This study examines the dynamic evolution of tourism collective risk perception and its role in fostering social solidarity during an epidemic. We investigate how dread and unknown risk perceptions interact across four crisis stages, operationalized via lexicon-based proxy indicators extracted from social media text. Results reveal stage-dependent patterns: unknown risk drives dread risk in the buildup stage; they interact bidirectionally during breakout and abatement; dread risk drives unknown risk in the termination stage. Moreover, the synchronization of collective risk perception Granger-causes solidarity, providing empirical evidence for the social process linking shared risk perceptions to collective response. This research advances risk perception theory by extending Slovic's framework from a static-individual to a dynamic-collective perspective and by demonstrating how shared risk perceptions contribute to adaptive capacity. Findings offer managers a data-driven tool to monitor collective perceptions and implement stage-specific strategies for tourism risk management.
In an increasingly crowded tourism market, functional differentiation rarely secures enduring advantage. Destination personality research has established that symbolic fit relates to tourist responses, yet current knowledge still offers an incomplete account of how a destination that feels identity-consistent becomes one that visitors intend to revisit. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study develops and tests a sequential model in which destination personality predicts actual and ideal self-congruity, which, in turn, relate to revisit intention through memorable tourism experiences and place attachment. Survey data from 470 domestic visitors to Quanzhou, a world heritage city in China, were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling, with visit frequency included as a control variable. Findings reveal that destination personality positively predicts actual and ideal self-congruity. Both congruity forms, in turn, relate positively to memorable tourism experiences and place attachment. Memorable tourism experiences also relate positively to place attachment, with both constructs relating positively to revisit intention. Indirect and serial indirect effects are significant across both congruity routes. Formal pairwise comparisons based on bootstrapped difference distributions reveal that ideal self-congruity shows stronger associations than actual self-congruity for the upstream path from destination personality and on the pathways involving memorable tourism experiences, whereas the contrasts that bypass memorable tourism experiences are not significant, which suggests that aspirational identity is most strongly associated with the stage where experiences are interpreted and retained. Measurement invariance testing and permutation-based multi-group analysis reveal no significant differences between first-time and repeat visitors across these pathways, which supports the stability of the findings across visitor segments. These insights advance destination branding research by showing that the association between symbolic fit and revisit intention is consistent with a process in which visitors experience that fit as memorable and consolidate such meaning into attachment.
As former industrial sites are regenerated into heritage tourism destinations, platform-based electronic word of mouth (eWOM) increasingly shapes how these places are perceived, evaluated, and managed. However, how sustainable placemaking configurations shape the internal structure of eWOM remains insufficiently understood. This study examines twenty regenerated industrial heritage tourism districts in Shanghai and conceptualizes sustainable placemaking through four higher-order conditions: blue-green placemaking (BGP), online-offline place promotion (OPP), heritage tourism experience quality (HTEQ), and an accessible and inclusive environment (AIE). Drawing on geospatial indicators, visitor surveys, and social media data from Weibo and Dianping, the study constructs topic dispersion (TD) and sentiment dispersion (SD) as structural eWOM outcomes. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, the results identify multiple asymmetric pathways associated with low and high TD, as well as high and low SD. Low TD, reflecting concentrated topic structures, emerges when BGP, OPP, and HTEQ are jointly present and AIE is absent, whereas high TD, reflecting dispersed or weakly organized topic structures, emerges when all four conditions are jointly absent. High SD, reflecting heterogeneous sentiment expression, arises when BGP and OPP combine with either HTEQ or AIE. Low SD, reflecting homogeneous sentiment expression, occurs when weak HTEQ combines either with weak OPP and absent AIE or with weak BGP despite the presence of AIE. The study contributes to heritage tourism management by showing how coordinated placemaking conditions shape topic and sentiment dispersion in platform-mediated eWOM.
Extreme heat is reshaping urban tourism, yet its justice implications remain under-examined, particularly in heritage cities of the Global South. This research investigates how domestic tourists experience and interpret heat in Isfahan, a UNESCO-listed city confronting intensifying thermal stress within its heritage core. Drawing on a climate justice framework, the research analyses qualitative interviews to examine distributive, procedural, recognition, and restorative dimensions of thermal inequity. Findings reveal that heat exposure is unevenly structured through heritage design, commodified cooling, limited risk communication, and infrastructural neglect. Vulnerabilities are intersectional, shaped by gendered embodiment, age, mobility, and economic capacity, challenging assumptions of domestic tourists as climate-insulated subjects. Informal solidarities emerge in response to governance gaps, yet participants articulate demands for systemic repair, including guaranteed access to water and shade. The study advances climate justice scholarship by positioning heritage governance as a critical arena where conservation, adaptation, and embodied vulnerability intersect in an era of escalating heat extremes.
Online reviews are crucial references for consumers when booking hotels. However, existing research focuses on the detrimental impacts of negative reviews, with little exploration of how the temporal attributes of constructive negative reviews can create positive value. Based on construal level theory, expectancy theory, and attribution theory, this study conducts three experiments to examine the impact of temporal proximity cues in constructive negative reviews on consumers' booking intentions. It also tests the mediating role of recovery expectancy and the moderating role of response strategies. The results show that constructive negative reviews with far (vs. near) temporal cues are more effective in boosting booking intentions through recovery expectancy. Response strategies alter this influence: accommodative responses enhance the positive effect of far temporal cues, while defensive responses counteract it. This study reveals the positive transformation mechanism of review temporal cues, offering theoretical and practical implications for hotel online review management.
