services. This strengthens villagers’ connections with external entities such as the government, enterprises, and tourists, and deepens their interest links with internal subjects including village collectives, virtuous rural elites, and other villagers. Consequently, villagers are able to engage in business activities and share development achievements, forming an interest community characterized by benefit sharing and risk bearing. This further stimulates farmers’ enthusiasm and sense of responsibility for protecting and utilizing the regional belt and the Wuyi rock tea brand, indirectly promoting villagers’ participation in village industrial development, facility improvement, environmental protection, cultural prosperity, and community governance. It enhances villagers’ enthusiasm and participation in agro-cultural-tourism integration, expands local employment channels, increases non-agricultural income, improves living environments, and strengthens identity recognition. Ultimately, it significantly boosts villagers’ sense of gain, fairness, and happiness, stimulates the endogenous driving force for rural development, and thus advances the realization of common prosperity.

The process by which agro-cultural-tourism integration empowers common prosperity in Wuyi Rock Tea agricultural heritage areas is essentially a process of interaction and game-playing among heterogeneous actors based on their own interest demands (Luo S. F. et al., 2024). Based on obligatory passage points (OPP), key actors promote other actors to continuously adjust their role positioning and interest demands through frequent interactions, collisions, and game-playing via translation mechanisms such as enrollment, mobilization, and objection, thereby forming interest alliances and constructing actor networks (Liu J. J. et al., 2025). In the process of translation and interaction, human actors at all levels in Wuyishan City—including governments, functional departments, rural grassroots organizations, villagers, and the media—and non-human actors such as policies, funds, land, houses, resources, facilities, and environments realize the flow and sharing of materials, information, and energy. Ensuring the joint participation and shared outcomes of multiple subjects in this process constitutes an important guarantee for the high-quality development of agro-cultural-tourism integration and the steady advancement of common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas. During the transformation of agro-cultural-tourism integration in Wuyi Rock Tea agricultural heritage areas from initial exploration to in-depth development, key actors focus on the core issue of “agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity”. They coordinate and incorporate new actors into the actor network, including top 100 enterprises, research institutes, science and technology commissioners, rural revitalization companies, external enterprises, local villagers, virtuous rural elites, and returning entrepreneurs. By resolving objections to the interest demands of heterogeneous actors to complete identity translation and form interest alliances, they constitute a key path for steadily advancing the realization of common prosperity with agro-cultural-tourism integration as the starting point.

As key actors, governments and rural grassroots organizations’ expected demands and visionary goals directly influence the selection of collaborative partners and the logic of collaborative interaction in the practical process of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity. By proactively exploring resource endowments, improving supporting facilities, and formulating management norms, they create a solid material foundation and favorable development environment for agro-cultural-tourism integration in agricultural heritage areas. This not only effectively attracts heterogeneous actors to participate in network construction and fully stimulates their enthusiasm and initiative in engaging in agro-cultural-tourism integration, but also strengthens the discourse leadership of multiple subjects in jointly promoting the high-quality development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, thereby providing guarantees for the fair sharing of development achievements. The development effectiveness of agro-cultural-tourism integration demonstrates significant spillover characteristics. The economic and social benefits generated will first benefit the rural grassroots organizations and villagers of the local village, not only providing nearby employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for villagers but also realizing redistribution through land transfer fees, housing rental fees, and profit dividends. Meanwhile, the social benefits brought by the development of agro-cultural-tourism integration, including improved industrial systems, enhanced supporting facilities, optimized ecological environments, fostered civilized rural customs, and effective organizational governance, can be directly perceived. Furthermore, as a highly interconnected industry, the spillover effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration can extend development achievements to surrounding villages. It not only creates more employment positions for surrounding villagers and broadens sales channels for local specialties but also drives surrounding villages to cultivate and develop agro-cultural-tourism integration industries, gradually forming agro-cultural-tourism integration agglomeration areas and effectively narrowing the development gap between villages. In summary, under the guidance and leadership of governments and rural grassroots organizations, external embedded subjects and endogenous subjects in rural areas form an actor network with multi-party collaborative participation. Through multi-dimensional efforts in industrial development, facility upgrading, environmental protection, cultural prosperity, community governance, and agricultural heritage protection, they systematically advance the practical process and goal achievement of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas.

Deeply excavate and identify the multiple functions and multiple values of Fujian Wuyi rock tea cultural system AHS areas, comprehensively find out the resource base and idle resources in the AHS area, and promote agro-cultural-tourism integration development through orderly revitalization, integrated utilization and standardized development. First, based on the basic agricultural production function, we should make good use of the characteristic agricultural brand of Wuyi rock tea, the agricultural landscape of green ecological tea garden, the knowledge system of traditional tea planting, management and production, promote leisure agriculture, sightseeing agriculture, ecological agriculture, experience agriculture and research agriculture, and create various modes of agro-cultural-tourism integration, such as “agriculture + research”, “agriculture + health care”, and “agricultural products + cultural creation”. Second, it is necessary to systematically sort out and concentrate on living cultural resources, pay attention to the excavation and extraction of cultural content of heritage sites, the living inheritance of AHS heritage and the orderly construction of cultural scenes, and promote the living utilization and dynamic presentation of cultural resources such as Wuyi rock tea (Dahongpao) production technology, tea hundred operas and other 12 types of intangible cultural heritage projects, Zhuzi culture, Liuyong culture, red culture, famous historical and cultural villages, traditional villages, catering culture and handicraft culture. Third, it is imperative to comprehensively survey and systematically activate idle resources. Through in-depth field visits and multi-stakeholder communication, a thorough inventory of idle land and rural houses in agricultural heritage areas should be conducted. Guided by the concept of “Three Teas Coordination”, the brand influence of the Wuyishan National Park Protection and Development Belt, and the recognition as a China National Important Agricultural Heritage System, we should act in accordance with local conditions to carry out a comprehensive survey, systematic evaluation, and orderly activation of resources such as idle rural land and houses. By contracting to external operators or implementing integrated development by village collectives, we will formulate region-specific strategies for activating idle resources to develop integrated agro-cultural-tourism industries.

First, strengthen Party building to lead and coordinate multiple subjects, improve the benefit-sharing mechanism, and implement village-specific policies to adapt to the development needs of different villages. The participants in agro-cultural-tourism integration in the Wuyi rock tea agricultural heritage area include external embedded subjects and endogenous subjects. It is necessary to rely on the leading role of Party building to guide and support social and local subjects in reaching a consensus on interests, and promote policy support, fund allocation, platform construction, talent cultivation, and space creation for the in-depth agro-cultural-tourism integration. On one hand, local governments organize and coordinate various administrative departments to establish a special working group for promoting tea-cultural-tourism integration under the guidance of the “‘Three Teas’ Coordination” concept. From a holistic regional perspective, they formulate relevant action plans and normative schemes to conduct top-level design for empowering common prosperity through agro-cultural-tourism integration. They accelerate the classification of villages and thoroughly implement systems such as the science and technology correspondent system and the “100 Enterprises Connect with 100 Villages” program. Based on village types, resource endowments, development needs, and practical paths, they allocate science and technology correspondents and top 100 enterprises to pair with villages for targeted assistance. By investing relevant supportive factors, they promote the formation of a close symbiotic relationship between social subjects and local subjects in the villages within the AHS area. On the other hand, as a key subject of the local community in agricultural heritage areas, rural grassroots Party organizations coordinate the relationship between external subjects and local villagers in the process of agro-cultural-tourism integration. Regarding the handling of “intra-village - intra-village” relations, they play a leading role in promoting agro-cultural-tourism integration, strive for relevant incentive and subsidy mechanisms to drive villagers’ participation, and take the lead in establishing companies or cooperatives through village collectives. They operate the rural areas within the heritage site as an integrated entity to carry out agro-cultural-tourism integration activities, and construct an interest linkage system under the leadership of Party building featuring the “village two committees + company + village households” model, so as to avoid disorderly and vicious competition within the village. In terms of handling “intra-village - extra-village” relations, rural grassroots Party organizations conduct a thorough inventory and systematic integration of village resources and assets, take the initiative to seek docking with external resources, and package idle resources and operation management to external operators, establishing a model of “village two committees + external enterprises + villagers”. The Party organizations play a coordinating role between external operators or the government and local villagers. They not only cooperate with the development and operation activities of external subjects to jointly promote the agro-cultural-tourism integration development of villages in agricultural heritage areas, increasing village collective income, improving village appearance, upgrading infrastructure, and protecting the natural ecology, but also carry out ideological mobilization and coordination among local villagers. They strive for legitimate and reasonable interests for villagers, ensure the orderly progress of basic production and living, facilitate local employment, and increase villagers’ economic income.

