Keeping your audience: Presenting a visitor engagement scale

Babak Taheri, Aliakbar Jafari and Kevin O'Gorman

Tourism Management, 2014, vol. 42, issue C, 321-329

Abstract: Understanding visitors' level of engagement with tourist attractions is vital for successful heritage management and marketing. This paper develops a scale to measure visitors' level of engagement with tourist attractions. It also establishes a relationship between the drivers of engagement and level of engagement using Partial Least Square, whereby both formative and reflective scales are included. The structural model is tested with a sample of 625 visitors at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, UK. The empirical validation of the conceptual model supports the research hypotheses. Whilst prior knowledge, recreational motivation and omnivore-univore cultural capital positively affect visitors' level of engagement, there is no significant relationship between reflective motivation and level of engagement. These findings contribute to a better understanding of visitor engagement in tourist attractions and a series of managerial implications are proposed.

Keywords: Visitor engagement; Scale development; PLS; Heritage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:42:y:2014:i:c:p:321-329

DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2013.12.011

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