The influence of ICH-narrator/self-congruity on tourist's purchase intention of intangible cultural heritage products in a narrative context

Abstract

The retailers of intangible cultural heritage products (ICHPs) in tourism destinations tend to open their production space to tourists and select outstanding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) inheritors as narrators of ICH. They aim to create an immersive narrative experience for tourists to promote their purchase intentions. Tourists will achieve self-congruity with ICH narrators in a narrative experience and intend to purchase ICHPs. Moreover, this study takes personal and social brand identities as the mediating variables in the research model to investigate the impact of ICH narrator/self-congruity on the purchase intention of ICHPs in a narrative context. Results indicate that the ICH narrator/self-congruity will have a positive and significant effect on the purchase intention in the narrative experience. In addition, this study reveals that personal and social brand identities play partial mediating roles in the path of ‘ICH narrator/self-congruity→purchase intention of ICHPs’. Finally, the theoretical contribution and practical significance of this study are discussed.