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Article

Study on the Influence of Cultural Contact and Tourism Memory on the Intention to Revisit: A Case Study of Cultural and Creative Districts

by
Sizhen Lai
1,
Shuning Zhang
2,
Ling Zhang
3,
Hsien-Wei Tseng
3,* and
Yan-Chyuan Shiau
4,*
1
School of Urban and Regional Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
2
College of Tourism, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou 362021, China
3
School of Mathematics and Information Engineering, Longyan University, Longyan 364012, China
4
College of Architecture & Design, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu 30012, Taiwan
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2416; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042416
Submission received: 19 January 2021 / Revised: 17 February 2021 / Accepted: 19 February 2021 / Published: 23 February 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Management of Cultural and Heritage Tourism and Its Sustainability)
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Abstract

:
Cultural and creative tourism is emerging in tourism industry with the potential to be sustainable as an important carrier of traditional culture. This study adopts stimulus–response theory in a cultural integration perspective to investigate how tourists’ cultural memories, cultural contact, and attitude to culture affect their revisit intention. With the questionnaire survey responses from 651 tourists and structural equation modeling method, it was found that tourists’ cultural contact affected their revisit intentions directly and indirectly through cultural memory. Attitude to culture played critical moderating roles in the effects of tourists’ cultural contact on their cultural memory and revisit intention, but it had no significant impact on the relationship between tourists’ cultural memory and their revisit intention. This study indicates that cultural memory dominates tourists’ behavioral decisions, while attitude to culture highlights different effects at different influence paths. The findings provide marketers and managers with strategies for the sustainable development of cultural and creative districts.

1. Introduction

Tourism has now experienced the transformation into cultural and creative tourism for the proliferation of cultural tourism. Cultural and creative tourism has become a new type and new trend of current tourism development [1,2], which increasingly becomes an important destination for tourists. Cultural and creative tourism refers to an immersive experience activity that takes culture as the core foundation and takes creative innovation as the form of presentation [3]. It is different from cultural tourism destinations and creative areas in the traditional sense, which uses creativity carriers to display and activate original cultural connotations [3,4]. Especially in the Chinese context, the development of cultural and creative tourism is extremely rapid and valuable. However, current research pays little attention to the sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism, an emerging destination. Importantly, this form of tourism contributes to two obvious significant effects. From the perspective of cultural sustainability, the creative way displays the cultural connotation that is difficult for tourists to understand in a form of entertainment and innovation, so that tourists can quickly contact, understand, and recognize the local traditional culture. Especially with the deepening of the integration of culture and tourism [4], the local traditional culture is more extensive and known to people in a relaxed way [4]. This is conducive to the inheritance and spread of traditional culture. In addition, from the perspective of the sustainable development of scenic spots, current tourists are no longer satisfied with traditional sightseeing cultural tourism. With the younger consumption of tourists, studies have shown that creative cultural experience activities are more conducive to their flow experience, which is conducive to shaping tourists’ revisit intention [3]. Importantly, revisiting intent tourists is a manifestation of loyalty to the destination [5,6,7,8,9], which is vital to the sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism. However, although previous research [3,4] has focused on cultural and creative tourism experience, destination brand, etc., there is still a gap of theoretical evidence on whether cultural and creative tourism tourists are willing to revisit. Therefore, this research needs to answer the first issue what constitutes the tourists’ intention to revisit.
In fact, tourists contribute a lot in cultural and creative tourism in the districts through revisit intention. Revisit intention is defined as tourists’ willingness to visit places again, showing the tourists’ intentional plans as future behavior. Revisit intention affects destinations’ sustainable development. Current researches on cultural and creative tourism have mainly focused on tourists’ satisfaction, experience, motivation, and loyalty to certain places and cultures [10,11,12,13]. There are not many of the analyses of tourists’ behavior from cultural perspective as relatively little attention are paid to the theoretical path of tourists’ revisit intentions. In this way, it involves the second issue: What the leading factors for cultural and creative tourism tourists to form a revisit intention are. Some scholars assert that visitors’ subjective attitudes and behavior towards the culture of destinations comprise the crux of the tourist experience [14]. The experience in cultural and creative tourism involves close contact between tourists and local culture as well as the participation in local cultural activities, all of which can positively influence revisit intention [12]. For example, cultural authenticity has been proven to be a leading factor in the high-quality experience of cultural and creative tourism [3]. It shows that local culture is the core element of the uniqueness and attractiveness of cultural and creative tourism destinations. The reason is because the pursuit of different cultural experiences has become an important motivation in tourists’ tourism decisions [15], while cultural contact reflects the experience and interaction of tourists with local culture [16]. Therefore, local culture contact is likely to constitute tourists’ revisit intention.
This research raises the second issue: How cultural contact affects tourists’ revisit intention. Some quantitative studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between memory and revisiting because important memories stored in the mind will be recalled after the event. People’s experiences are transformed into memorability, which will affect their behavioral intentions [17]. Post-travel memory is the manifestation of travel continuity (i.e., the projection of visitors’ emotions related to tourist destinations). In this view, memories of tourists can strengthen their revisit intentions [13]. However, these conclusions, still robust from the cultural perspective, are still lacking empirical evidence. The important thing is that experiences of cultural events, cultural spirits, cultural values, and cultural connotations are embedded in the minds of tourists, and cultural studies proposed that memories of cultural events can affect tourists’ attitudes towards destination attachments [16]. Therefore, we have reason to speculate that cultural memory may be the key bridge connecting tourists’ cultural contact with their revisit intention. Further, individual attitudes have a certain guiding effect on their behavior [18]. The attitude towards a certain culture not only shows the degree of compatibility between tourists and a certain culture but also has something to do with the preference of tourists’ destination choices. In a word, it will answer the third issue raised by this study: Does cultural attitude accelerate the formation of tourists’ revisit intention.
Cultural and creative tourism attaches great importance to the best presentation and activation of cultural authenticity. Cultural and creative tourism experience provides tourists with a way to understand and assimilate into culture that is closely related to the destination, which contributes to the sustainable development of tourist destinations and traditional culture. However, current research ignores that tourists’ revisit intentions are critical evaluation indicators for the sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism. Therefore, there is still a theoretical gap on how to effectively improve the tourists’ revisit intention. To address this issue, this study will accomplish the following three research aims: (1) explore whether cultural contact is a leading factor in tourists’ revisit intention, (2) examine whether cultural memory plays an intermediary role in cultural contact and revisit intention, and (3) analyze how cultural attitudes play a moderating role in the formation of tourists’ revisit intention from a cultural perspective.
In order to answer the research issue, this paper constructs a new mediation-moderation model based on the stimulus-organism-response theory. This research focuses on the process of the formation of the tourists’ revisit intention towards cultural and creative tourism from the cultural perspective and provides new insights for the sustainable development of culture and destinations. More importantly, this study is based on the special role of creative elements in cultural expression and experience. It clarifies the new theoretical path that constitutes the loyal behavior of cultural and creative tourism tourists: “contact-memory-revisit”. Finally, the results of this research can provide management enlightenment for cultural and creative tourism managers on how to improve tourists’ revisit intention.

