The Relevance of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Traditional Languages for the Tourism Experience: The Case of Ladin in South Tyrol

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I enjoyed reading about your study and learning more about the Ladin language and its relevance for tourism experiences. Overall this is a nice small study. However, it requires further depth of analysis and more criticality regarding its findings and implications.

The introduction is well outlined but more could be made about the distinctiveness of the Ladin language.

2.1. Finishes with a description of a seminal work when more analysis is needed about the main insights gained from previous studies and what this means for this study.

2.2. comes after 2.3 and needs to be reordered or renumbered. Again, more analysis is needed to highlight the complexities of minority languages and tourism experiences. Instead, it finishes rather abruptly and concluding remarks are missing.

Page 5: Val Garden in bracket instead of Val Gardena

Methodology: recruitment process of the participants is missing. In general, more depth is needed for this section including the analysis. Was only one author involved in the analysis, if more than one how was it double-checked?

Results: More analysis is needed instead of reporting and finishing with quotes. There is overall not much insight provided into the value of the Ladin language. It appears to be more about the preservation of traditions and language forming a part of it. More analysis on what maintenance of traditions mean to tourists? What about perceptions of authenticity?

On page 10: authentic cultural variety is mentioned but requires further discussion and links to the literature.

Discussion and Conclusions: require a more critical lens. Instead of accepting that some tourists might perceive an unintelligible language as negative, maybe better visitor education of the uniqueness of the language is needed and/or better fit of tourists? It also needs to be considered what cultural sustainability means to the community primarily and not just the tourists. After all this is a highly endangered language which most participants did not fully value and instead focused on other aspects. What then are the lessons/implications that can be taken from this study?

I hope the authors find my feedback constructive as I see merit in this study and wish you all the best with the revisions. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attached review, with suggestions for revisions.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see file attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is essentially a case study related to the wider topic of minority heritage and cultural/rural tourism. It is a qualitative research with several limits, which the author does address in the conclusions. It is nevertheless an interesting preliminary contribution which ought to be further developed through future research steps, more focused on the Ladin area proper.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her kind review and interesting comments.
We adjusted the results section, as well as discussion comments and conclusions. We hope that the changes have contributed to improving those sections.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Author:

 

The manuscript analyzed the role of traditional language in tourists’ experience in a destination where natural landscape and intangible cultural heritage have been valued much. The “minority language in the tourism context” is a unique perspective due to major research about cultural tourism, including the shift from tangible to intangible heritage. However, several issues need the author to consider.

 

Core issues:

1 The integration of the title and the following content seems weak. In other words, it seems not sufficient for readers to support the opinion that Lain language is of value to tourists' experience with the interviewees' response. Besides, I wonder if the interviewees' perspective with Lain language was intentionally guided or affected by the author during the interview. Or the statement of analysis about this part was exaggerated. And in this way, the contributions to tourism practitioners are also undermined.

2 It would be better if the author could show more about the manuscript's study method and data analysis process in detail. For example, if the interview complies with the semi-structured interview operation specifications; How is the encoding process implemented; How to identify interviewees' true opinions accurately; What efforts have been made to transcribe interviewees' responses into text that fit MAXQDA.

 

Major content:

1) The introduction part of the manuscript failed to play its role in a paper. The logic of the argument that ICH is valuable in tourism study is slightly far-fetched. As far as I can see, this part didn’t highlight the importance of ICH in tourism management in convincing logic. The link between language and tourism also needs to be explained. For example, on page 1, lines 37-38, “As languages are an essential...understand how tourists perceive this aspect”, the author didn’t explain why and how language plays an essential role in a region’s culture and what is the relationship between tourists and language. Therefore, it would be significantly improved if the author rearranged the Introduction part.

2) The theoretical framework presents the author’s argument and leads to the question that needs to be solved after a further discussion about previous studies. While we can see from the manuscript that the cited literature was not well incorporated into this study. This issue can be seen from page 2, the “cultural tourism” part.

Besides, lines 137-140(page 2), 148-149(page 4), and 166-168 need to strengthen the connection to the context.

 

Format & Typesetting norm:

1) The manuscript has several inappropriate expressions and typos, including lines 93(page 2), Lines 171(page 4), lines 122-124(page 3). Also, there has typos at lines 100(page 3) and lines 123(page 3). It would be remarkably understandable if the manuscript’s expressions and words were checked thoroughly.

2) There are formatting issues that need to be corrected. For example, the serial number of titles is wrong in the “theoretical framework” and “results” parts.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for responding so well to the reviewers comments and thoroughly revising the paper. It is now much stronger and clearer. This is important research and deserves to be published. I wish you all the best for your future research endeavours.

Author Response

I would like to thank the reviewer for their reviews and comments. They helped to improve and strengthen the paper. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you to the authors for an excellent revision. I find the article to be very interesting, and the claims now well-supported. Good work!

(I'm still curious about "interview PARTNERS" ... because there might be some very interesting research findings associated with the social networks of visitors, especially repeat visitors. But this issue goes beyond what is presented in the revision, and does not need to be addressed in this article. It's something to think about for future research.)

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer once again for their review and their extensive and important comments.

The relationship between interviewees is for sure something relevant and has probably been addressed already by other disciplines. I agree that it would be interesting to understand how relationships differently affect (repetitive) tourism experiences. It is something to take into consideration for future research. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear author:

 

The authors have made considerable revisions and could tackle most of the comments. Some remaining challenges include:

 

1 In the 3.1 case study part, it would be better if the author attached more importance to the contribution of the Latin language in the development of the tourism industry rather than an objective introduction. In other words, the relevance of the destination and language need to be strengthened. Besides, the information that Table 1 shows is vague. It’s difficult for readers to catch the author’s meaning.

 

2 According to the study results, we can see interviewees’ attitudes to the Latin language vary; the discussion based on the results seems just scratching the surface and lacks logic. I suggest the author make an effort to improve the discussion part.

 

3 There also exist format issues in the manuscript. The author needs to have a thorough check before submitting it.

 

Above all, the authors made great efforts to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx