From Smells to Sentiments: How Rural Smellscape Perception Shapes Place Attachment Through Autobiographical Memory and Identity Continuity

With the rapid development of digital tourism, more and more tourists are embracing this innovative mode of tourism. Digital tourism has attracted a large influx of tourists, which not only promotes the dissemination of local culture, but also promotes tourists’ intention to preserve culture. This study proposes a comprehensive framework authenticity, cultural experience, place attachment, satisfaction, and cultural protection intention, aiming to explore tourists’ cultural protection intention in digital tourism. To validate our framework, we use the Digital Intelligence Niushou as a case study and distributed a questionnaire to tourists, obtaining 408 valid responses. We analyzed the collected data using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that place attachment and the four cultural experiences positively influenced both visitors’ satisfaction and cultural protection intention. Notably, “scientific knowledge” and “personal values” emerged as the biggest influences on cultural protection intention. Among the three types of authenticity, only objective authenticity and constructed authenticity positively influenced tourists’ satisfaction and cultural protection intention. This suggests that faithfully restored historical contexts play a key role in shaping tourists’ experiences and attitudes toward cultural protection in the field of digital tourism. This study provides a solid theoretical foundation for advancing digital tourism and enhancing tourists’ commitment to preserving cultural heritage. Our findings are important for digital tourism platforms to develop more effective optimization strategies, and can help managers to create more attractive, authentic and immersive tourism models to enhance tourist satisfaction and cultivate cultural protection intention.

Gastronomy plays a central role in shaping tourists’ travel decisions, as authentic culinary experiences connect visitors with local culture and strengthen their attachment to destinations. This study examined the effect of gastronomic motivations on place attachment, with gastronomic experience as a mediating variable. A quantitative approach using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS 24 was employed to rigorously test the proposed relationships. Data were obtained from 400 valid questionnaires completed by tourists who had visited Bandung and tasted local cuisine within the past year. The sample size was determined using the Lemeshow formula, as the population size was unknown. The analysis involved confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess construct validity and measurement reliability, followed by structural model testing. The results demonstrated that gastronomic motivations had a significant positive effect on both gastronomic experience and place attachment. Furthermore, gastronomic experience was found to significantly enhance place attachment, confirming its mediating role. These findings highlight the importance of gastronomy as both a motivational and experiential driver of tourists’ emotional bonds with destinations. From a managerial perspective, the study provides practical and strategic insights for destination managers and tourism stakeholders in developing marketing strategies and innovative tourism products that emphasize local culinary identity and community-based gastronomic experiences. Limitations include the single-destination focus, cross-sectional and self-reported data, and limited generalizability. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs or comparative studies across multiple destinations.

The phenomenon of tourist revisiting has attracted attention because of its economic benefits to tourist destinations. Under the guidance of the Stimuli–Organism–Response framework, this research considers travel photographs as stimuli, the relationships between autobiographical memory, place attachment and positive emotions as internal processes of the organism, and revisit intention as a behavioral response. Travel photographs had a significant positive impact on autobiographical memory, and autobiographical memory was found to be significantly associated with revisit intention. This relationship was mediated by positive emotions and moderated by place attachment. Implications and directions for future research are provided.

Cultural familiarity and food neophilia both shape tourists’ local food experiences. However, limited research has explored how these factors interact within tourists’ psychological processes. This study applies approach-avoidance motivation theory to examine how cultural familiarity influences emotional responses, destination food image, place attachment, and behavioural intentions, with food neophilia serving as a moderator. Data were collected from 401 domestic tourists in Yangzhou, China, a UNESCO City of Gastronomy. The results from Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) show that cultural familiarity enhances emotional engagement, which in turn strengthens destination evaluations and behavioural intentions. The moderating effect of food neophilia indicates that familiarity and novelty jointly shape tourists’ desire for both comfort and new experiences. These findings contribute to tourism theory by introducing a dual-motivation framework into food tourism research. From a managerial perspective, the study offers practical insights for destination marketers. Cultivating ‘unexpected familiarity’ by blending familiar cultural elements with novel experiences can help reduce travel anxiety, strengthen emotional engagement, and increase destination appeal and revisit intentions.

