The Effect of Cultural Heritage Tourism on Tourist Word of Mouth: The Case of Lok Versa Festival, Pakistan

Muhammad Hasnain Abbas Naqvi, Yushi Jiang, Mishal Hasnain Naqvi, Miao Miao, Changyong Liang and Shafaqat Mehmood
Additional contact information
Muhammad Hasnain Abbas Naqvi: School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Yushi Jiang: School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Mishal Hasnain Naqvi: Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Miao Miao: School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Changyong Liang: School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China
Shafaqat Mehmood: School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: Festivals are the most viable source of tourism promotion and provide recognition to different cultures and communities. This paper proposed and examined a holistic model of festival word of mouth (WOM), which is influenced by authenticity, promotion, loyalty, quality, and satisfaction. Accordingly, the current paper investigated the effect of the proposed model with reference to Lok Virsa handicrafts, the most famous festival of the Islamabad region in Pakistan. The findings revealed that the festival quality has direct impact on WOM and promotion. Promotion has a positive influence on loyalty, satisfaction, and WOM. Festival authenticity strongly influences promotion, quality, satisfaction, and WOM. Festival satisfaction is positively related to WOM and loyalty. Whereas, festival loyalty and WOM are significantly associated. The results suggest that festival organizers should deliver the claims and promises in the festival that they have made with tourists. This technique will harvest positive WOM and increase tourist re-visitation to upcoming festivals.

Keywords: festival promotion; festival word of mouth; festival quality; authenticity of festival; festival satisfaction; festival loyalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2391/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2391/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:7:p:2391-:d:157049

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().