Abstract
Tourists’ attitudes, especially when searching with a cultural tendency, can influence the tourism experience in cultural heritage tourism. Based on the cultural contact theory and tourist involvement theory, we try to reveal the tie or the relationship between local culture and tourism. Here, we define cultural tendency as the extent to which tourists positively intend to learn about the culture of the destination. Then, we examined the roles of cultural tendency, involvement, tourist experience, and satisfaction in heritage tourism and proposed a tendency–involvement–experience (TIE) model. Using a questionnaire with tourists in Mogao Caves, a world heritage site, we found that cultural tendency through involvement enhanced tourism experience and satisfaction. Moreover, the tendency of different cultures had various effects on tourists’ experiences. Prior knowledge did not play a moderating role on the relationship among cultural tendency and involvement. The findings underscore the importance of cultural tendency in creating experiences, and heritage tourism must address tourists’ preferences for a better experience.
Highlights
Heritage tourism has become popular, with more tourists looking for a meaningful relationship with the past [1]
The variable prior knowledge was measured by three items: “How much did you know about the historical legends in Mogao cave prior to your trip?”, “How much did you know about the Buddhist culture in Mogao cave prior to your trip?”, and “How much did you know about the cave art in Mogao cave prior to your trip?” [74]
This study examined the relationships among cultural tendency, involvement, tourist experience, and satisfaction with heritage tourism and proposed a TIE model
Summary
Heritage tourism has become popular, with more tourists looking for a meaningful relationship with the past [1]. Many studies have discussed that the inner factors and co-creation of tourists can largely influence heritage experience [8–10] and heritage protection [11]. Heritage includes a synthesis of connotations containing multiple cultural values [12], and the tourist tendency for different cultures can affect the tourism experience [13]. There is limited research on the multifaceted cultural connotations of heritage from the perspective of tourists’ experiences. Identifying the tourists’ tendency in heritage culture and conducting targeted tourism development can balance heritage conservation and development. The subject matter, formal techniques, and style of the Mogao Caves art are of great value and demonstrate that Chinese perspective, color, and architecture have reached a high level in the last thousand years
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