Despite the evidence suggesting emotional solidarity as an antecedent of placement attachment, tourism research has maintained the monolithic view where place attachment antecedes emotional solidarity. To challenge the conventional view, survey data from rural tourists in South Korea were collected and analyzed. Stepwise regression analysis results confirmed that the two constructs were bi‐directionally related and the model assuming emotional solidarity as a predictor of place attachment had better explanatory power.Place identityandemotional closenesswere the most salient predictors. This suggests an alternative understanding of the relationship between place attachment and emotional solidarity and provides managerial implications for rural destinations.

Limited research uses autobiographical memory to evaluate tourism experience. This study helps fill this gap by developing a causal relationship model among autobiographical memory, tourism image and place attachment. In the present study, memory rehearsal and memory impact were consistently predictive of place dependence, place identity. Cognitive image and affective image also positively predicted place dependence, place identity and mediated certain relationships between autobiographical memory and place attachment. These findings highlight the relevance of top-down processing of tourism experience and destination image, place attachment. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed based on the study results.

Antecedents and consequences of place attachment: A comparison of Chinese and Western urban tourists in Hangzhou, China

In recent years, many well-preserved traditional ethnic minority villages in China, designated as cultural heritage sites, have gradually become tourist destinations. Improving the tourism experience in these villages has become a key task. The audio–visual landscape plays the most important role in evaluating key indicators of the tourism experience, including tourism satisfaction, perceived restoration, and place attachment. This study focuses on the audio–visual landscape of Nangang Yao village and uses a survey to establish a structural equation model (PLS-SEM) of audio–visual landscape perception and the tourism experience by quantifying this relationship. The results show that the unique artificial sounds of this Yao village have a significant positive effect on the perception of the soundscape, which directly influences the perception of the visual landscape. In the evaluation of the tourism experience, although the visual landscape has no significant effect on perceived restoration, the perception of the audio–visual landscape has a positive effect on tourism satisfaction and place attachment. Moreover, the perception of the visual landscape mediates the impact of the soundscape on various dimensions of the tourism experience. Both the soundscape and the visual landscape are crucial in shaping tourists' satisfaction and place attachment and have nearly equal contributions.

This paper evaluates a theoretical model based on hypothesized relationships among four constructs, namely, autobiographical memory (memory rehearsal and memory impact), and place attachment as antecedents of revisit intention and recommendation intention in the context of rural tourism in China. The results of 301 Chinese tourists show that the two dimensions of tourists’ autobiographical memory (memory rehearsal and memory impact) affect the tourists’ intention to revisit and recommend. Place attachment plays an intermediary role among tourists’ autobiographical memory, revisit intention, and recommendation intention. This study is the first to apply the structural dimension of autobiographical memory has been applied to rural tourism in China. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed based on the study results.

How Cyberpsychology and Virtual Reality Can Help Us to Overcome the Psychological Burden of Coronavirus.

Cultural heritage sites play a crucial role in safeguarding identity, fostering cultural exchange, and generating sustainable tourism. Within this context, the Palace Museum in Beijing, which attracts 19 million annual visitors, offers a compelling case for examining the dynamics that shape revisit intention. This study explores the relationships among perceived authenticity, place attachment, destination satisfaction, visitor engagement, and revisit intention within the context of heritage tourism. Using Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), data were collected from local visitors to the Palace Museum to analyze both the direct and mediating effects of these constructs. Findings indicate that perceived authenticity significantly enhances both destination satisfaction and visitor engagement, while place attachment makes a strong contribution to visitor engagement. Moreover, visitor engagement emerged as a more influential mediator than destination satisfaction in linking perceived authenticity to revisit intention, showing the importance of immersive and meaningful participation in shaping tourists’ behavioral intentions. These results suggest that while satisfaction remains a relevant concept, strategies that emphasize authenticity-driven experiences and fostering of deeper emotional and participatory bonds are more effective in sustaining revisits. This study advances the understanding of heritage tourism and provides practical insights for managing iconic heritage sites such as the Palace Museum.