2. Theoretical Background and Model Construction

2.1. Stimulus-Organic-Response (SOR) Theory

Stimulus-organic-response (SOR) theory is important in psychology and behavior studies, being derived from Pavlov’s experimental work on conditioned reflexes [19]. The theory posits that people are stimulated by external environment or certain events. These stimuli can alter individuals’ thoughts and behaviors and determine which behaviors are maintained. Based on the stimulus–response model, some scholars found that person-specific psychological activities guide customers’ decision-making process and final purchase decisions once stimuli from marketing and external environment enter into consumers’ consciousness [20]. Therefore, stimulus–response theory is appropriate for analyzing the mechanism underlying tourists’ revisit intentions. Cultural contact with cultural memories and attitudes to culture are related closely with psychological activities by tourists’ personal characteristics. Cultural contact affects the tourists’ decision making, that is, their revisit intentions. We developed a stimulus–response behavior model of tourists’ cultural contact and revisit intentions (Figure 1), taking tourists’ cultural contact in the cultural and creative district as an example.

2.2. Cultural Contact and Revisit Intention

Cultural contact is not an isolated cultural event, but rather, a fundamental human trait [10]. The notion of cultural contact is originated from archaeology, encompassing entry into or the maintenance of a cultural destination by a particular group at a specific time. Cultural contact is necessary for group interaction with the outside world, specifically in terms of individuals’ need to control such interaction. Cultural contact has since been taken as a new concept to measure tourists’ extent of understanding and experience with local culture during a trip (McKercher, 2002) [12]. This concept also reflects purposeful and immersive tourism-based experiences that tourists seek for in foreign cultures (Gnoth and Zins, 2013) [21]. Cultural contact is further related to how tourists use the resources of cultural tourism and engage in cultural tourism. In this study, cultural contact is defined as a two-way interaction and cultural experience between tourists and local culture in cultural and creative tourism.
Revisit intention refers to tourists’ proclivity to return to destinations after visiting or participating in tourist activities. Revisit intention plays a vital role in the sustainable development of destinations [22,23]. Many factors influence tourists’ revisit intentions, including place attachment, image [24], destination attributes [25], etc. Gitelson and Crompton pointed out that the needs and satisfaction for tourists’ interaction and experience are essential in promoting revisits [26]. Pai et al. (2020) discovered that tourists’ experience also strongly affects their revisit intention [27]. Other researchers also cited the experiences as a main factor encouraging tourists’ revisits. For the revisits, cultural contact is a direct means of cultural interaction between tourists and tourist destinations. Thus, it is worth examining whether specific experiences or emotions associated with cultural contact might also influence tourists’ revisit intentions. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed accordingly.
Hypothesis 1 (H1):
Cultural contact has a positive impact on tourists’ revisit intentions.