Rural cultural landscapes, largely relying on the cultural evolution and involvement of indigenous people in tourism villages, have become one of the most attractive tourism resources. However, the specific mechanism underlying this process remains underexplored. Drawing upon Tuan's spatial theory, this study collected data from Hakka villages in Meizhou, China, to explore the construction of rural cultural landscapes. Our study reveals that rural cultural landscapes represent a socially constructed human-environment relationship, consisting of five spatial dimensions: pragmatic, mythical, abstract, architectural, and relational spaces. Specifically, pragmatic space forms the basic layer of needs and serves as the foundation for other spaces, while mythical and abstract spaces guide the construction of relational and architectural spaces. Within mythical space, changes in values influence shifts in deity beliefs. The identified dimensions illustrate a spiraling and dynamic process of transformation over time. This study elucidates valuable theoretical and managerial implications for tourism policymakers and practitioners.
Artificial intelligence (AI) hallucination can spread misinformation, impair decision-making, and erode trust. Despite its profound impact, research remains insufficient. Drawing on stress-and-coping theory, this research examines how AI hallucination frequency (high vs. low) affects tourists' discontinuous usage intentions through six studies (N = 1750) and a single-paper meta-analysis. Results show that higher hallucination frequency significantly increases discontinuous usage intention, with perceived threat and psychological contract violation mediating this effect, and user expectations and failure severity are identified as key moderators of the relationship between AI hallucination and discontinuous usage intention. This research offers a dual contribution: theoretically advancing understanding of AI hallucination consequences and consumer technology rejection, and practically providing actionable insights for tourism management to mitigate AI hallucination's negative impacts.
Building on resilience theory, this study examines how tourists' personal and technological barriers influence their adaptive coping, leading to extended reality (XR) resilience and exploration in attraction and accommodation settings. Using a quantitative research design, involving two empirical studies, data were collected from tourists (N = 228) and hotel customers (N = 218) in China. Structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis were used to test hypotheses. Findings of both studies showed that personal and technology barriers negatively affect adaptive coping, which in turn positively influences participants’ XR resilience and exploration. Aesthetic value moderated the relationship between technology barriers and adaptive coping. In particular, the negative impact of technology barriers was weaker when perceived aesthetic value was high in the attraction context, but the moderating effect reversed in the accommodation context. This study pioneers a novel extended XR research framework, demonstrating that tourism practitioners can enhance tourists' coping, resilience, and exploration by reducing XR barriers through targeted guidance, support, and context-specific design strategies.
Despite the increasing deployment of AI-generated review summaries (AIGS) by travel platforms to summarize reviews into concise overviews, prior studies have reported mixed effects regarding whether these summaries encourage subsequent review contributions. This inconsistency may stem from overlooking the interplay between AIGS and existing evaluative signals within online review environments. We examine how the effect of AIGS on review contribution is moderated by the valence of review-helpfulness signals. Leveraging the lens of regulatory fit theory and a quasi-natural experiment on TripAdvisor hotel reviews, this study finds that AIGS increase review volume overall. However, negative-review helpfulness attenuates this positive effect. By contrast, positive-review helpfulness strengthens the effect, but only among non-luxury hotels. This study enriches our understanding of how the valence of review helpfulness asymmetrically moderates the effect of AIGS and offers practical guidance for platforms and hotel managers to deploy AIGS strategically across different review environments and hotel segments.
With increased human mobilities and the significance of visiting friends and relatives (VFR), the psychological mechanisms of VFR have yet to be fully explored, especially in terms of how pre-existing interpersonal bonds translate into place attachment through joint experience. This study enriches extant knowledge on place attachment through consideration of emotional solidarity and memorable experience in VFR. The survey data were collected from 470 VFR host-guest pairs in the context of South Korea and analyzed using PLS-based structural equation modeling. Results indicate that, in VFR settings, where pre-visit relationships are often established, and host-guest interactions frequently take precedence over conventional tourism activities, emotional solidarity significantly shapes place attachment through memorable experience. The study emphasizes the importance of unique, engaging, and differentiated VFR experiences and theoretically extends place attachment theory by showing its formation through the lens of emotional solidarity and memorable experience. It also extends the application of emotional solidarity by demonstrating how established interpersonal connections and VFR foster place attachment and behavioral intentions.
While travel and hospitality service failures often prompt brand switching, dissatisfied customers may still engage when unredeemed rewards make them feel they are progressing toward an important goal. Across four experiments in online travel and hospitality contexts, we examine when and how residual rewards sustain post-failure persistence and how their motivational influence shifts over time. In Studies 1–3, conducted in online travel agencies, we find that residual rewards and closer goal proximity increase consumers' resistance to switching after a service failure, that this goal-gradient effect weakens under severe failures, and that a brief cooling-off period paired with preservation framing helps restore loyalty-related motivation. In Study 4, we use a hotel reward program to examine whether reward-framing effects persist after customers redeem their rewards. Specifically, we compare the effects of reactivation messages emphasizing goal continuity ("continue where you left off") with those emphasizing new reward accumulation ("earn new rewards"). Although continuity-focused reactivation messages increase post-failure persistence before reward redemption, this advantage diminishes once customers redeem their rewards, suggesting a temporal limit to reward-driven persistence.