Rural tourism is perceived as an escape from noisy urban settings to tranquil rural environments to improve tourist well-being. However, the dynamics of how tourists engage with and benefit from rural soundscapes, particularly at night when visual stimuli diminish and auditory experiences become more pronounced, remain underexplored. This article investigates the effects of rural soundscapes on tourist well-being throughout different periods of the day. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study reveals that tourists’ experiences of therapeutic rural soundscapes are relational and contextual. Therapeutic rural soundscapes are primarily experienced during nighttime, facilitated by the absence of visual distractions and man-made sounds and the presence of familiar natural and rural sounds, alongside a prevailing sense of safety in the silence and darkness. Nevertheless, the majority of tourists are one-day visitors and thus largely excluded from these therapeutic soundscape experiences, which are overshadowed by visual attractions and the intrusion of man-made sounds. The findings advance the theory of therapeutic sensescapes by revealing the interplay between the senses of vision and hearing in shaping tourists’ safety perceptions and well-being experiences in rural destinations. This study also offers practical implications for enhancing the appeal of rural destinations by improving tourists’ auditory experiences across diverse spatio-temporal contexts.

Place attachment through sensory-rich, emotion-generating place experiences in rural tourism

In the context of the embodiment and humanistic turn in tourism research, exploring new pathways for mountain tourism development from the perspective of the relationship between tourists' perceived authenticity (PAY) and place attachment (PAT) is of great significance. This approach aims to strengthen the emotional connection between mountain tourism and target tourist groups, improving the quality of the mountain tourism experience. This study defines the relationship between PAY and PAT among mountain tourists, clarifies their measurement dimensions, and constructs a research model for PAY and PAT in mountain tourism. Taking Gaoligong Mountain as a case study site, it collected 297 valid responses through a questionnaire survey. Seven research hypotheses were tested by the using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that: (1) The results of the reliability and validity revealed that the division of PAY are objective authenticity (OA) and existential authenticity (EA), and PAT are place dependence (PD) and place identity (PI), corresponding to the particular scenario of mountain tourists; (2) OA significantly enhances both PD and PI, and PD positively influences PI; (3) Analyses of Mediating Effects reveal that neither OA nor EA affects PI through PD; (4) EA significantly affected PI but not PD. The research results reveal the underlying mechanisms and dynamics between the dimensions of PAY and PAT among mountain tourists. Therefore, this study suggests that local governments and business enterprises should strengthen the emotional connection between mountain tourism and tourists by focusing on five key areas: enhancing PAY, aiming at target segments, promoting PI, understanding tourist needs, and improving policies and planning. These efforts will contribute to the sustainable and high-quality development of mountain tourism.

This study explores the role of Allium ursinum L. in shaping authentic gastronomic experiences and its influence on tourists' perceptions and revisit intentions in rural destinations. Allium ursinum was selected due to its cultural symbolism, seasonal availability, and traditional culinary use, particularly in Serbia. The study applies the SOR (Stimulus-Organism-Response) model to investigate how cognitive and affective responses elicited by interactions with this plant shape tourist behavior. A structured questionnaire was administered to 336 tourists who had consumed food containing Allium ursinum in ten rural destinations across the Republic of Serbia. The findings emphasize the importance of cognitive responses, such as authenticity perception, knowledge acquisition, and cultural understanding, which in turn influence affective responses, including enjoyment, emotional involvement, and flow state. While positive emotions enhance attachment to local food and revisit intention, the subjective nature of these assessments calls for caution when generalizing. The study contributes to the literature by identifying sensory and emotional mechanisms that link local food ingredients with tourist loyalty. This is the first study to empirically test the SOR model using a local plant ingredient in a rural tourism context.