The Effects of Storytelling Format and Gender Difference on Festival Visitors’ Engagement and Behavioral Intention

The use of storytelling is becoming increasingly widespread in the event and tourism industry. However, despite the growing popularity of the storytelling strategy, to date, limited research has examined how festival organizers effectively utilize this strategy. Consequently, this research aims (a) to examine whether storytelling influences visitors’ engagement and behavioral intention, (b) to investigate how such impacts differ according to when visitors hear the story (i.e., temporal distance), and (c) to explore whether gender moderates the impact of the storytelling format. Study 1 indicates that storytelling positively influences visitors’ engagement. The results also reveal that visitors show a significantly higher level of behavioral intention when they heard the festival story more than three months before the festival. Study 2 finds that women have higher engagement and intention to visit when storytelling is delivered in video rather than image format, while men exhibit no such difference in engagement and intention to visit.