2.3. Cultural Memory

Memory refers to mental activity, specifically individuals’ recall of activities, behavior, and experiences (Schacter and Ochsner, 1993) [28]. The theory of cultural memory was first proposed in the 1990s [29]. Human memory can be divided into three dimensions—neurological, social, and cultural—among which cultural memory is deepest. Cultural memory captures the spatial aggregation of past cultures through images, texts, cultural relics, and sites which are then reshaped in individuals’ collective consciousness. Cultural memory is defined in this study as the cultural impression that tourists retain after experiencing culture in destinations.
Tourism provides opportunities to create personal memories and promote memory formation in different cultures. Additionally, the memory influences individuals’ choices (Schacter et al., 2012) [30]. The memory has an important impact on local identity [31] as it involves the preservation of impressions. Especially, in the activities of cultural tourism, the depth of culture-related memory is an important part of perceiving the local culture and forming a cultural identity. The essence of tourism involves crafting unforgettable, vivid travel experiences for consumers (Li, 2000) [32]. Regarding “flash” memories caused by travel experiences, the reproducibility and vividness of these memories are particularly important [33]. Pine and Gilmore (2011) noted that consumption leads to stronger recall and subsequent positive evaluations, further suggesting that different levels of travel experiences positively influence tourists’ memories [34]. Thus, the tourism experience enables visitors’ recall of a tourist destination. Thus, the following assumption is proposed.
Hypothesis 2 (H2):
Cultural contact has a positive impact on tourists’ cultural memories.
Specific memory of a person about a place involves the projection of personal emotion onto that place. Internalized memory can stimulate people’s willingness to travel (Tao, 2015) [35]. People rely on memories to make decisions (Lehto et al., 2004) [36]. During a tour, cultural contact is stored in one’s mind to formulate memories. When consumers select tourist destinations, tourism memories are unconsciously recalled. The recall of tour experiences is also an important factor (Tung and Ritchie, 2011) [37] in revisit intentions and destination-related advertisement. Barnes et al. (2016) found that long-term memory strongly influences revisit intention [38]. Deep and enduring memories increase tourists’ willingness to revisit destinations. Cultural memory embodies a local culture’s legacy and impressions that persist after tourist activities have ended. Thus, it is worth investigating whether the memory of culture and tourism stimulate tourists’ revisit intentions with the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3 (H3):
Tourists’ cultural memories positively affect their revisit intentions.
Wu (2017) found that the quality of memory regulates the influence of past experience on repurchase intention [39]. Oh et al. (2007) identified a significant relationship among tourists’ experience, their positive memories and revisit intentions [40]. However, little is known about the association among tourists’ cultural contact, cultural memories, and revisit intentions. In this study, we presume that the cultural memory from tourists’ cultural contact acts as an internal mechanism for the revisit intentions and propose the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4 (H4):
Tourists’ cultural memories play a mediating role in the relationship between their cultural contacts and revisit intentions.

2.4. Attitude to Culture

Attitude is a part of the socialization process (Daruwalla and Darcy, 2005) [13]. In tourism, attitude describes degrees of visitors’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction, psychological tendencies, and evaluations of specific travel experiences (Kiatkawsin and Han, 2017) [41]. Attitude to culture is a constant and stable concept related to tourists’ inner cognition of traditional culture, representing an evaluative tendency related to cultural cognition and culture identity. We define “attitude to culture” as tourists’ understanding, preference, and recognition of cultures in destinations. Tourists’ attitudes to culture are developed through the contact, experience, and interaction with culture during tour. Millar (1996) believed that attitudes established with direct experience are based on the emotion that is established on indirect experience and cognition. The attitudes from direct experience are thought to predict environmental behavior more effectively. Therefore, recreational experience can presumably affect tourists’ environmental behaviors [42]. Sirakaya et al. (1999) conducted a research and found that students’ negative attitudes towards the environment declined significantly while positive attitudes towards the environment increased after a five-day outdoor recreational experience. Positive reactions were ultimately found to be more conducive to the formation of environmental awareness [43]. Pizam (1978) argued that residents’ negative attitudes influenced their contacts and impressions of tourists [44]. Pan (2016) discovered that positive consumers generally choose products and services that conformed to their wills, and resulting experiences were more easily remembered [45]. In addition, Bohacek (2010) affirmed that tourists’ emotions can strongly shape their memory [46], similar to how visitors’ attitudes effectively forecast subsequent recall (Ballantyne, Packer, and Sutherland, 2011) [47]. These research results suggest that attitudes play a regulatory role in individuals’ experiences, interaction, and formation of memory or consciousness. Accordingly, in terms of cultural and creative tourism, the following hypothesis is proposed in this study.
Hypothesis 5a (H5a):
Tourists’ attitude to culture positively moderates the relationship between cultural contact and cultural memories.
According to attitude–behavior theory, behavioral intention can determine and guide one’s behavior. More specifically, positive or negative attitudes influence behavior, behavioral consequences, and personal judgment [48]. The researches on consumers’ attitude have consistently revealed the attitude as a key predictor of people’s behavioral intentions. Distinctions in consumers’ attitudes inform decision making and its effects [49]. Numerous studies verified the moderating effect of attitude on individuals’ behavioral intentions. Lam (2007) applied the theory of planned behavior to evaluate Chinese and Taiwanese tourists’ tendencies to visit Hong Kong. The result showed that behavioral attitude control was effective in predicting tourism-related decisions [50]. Huang (2009) documented that tourists will be more likely to revisit when they express stronger attitudes to the destination [51]. Tourists’ attitude formation is often inspired by two situations such as existing impressions of tourist destinations and new impressions after relevant experience. Attitude to culture apparently exerts individuals’ influence on behavior. That is, visitors with specific attitudes tend to choose destinations with the attitudes consistently, thus enhancing the influence of the attitudes in choosing destinations (Deng, 2011) [52]. In brief, tourists with positive attitudes tend to develop post-experience revisit intentions. Tourists’ attitude to culture could therefore regulate the relationship between their experiences and behavioral intentions. Hence the following hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 5b (H5b):
Tourists’ attitude to culture plays a positive role in moderating the relationship between their cultural contact and revisit intentions.
The importance of travel experience can only be highlighted when the experience becomes memories and then influences decision making. It is unclear whether attitude plays a particular role in the relationship between memory and behavioral intention. Judd (1991) contended that attitude embodies a connection between the object and evaluation stored in memory, such that attitude formation guides individual behavior. An individual first retrieves the related evaluation from memory and then makes a decision with the attitude (Wu, 2003) [53]. Tourists’ attitudes may be associated with positive or negative emotions about tour experience, which can be useful for recalling positive behavioral impacts such as revisit intention and recommending destinations to others (Loureiro, 2014) [54]. At present, the role of attitudes in the relationship between memory and behavioral decision making is primarily theoretical from a psychological standpoint with scarce empirical research. With respect to cultural and creative tourism in particular, it is unknown whether tourists’ attitude to cultures has certain effects on the role of tourists’ cultural memories on their revisit intentions. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 5c (H5c):
Tourists’ attitude to culture plays a positive role in moderating the relationship between their cultural memories and revisit intentions.

