The Impact of Emotional Experience on Tourists’ Cultural Identity and Behavior in the Cultural Heritage Tourism Context: An Empirical Study on Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes

Yang Yang, Zhengyun Wang, Han Shen () and Naipeng Jiang
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Yang Yang: School of History & Tourism, Hexi University, Zhangye 734000, China
Zhengyun Wang: Tourism Department, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Han Shen: School of History & Tourism, Hexi University, Zhangye 734000, China
Naipeng Jiang: Tourism Department, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: The emotions perceived by tourists and their effects in the tourism context are increasingly highlighted in tourism studies. In the cultural heritage tourism context, tourists’ emotional experience comes from their cognitive evaluation of the natural environment and the humanistic environment and triggers deep cognitive processing and prosocial behavior, further building tourists’ identity with culture and enhancing their awareness and heritage conservation behavior. Based on the theory of emotional evaluation and positive emotional expansion and construction, this study constructed the research model of emotional arousal—positive emotional experience—tourists’ cultural identity—heritage protection behavior. Three hundred and ninety-seven tourists’ data were empirically tested using the World Heritage Site, the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, as a case site. The study found that in the cultural heritage tourism context, the cognitive evaluation of the natural and humanistic environment has the effect of inducing positive emotional experience among tourists; positive emotional experience positively influences tourists’ cultural identity and heritage conservation behavior; and they are part of the mediating variables of tourists’ emotion elicitation and cultural identity. The results of this study will further enrich the theoretical research on emotions in the cultural heritage tourism context and also help the relevant departments of cultural heritage tourism further enhance tourists’ cultural identity and heritage conservation behaviors from the perspective of tourists’ emotional experience. The future research could focus on investigating the emotional triggers’ impact on tourists’ cultural identity and heritage conservation behavior in relation to a particular cultural experience activity.

Keywords: cultural heritage tourism; emotional experience; positive emotions; cultural identity; heritage conservation behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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