Understanding Local People's Support Intentions Toward Cultural Heritage Tourism: An Examination through Stimulus-Organism-Response Perspective

Abstract: Cultural heritage tourism is gaining more and more attention for the characteristics of cultural heritage. However, developing cultural heritage tourism needs local people's support. This paper introduces the Stimulus-Organism-Response theory and proposes a research model about the relationships between subjective norms, personal norms, local people's perceptions (i.e., economic, sociocultural, environmental perceptions), and their support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism. The results show that the subjective norms significantly affect local people's perceptions and the individual's support intention toward cultural heritage tourism. In addition, local people's perceptions and personal norms positively influence their support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism. The results help us understand the influence factors of local people's support intentions toward cultural heritage tourism and the influence mechanism. Thus this paper has provided some valuable theoretical and practical implications.