3. Research Methods

3.1. Variable Measurement

Variables in this study include cultural contact, revisit intention, cultural memory, and attitude to culture. All variables are scored in a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “completely disagree,” 7 = “completely agree”) in the questionnaire of this study.
(1) Cultural contact. Chen and Rahman (2018) [16] modified the development scale from Gnoth and Zins (2013) [21] to explore the relationship between tourists’ cultural contact, experiences, and loyalty. This scale exhibits reliability and validity. The present study adopts the scale by Chen and Rahman by selecting items for Chinese cultural and creative tourism. (2) Revisit intention. We referred the scale used by Bonn [55] and chose three questions for assessment. (3) Cultural memory. The following three questions were used to measure tourists’ cultural memories by Hosany [56]. (4) Attitude to culture. Four questions are adopted from Zhou et al. [57].

3.2. Data Collection

This research took the China’s cultural and creative district in Wudianshi Traditional Blocks in Jinjiang, Fujian, China as the survey site. There are 130 diversified buildings such as ancestral temples, temples, dwellings, shops, and so on in the blocks. There are 81 buildings with characteristic styles from different eras, such as Ming, Qing Dynasties, and modern period in China. Traditional red brick buildings in the southern Fujian, Chinese, and Western styles are also found. The district inherits the intangible cultural heritage and characteristic folk customs of southern Fujian. We distributed questionnaires in the Wudianshi Traditional Blocks that show typicality and representativeness.
The questionnaires (Appendix A) were collected from the several steps. (1) This study adopted on- and off-line survey. Online research helps avoid geographic restrictions and collect data most widely. (2) The online survey has set up two questions at the forefront of the webpage whether you have been to the traditional neighborhoods of Wudianshi Traditional Blocks and whether you have any knowledge of Southern Fujian culture. Through these two questions, research samples are selected. In addition, if the filling time exceeds 2 min, a questionnaire will be submitted to ensure the validity of the questionnaire. (3) In the process of distributing the on-site (off-line) questionnaire, the research assistant clarified the purpose of the survey and the rules for filling in the questionnaire and gave detailed answers to the interviewee’ s questions. (4) Respondents were asked to fill in one by one, and the research assistant screened invalid questionnaires after the questionnaire was collected. (5) Finally, data were obtained between October and December 2017, and a total of 651 valid questionnaires were collected for the data analysis (effective response rate: 94.9%).
In terms of demographics, more than 60% are female. 44% of the respondents were in the age of 20–25 years old, 28% were 26–35 years old, 14% were younger than 20 years old and 14% were above 36 years old. Regarding the level of education, 42% of the respondents held undergraduate degrees, 20% graduated junior colleges, 21% finished high school/secondary school or below, and 12% held a master’s degree or above. More than 50% of tourists in Wudianshi Traditional Blocks visited the city again at least in 6 months after their prior visit. Around 70% of the tourists reported traveling one to three times per year. Statistics show that 30% of the tourists have visited the cultural and creative area at least three times. These statistics show that the cultural and creative tourism sample focuses on young and highly educated tourists, which is consistent with previous survey samples of cultural and creative tourism research (Zhang et al., 2019) [3].

4. Data Analysis Results

4.1. Validity Test

(1) Reliability testing. This study used Cronbach’s α to evaluate the reliability. Table 1 indicates that Cronbach’s α of the six variables each exceeded 0.8. The standardized factor loading of each observed variable ranged between 0.705 and 0.998 with significant t-test result (p < 0.001). Therefore, the questionnaire survey demonstrated the reliability for empirical analysis.
(2) Validity testing. Validity indicates whether questionnaire items measure the factors accurately and precisely. There are two measures, convergent and discriminant validity. For the test of convergent validity, average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) values were calculated. Generally, AVE and CR should be greater than 0.5 and 0.7 to display strong convergent validity, respectively. If the square root of the AVE of each latent variable exceeds the correlation coefficient of it with other latent variables, then the data has adequate discriminant validity. The results in Table 1 showed significant validity.

4.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed in AMOS20.0 software based on the following: χ2/df (p > 0.05), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) < 0.08, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) > 0.9, adjusted GFI (AGFI) > 0.8, normed fit index (NFI) > 0.9, relative fit index (RFI) > 0.9, incremental fit index (IFI) > 0.9, and comparative fit index (CFI) > 0.9. Value-added adaptation and reduction indices (e.g., NFI > 0.9) were used for judgment. The results showed that the confirmatory factor analysis presented good model fit (χ2 = 481.895, p < 0.001; χ2/df = 3.707; CFI =0.968; IFI =0.968; NFI = 0.957; AGFI = 0.896; RFI = 0.949 and RMSEA = 0.064). Therefore, the research data was used to verify the research hypotheses.

4.3. Correlation Analysis

Correlation analysis was used to explore the degree of correlation between variables. Table 2 reveals the high correlation between each variable (p < 0.001). Therefore, the square root of AVE was introduced to examine the discriminant validity among the constructs. The results showed that each structure has obvious discriminant validity. In addition, the variance inflation factor test (VIF) highlighted that collinearity was not a serious issue because all the VIFs of the constructs were less than 1.78.

4.4. Hypothesis Testing

Structural equation model was performed to test the research hypotheses, and the results were summarized in Figure 2. The results showed that the data fit the hypothesis model well (χ2 = 357.797, p < 0.001; χ2/df = 4.835; CFI = 0.969; IFI = 0.969; NFI = 0.961; AGFI = 0.898; RFI = 0.952; and RMSEA = 0.077).

4.4.1. Main Effect Test

H1 and H2 proposed that cultural contact positively affected tourists’ revisit intention and cultural memory. As predicted by H1 and H2, the effects of cultural contact on tourists’ revisit intentions and cultural memory were positive and significant (β = 0.153, p < 0.01; β = 0.801, p < 0.001). Thus, H1 and H2 were supported. In addition, H3 predicated that there was a positive effect linking cultural memory and tourists’ revisit intention. The results showed that cultural memory had a positive and significant effect on tourists’ revisit intention (β = 0.410, p < 0.001). Thus, H3 was also supported.

4.4.2. Mediating Effect Test

H4 suggested that cultural memory mediated the relationship between cultural contact and tourists’ revisit intention. The direct effect showed that there were the positive correlations among cultural contact, cultural memory and revisit intention. Further, the average indirect effect of cultural contact on revisit intention through cultural memory was positive and significant. The standardization coefficient of mediating effect was β = 0.328, p < 0.001; LLCI: 0.214, ULCI: 0.465. The results indicated that there were no confidence intervals of the two-tailed tests containing 0. Therefore, the mediator role of cultural memory was fully supported with H4.

4.4.3. Moderating Effect Test

To examine moderating effect, it was necessary to verify that attitude to culture moderated the influence of cultural contact on tourists’ cultural memories and their revisit intention. Table 3 summarized the moderating effects of cultural memory. The interaction effects (cultural contact × attitude to culture) were positive and significant for cultural memory (β = 0.960; p < 0.001). Further, simple slope in Figure 3a demonstrated that compared with low-level tourists’ attitude to culture, in the context of high-level attitude to culture, tourists’ cultural contact was more conducive to enhancing their cultural memory. Thus, H5a was supported.
H5b suggested that attitude to culture played a positive role in the relationship between tourists’ cultural contact and revisit intentions. The results indicated that attitude to culture moderated the effects of tourists’ cultural contact linking revisit intentions (β = 0.345; p < 0.05). More specifically, slope test in Figure 3b displayed that when tourists exhibited positive attitude to cultures, cultural contact strongly influenced their revisit intentions, which indicating that H5b was supported.
However, the interaction of cultural memory × attitude to culture was not statistically significant for revisit intention, which implied that attitude to culture had no moderating effect on the relationship between cultural memory and revisit intention (β = 0.289; p = 0.161). Thus, H5c was rejected. While positive attitude to cultures thus encouraged cultural contact to enhance tourists’ cultural memories, these attitudes did not necessarily render more of cultural memories to promote revisit intentions. As attitude to culture affected the formation of cultural memory, it could not moderate the association between cultural memories and revisit intention.