Second, give full play to the principal role of villagers, strengthen community empowerment, stimulate their enthusiasm for actively participating in the integrated development of agriculture, culture, and tourism, and cultivate endogenous driving forces for the integrated development of agriculture, culture, and tourism in heritage areas. It is essential to fully recognize the principal position of farmers in the continuity, dynamic protection, and living inheritance of agricultural cultural heritage. Therefore, in the process of transforming the resource advantages of agricultural cultural heritage into economic and social advantages through the integrated development of agriculture, culture, and tourism, it is necessary to prioritize villagers’ needs and interests and involve them in the entire chain and whole process of the integrated development. Firstly, attach importance to the cultivation of local talents. Invite experts, scholars, local specialists, field experts, and rural elites to conduct training courses combining “online + offline” methods, cultivate a group of local “new farmers” who are proficient in technology, skilled in management, good at operation, and diligent in learning. Attract villagers working outside and rural talents to return to their hometowns for entrepreneurship, comprehensively promote the gathering of local rural talents, and stimulate villagers’ enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity in developing the integrated agriculture, culture, and tourism. Secondly, encourage villagers to participate in various forms. It is necessary to fully listen to villagers’ opinions on the integrated development of agriculture, culture, and tourism in their villages, adopt measures such as “one matter, one discussion”, and attach importance to and mobilize villagers to participate in village planning, infrastructure construction and maintenance, environmental sanitation improvement, and other activities to jointly provide a good community environment for the integrated development. In the process of integrated development, it is important to attach importance to linking and driving farmers, strengthen their position as the main players in employment, and encourage farmers to achieve employment and income increase at their doorsteps by participating in scenic spot development, labor services, selling agricultural and sideline products, cooperative operation, shareholding dividends, and land transfer. Truly enable farmers to become the main participants in the planning, construction, operation, and benefit-sharing of the integrated agriculture, culture, and tourism in their villages.

Third, guide industrial and commercial capital to rural areas. Based on enterprises’ own advantages in capital, talents, management, and markets, provide strong impetus for agro-cultural-tourism integration through quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, transformation, and upgrading. Firstly, guide external enterprises to give full play to the direct role of capital in transforming resource and asset advantages into economic development advantages. Realize the development and innovation of agro-cultural-tourism integration formats by creating integrated service products, experiential projects, and supporting facilities. Help promote the orderly advancement of rural resource activation, village appearance improvement, cultural heritage protection and inheritance, and ecological environment construction, thereby improving villagers’ quality of life and enhancing people’s well-being. Secondly, fully leverage the role of external enterprises in resource coordination and market alignment. By integrating enterprises’ platform advantages, government policy guidance, and market factor demands, promote the direct connection of characteristic resources in heritage areas with tourist source markets, attract tourists and more capital investment, and create more development opportunities for the further development of agro-cultural-tourism integration in heritage areas. Promote the internal circulation of enterprise benefits in rural heritage areas, driving the orderly improvement of industrial development level and rural construction level. Thirdly, stimulate enterprises’ social responsibility. Guide external operators to take linking and driving farmers as the starting point and ultimate goal when participating in agro-cultural-tourism integration. Ensure the rational allocation and orderly utilization of resource and asset factors, avoid the occurrence of the “tragedy of the commons”, and at the same time provide local residents with employment opportunities at their doorsteps such as labor services, independent operation, and shareholding dividends. Improve villagers’ income levels, driving them to increase income and get rich and raising their material living standards.

