Investigating the Structural Relationships among Authenticity, Loyalty, Involvement, and Attitude toward World Cultural Heritage Sites: An Empirical Study of Nanjing Xiaoling Tomb, China

Abstract

This study examined the relationships among authenticity, loyalty, involvement, and attitude toward world cultural heritage sites (WCHS), as well as the relevance between two basic authenticity concepts in cultural heritage tourism, that is, constructive authenticity and existential authenticity. A structural model was proposed, in which authenticity is regarded as a key mediating construct between attitude and loyalty. The data were collected by a self-administrated questionnaire survey at one of the WCHS in China – Nanjing Xiaoling Tomb Scenic Area. The structural equation modeling method was employed to test the research model and the hypotheses with the sample data. The results indicate that involvement, attitude, and existential authenticity have significant effects on tourists' loyalty to the world cultural heritage visitation and that constructive authenticity and existential authenticity are significantly related. The theoretical and management implications of authenticity are also discussed in this paper.