5. Conclusions and Discussions

5.1. Research Conclusions

From a perspective of culture, this study entailed a questionnaire survey of 651 with the tourists in the cultural and creative districts of Wudianshi Traditional Blocks. Based on the SOR theory, this study constructs and examines the theoretical model of the formation of tourists’ revisit intention from the cultural perspective of structural equation modeling, and the research results show fruitful findings.
First, the result has proved that cultural contact is a leading factor in the formation of cultural and creative tourism tourists’ revisit intention. Currently, revisit intention has been mentioned many times as an important indicator of the sustainable development of a tourist destination [6,7], because it reflects the high degree of loyalty of tourists. Although revisit intention is a relatively mature research concept in academia, it still lacks discussion in the specific theoretical context of cultural and creative tourism, a new type of tourism. The essence of cultural and creative tourism is to innovatively present cultural connotations through creative means and use creative forms to provide tourists with the possibility of cultural contact. Therefore, in the process of cultural and creative tourism experience, local traditional culture can be understood and identified by tourists in a relaxed way. Many studies have asserted that tourists’ pursuit of cultural authenticity has become their main motivation for revisiting [3,9]. Similarly, the core elements of tourism in cultural and creative destinations are derived from unique local cultures. Therefore, cultural contact is a crucial leading factor for tourists to want to visit the destination again.
Second, cultural memory acts as an important mediator in cultural contact and revisit intention. The findings in this study suggest that tourists’ contact with local culture can deepen their cultural memories and, in turn, shape their revisit intentions in the case of cultural and creative tourism. Essentially, memory is a flashing awakening process that can form and shape the appearance and content of traditional culture in the process of contact with local culture. It plays a guiding role in generating travel motives and intention to visit again. The result is similar to that of Oh [40] and Barnes [38] who suggested the relationship between tourists’ experiences, memories, and revisit intentions. However, the difference is that this research is based on the theoretical context of cultural and creative tourism, which highlights that the essential experience of cultural and creative tourism comes from cultural activities, cultural experience, and cultural learning. These series of activities related to unique local culture help tourists to form cultural memories, rather than general memories as in previous studies. Therefore, this study consolidates the tourist’s revisit intention from the cultural perspective to experience the theoretical path of “contact–memory–intention”.
Third, tourists’ attitudes play a differential moderating role in different stages of forming their willingness to revisit. Specifically, tourists’ positive attitudes about the cultural and creative districts also seemed to promote their revisit intention. The process aligns well with attitude–behavior theory, in which the environment of a cultural and creative district may be consistent with tourists’ personal cultural preferences. Alternatively, tourists may experience a high degree of identification with the local culture, leading to more poignant cultural memories via cultural contact to engender revisit intention. However, attitude to culture does not moderate the relationship between cultural memories and revisit intention. Loureiro [54] indicated that tourists’ attitudes can lead to positive or negative emotions about tourism-related events, which promote the positive effects of their behavior (e.g., willingness to revisit or recommend destinations to others). The current study shows that tourists’ attitudes to cultures do not play a moderating role in the relationship between cultural memory and revisit intention. Visitors generate cultural memories through cultural contact, which then shape their revisit intentions. In this process, tourists’ attitude to culture plays a major role in the formation of cultural memories. Therefore, tourists appear to develop culture identification and preferences for the local area before they form cultural memories. However, tourists’ memory can influence their decisions during tours and guide subsequent behavior after developing the memory. However, tourists’ attitude to culture does not exert a clear influence on their revisit intentions or decision making.

5.2. Theoretical Contribution

First, this study constructed a theoretical path for cultural and creative tourists’ revisit intentions from a cultural perspective, and consolidated that cultural contact is an excellent leading factor in tourists’ loyalty behavior. The willingness of tourists to revisit indicates the degree to which the cultural and creative tourism destination attracts tourists’ loyalty to visit again, which is a significant indicator of the sustainable development of the destination from the perspective of tourists [25,27]. Previous research has paid attention to the important role of tourists’ revisit intention in the sustainable development of destinations but still explores the traditional tourism context, ignoring the need to consider cultural factors in the exploration of sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism. In addition, the leading factors of tourists’ revisit intention, as shown by previous research results, are difficult to support cultural and creative tourism experience [26]. The reason is that different tourism types and stages indicated different influences on tourists’ behavior. Therefore, this study has grasped the essence of the sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism, constructed a theoretical path of tourists’ revisit intention from a cultural perspective, and further clarified the key position of cultural contact. This discovery affirms the guidance of cultural contact to individual behavioral decision-making and provides an entry point for the sustainable development of the destination from how to effectively use the connection between tourists and the destination. Exploring the sustainable development of cultural and creative tourism destinations through the variable of cultural contact is conducive to expanding theoretical boundaries and cultural perspectives.
Second, this study puts forward that the formation of tourists’ revisit intention requires three stages of “contact-memory-intention”, which further validates the key bridge role of cultural memory and supplements the theoretical framework of cultural and creative tourism research. The path of tourists’ revisit intention constructed in this study is supported by the SOR theory, which indicates that the cultural stimulation of the destination can effectively promote their behavior through the individual’s cultural memory. This conclusion clarifies that individual behavior is affected by the inducing factors of external stimuli and the internal factors of individual changes. Memory is the storage of individual travel experience, directly connecting the relationship between individual emotions and destination elements [7]. Both short-term and long-term memory is considered as the potential driving force of individual behavior. More importantly, cultural memory is more conducive to condense the uniqueness and symbols of a cultural creative tourism destination [35]. Therefore, it further shows that the cultural memory of tourists contributes to the sustainability of the connection between the destination and the individual. This theoretical approach enriches the important value of cultural memory for connecting cultural contact with tourists’ loyal behavior.
Third, the results further reveal that tourists’ attitudes towards culture have a differential influence in the formation of their revisit intention and affirm that the subjective condition of tourists’ attitudes to culture has an important moderating role. Individual characteristics have a certain influence on decision making [58]. Attitude is the key variable to be explored in individual psychological research. In the context of cultural and creative tourism, tourists’ attitudes to culture are highly subjective. Therefore, tourists’ attitudes to culture can accelerate or weaken individual behavior intentions. The results of this study prove that tourists’ positive attitude towards culture is generally beneficial to their intention to revisit. However, it cannot interact with cultural memory in the intention to revisit. This conclusion extends the connotation of cultural attitudes in the field of cultural and creative tourism research and enriches the empirical results of its differential influence.