First, based on the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this study systematically interprets the mechanism of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity by incorporating both human actors and non-human actors into the research framework. Compared with existing studies that mainly focus on the subjective initiative of human actors such as governments, enterprises, tourists, and farmers in promoting agro-cultural-tourism integration to achieve common prosperity (Tao et al., 2025; Zhang X. F. et al., 2025), this study further highlights the key driving role of non-human actors such as resource endowments, rural environments, and facility services in agricultural heritage areas, as well as the coupling interaction and interest game between human and non-human actors, in the process of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity (Liu J. J. et al., 2025). While verifying the compatibility between ANT and the realization mechanism of common prosperity, this study enriches the theoretical research on agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity. Moreover, it conducts discussions from the dual perspectives of rural geography and industrial economics, conforming to the current research trend of interdisciplinary integration.

Second, targeting common prosperity as the goal, this study enriches the research content on the impact effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration. Existing studies have explored the multiple effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration from perspectives such as community perception and participation (Dong et al., 2024b), sustainable livelihood resilience (Luo W. B. et al., 2024), realization of ecological product value (Xie et al., 2024), rural transformation and upgrading (Wang J. Y. et al., 2024), and resource value reshaping (Tao et al., 2025). Although these effects are conducive to achieving common prosperity to varying degrees, the research on the impact effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity still lacks systematic interpretation. Current studies mostly remain at the levels of basic framework construction, description of time-bound challenges, and advocacy of policy recommendations (Zheng et al., 2024a; Sun and Wang, 2023), and there is an urgent need to extract empirical evidence from typical practical cases. This study explores the impact effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration in agricultural heritage areas from the perspective of common prosperity, which not only effectively verifies that agricultural heritage areas are important practical units for solidly promoting the realization of common prosperity, but also discusses the mechanism and practical path of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity in heritage areas at the theoretical level, expanding the research perspective on the impact effects of agro-cultural-tourism integration.

Third, this study expands the research on the realization of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas, a special geographical unit. Agricultural heritage areas have regional particularities, presenting the dual attributes of “community” and “scenic area” in the context of agro-cultural-tourism integration development (Sun et al., 2023), and they have more obvious characteristics of farmer subjectivity, systematic authenticity, and human-land coupling compared with ordinary rural areas (Dong et al., 2024a; Zheng et al., 2024a). By analyzing the mechanism of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity in the Wuyi Rock Tea Cultural System agricultural heritage area in Fujian Province, this study not only extends the case study of the special geographical unit of agricultural heritage areas, but also provides theoretical reference and ideological guidance for the mutual embedding and coordination of internal and external rural human and non-human actors for other agricultural heritage areas to empower the realization of common prosperity through agro-cultural-tourism integration.

First, this study selects the Wuyi Rock Tea Cultural System agricultural heritage area in Fujian Province as a case. Although the representativeness of the case has been considered, due to differences in the composition of actors, the translation process of actor networks, and the relationships among heterogeneous actor networks in agricultural heritage areas with different geographical locations, heritage types, and development stages in the process of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity, focusing only on a single case study of the Wuyi Rock Tea Cultural System in Fujian Province inevitably leads to limitations in the universality and replicability of the research findings for other agricultural heritage areas to solidly promote common prosperity through agro-cultural-tourism integration. In future research, multi-case comparative analyses can be conducted across different scales, regions, types, and development stages to explore the influence mechanisms and paths of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity in agricultural heritage areas. This will clarify the similarities and differences across regions and types, thereby enhancing the universality of the research conclusions.

Second, agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity is a complex and dynamic process involving multiple subject elements and multiple network relationships. Although this study acknowledges that this process is the result of the combined effects of interactions and games between human and non-human actors, due to the constraints of the research perspective and theme, it only explores the action paths of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity from a static perspective, lacking discussions on the reorganization of heterogeneous actors and the reconstruction of complex network relationships in agricultural heritage areas from a dynamic perspective. In future research, diachronic follow-up observations of this case site can be conducted to systematically explore the evolutionary process and mechanism of agro-cultural-tourism integration empowering common prosperity at different development stages.