5.3. Managerial Implication

These results provide several managerial insights. First, destination managers should aim to enhance the excavation and activation of local traditional culture to provide cultural memory for tourists. The uniqueness and authenticity of the cultural and creative districts can be used to enhance the identity of the districts and avoid commercialization. Using creative elements and technological tools to promote traditional culture can also help tourists accept various channels of cultural contact, stimulate their willingness to be immersed in the local culture, and offer opportunities to make cultural memories. Second, overall experience activities in cultural and creative tourism can improve tourists’ participation that promotes their revisit intention. Cultural contact is generated through the interaction of people and things, which requires cultural and creative districts to promote emotional interaction between residents, staff, and visitors. For example, district managers can organize numerous forms of cultural events such as festivals, folk activities, and arts performances to expand the depth of visitors’ experiences. The districts should also focus on the entertainment to enrich the width and depth of cultural contact of tourists. This can foster cultural memories and strong revisit intention. Third, the managers of the districts should tailor cultural and creative products for the creation of cultural memory. The products convey materials and emotion for the tourist experience, even after visitors depart from the district. Providing personalized products and services related to the culture can offer tourists a sense of exclusivity and novelty, thereby enhancing their cultural memories. Fourth, the managers should seize the potential of highly educated youth as a target segment of cultural and creative tourism. Market segmentation is critical to market development, so destination managers should pay particular attention to the types and development of cultural and creative tourism with differentiated strategies. Cultural and creative districts also need to improve their service offering and establish brand images by highlighting virtual experiences, essential tourist attractions, clear brand identity, and active tourist participation. Focusing on these elements can help the districts host highly educated youth in the cultural and creative tourism market, and then promote their cultural memories and revisit intentions.

5.4. Limitations and Future Research Suggestions

Although this research is based on the SOR theory and reconstructs the tourists’ revisit intention in the cultural and creative tourism from a cultural perspective, there are still some limitations that need future research. First, although this study is based on typical cultural and creative districts as research case sites, it is still unclear whether other samples still show the same theoretical path. Therefore, the future research can examine the hypothesis model proposed in this study by collecting samples from other countries and regions, and further compare the differences between different sample attributes. Second, it is a critical way to explore the components of cultural contact through qualitative interview methods and use fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to examine what specific cultural factors can strengthen tourists’ revisit intention. Finally, this study notes that the important variable of revisit intention is an integral part of the sustainable development of the destination. However, whether there are significant differences in the revisit intention of different types of tourism, such as cultural and creative tourism, creative tourism, and cultural tourism, remains to be explored. Therefore, on the basis of the research conclusions, future research can conduct in-depth discussion through qualitative analysis and meta-analysis.

Author Contributions

Methodology, L.Z. and H.-W.T.; funding acquisition, S.L.; data curation, S.Z.; resources, L.Z. and H.-W.T.; software, L.Z. and Y.-C.S.; writing—original draft, L.Z. and S.Z.; writing—review and editing, H.-W.T. and Y.-C.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, grant number No. 19BZQK234.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Appendix A. Questionnaire on Cultural and Creative Tourism Experience

Dear lady/gentleman:
We are doing research on cultural and creative tourism of Wudianshi block experience. Your opinion is very important and helpful to our research. Please answer the following questions. Your answer is only for research analysis. This research does not involve any privacy issues related to you. Please fill in the questions one by one according to your real ideas. Thank you!
Table
Table A1. 1. Please fill in the following items based on the Wudianshi blocks you have experienced this time. 2. All questions in the questionnaire are single-choice questions; 3. Please tick “√” on the selected “□” according to your degree of agreement (1 = completely disagree; 7 = completely agree). It is recommended that you fill in the answers in order to avoid omissions.
Table A1. 1. Please fill in the following items based on the Wudianshi blocks you have experienced this time. 2. All questions in the questionnaire are single-choice questions; 3. Please tick “√” on the selected “□” according to your degree of agreement (1 = completely disagree; 7 = completely agree). It is recommended that you fill in the answers in order to avoid omissions.
Please talk about your true attitude in the Wudianshi blocks1234567
1. I am interested in local traditional culture here in my daily life.□□□□□□□
2. I pay more attention to local traditional culture here in tourism activities.□□□□□□□
3. I like the local traditional culture here.□□□□□□□
4. I understand the connotation of traditional culture here.□□□□□□□
Please describe your cultural experience in the Wudianshi blocks1234567
1. I like to learn about different customs, rituals and lifestyles here.□□□□□□□
2. In addition to experiencing stage performances, I also like other related cultural activities in the Wudianshi blocks.□□□□□□□
3. I want to learn more about the local culture□□□□□□□
4. I prefer to observe the differences in local culture instead of interacting with locals here.□□□□□□□
5. I am interested in knowing more people from this cultural experience here.□□□□□□□
6. The more I know about different cultures, the more I know and feel, the more I want to experience it.□□□□□□□
7. I really want to understand this local culture here.□□□□□□□
8. I hope to get to know the world by contacting different cultures through travel experience.□□□□□□□
9. I am willing to spend time to understand and experience this culture.□□□□□□□
10. I want to participate in the cultural experience activity here.□□□□□□□
11. Contact to different cultures is a very important part of my visit experience.□□□□□□□
Please remember your memories during cultural and creative tourism1234567
1. I have fond memories of the Wudianshi blocks.□□□□□□□
2. I will not forget the experience of the experience in the Wudianshi blocks.□□□□□□□
3. This tourism experience left me with various unforgettable and attractive people/things.□□□□□□□
Please describe your willingness to revisit1234567
1. I will consider traveling here again in two years.□□□□□□□
2. I think about traveling here in two years.□□□□□□□
3. I’m more likely to travel here again in two years.□□□□□□□
4. I might choose to go here again on my next trip.□□□□□□□
5. As many times as I come, I’ll take it.□□□□□□□
Basic information
  • Your Gender:
    • Male
    • Female
  • Your Age:
    • Below 20
    • 20–25
    • 26–35
    • 36–45
    • 46–59
    • 60 and over
  • Your Education:
    • Junior high school and below
    • High school/technical secondary school
    • Junior college
    • Bachelor
    • Master degree or above
  • Your average monthly income:
    • ≤2500
    • 2501–5000
    • 5001–10,000
    • 10,001–20,000
    • ≥20,001
  • How long has it been since you last visited this cultural and creative tourist destination:
    • 1 week
    • 1 month
    • 3 months
    • 6 months and above
  • How many times you travel in a year:
    • None
    • 1–3 times
    • 4 times and over
  • How many times have you been to this cultural and creative tourism destination:
    • None
    • 1–3 times
    • 4–5 times
    • 6 times and over
  • How many times have you been to similar cultural and creative tourism destinations:
    • None
    • 1–3 times
    • 4–5 times
    • 6–10 times
    • 10 times and over

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Sustainability 13 02416 g001 550
Figure 1. Conceptual research model.
Figure 1. Conceptual research model.
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Figure 2. Results of structural equation model. Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
Figure 2. Results of structural equation model. Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
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Figure 3. Results of moderating effects: (a) High attitude to culture tourists are more conducive to enhancing cultural memory and (b) The cultural contact of tourists greatly affects their revisit.
Figure 3. Results of moderating effects: (a) High attitude to culture tourists are more conducive to enhancing cultural memory and (b) The cultural contact of tourists greatly affects their revisit.
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Table
Table 1. Descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis.
VariableItemsMeanS.D.Factor LoadingsCRAVECronbach’s α
Cultural contactCC15.4451.4480.783 ***0.9500.7020.949
CC25.3281.4320.827 ***
CC35.1901.4090.825 ***
CC45.2621.4360.874 ***
CC55.1131.4780.832 ***
CC65.4831.3990.856 ***
CC75.3071.4660.862 ***
CC85.2681.4830.841 ***
Cultural memoryCM15.2671.4580.895 ***0.9260.807
CM25.1791.4820.921 *** 0.925
CM35.1011.4530.878 ***
Attitude to cultureCA15.1761.4080.841 ***0.8900.6710.888
CA25.0511.5670.825 ***
CA35.0261.5010.892 ***
CA45.2151.5170.708 ***
Revisit intentionRI14.5031.5680.899 ***0.9420.8440.920
RI24.7671.7490.853 ***
RI34.2471.9320.998 ***
Note: *** p < 0.001; CC: Cultural Contact; CM: Cultural Memory; CA: Attitude to Culture; RI: Revisit Intention.
Table
Table 2. Correlation analysis between variables.
Table 2. Correlation analysis between variables.
VariableMeanS.D.1.2.3.4.VIF
1. Cultural contact5.3021.2410.838
2. Cultural memory5.1761.4080.741 ***0.898 1.78
3. Attitude to culture4.9491.3310.658 ***0.580 ***0.819 1.60
4. Revisit intention4.5871.6570.489 ***0.566 ***0.493 ***0.9191.57
Note: *** p < 0.001. Square roots of average variance extraction are shown on the diagonal in bold.
Table
Table 3. Moderating effect test.
Table 3. Moderating effect test.
HypothesisStandardized CoefficientsStandard ErrorSupport
H5aCultural contact→Cultural memory0.317 **0.107Yes
Attitude to culture→Cultural memory−0.522 ***0.134
Cultural contact × Attitude to culture→Cultural memory0.960 ***0.024
H5bCultural contact→Revisit intention0.229 *0.114Yes
Attitude to culture→Revisit intention−0.0030.124
Cultural contact × Attitude to culture→Revisit intention0.349 *0.024
H5cCultural memory→Revisit intention0.1850.122No
Attitude to culture→Revisit intention0.0440.152
Cultural memory × Attitude to culture→Revisit intention0.2890.028
Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
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MDPI and ACS Style

Lai, S.; Zhang, S.; Zhang, L.; Tseng, H.-W.; Shiau, Y.-C. Study on the Influence of Cultural Contact and Tourism Memory on the Intention to Revisit: A Case Study of Cultural and Creative Districts. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042416

AMA Style

Lai S, Zhang S, Zhang L, Tseng H-W, Shiau Y-C. Study on the Influence of Cultural Contact and Tourism Memory on the Intention to Revisit: A Case Study of Cultural and Creative Districts. Sustainability. 2021; 13(4):2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042416

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lai, Sizhen, Shuning Zhang, Ling Zhang, Hsien-Wei Tseng, and Yan-Chyuan Shiau. 2021. "Study on the Influence of Cultural Contact and Tourism Memory on the Intention to Revisit: A Case Study of Cultural and Creative Districts" Sustainability 13, no. 4: 2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042416

APA Style

Lai, S., Zhang, S., Zhang, L., Tseng, H.-W., & Shiau, Y.-C. (2021). Study on the Influence of Cultural Contact and Tourism Memory on the Intention to Revisit: A Case Study of Cultural and Creative Districts. Sustainability, 13(4), 2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042416

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