How Outstanding Universal Value Attractiveness and Tourism Crowding Affect Visitors’ Satisfaction?

Abstract

A World Heritage Site is a masterpiece of mankind and/or nature that possesses outstanding universal value (OUV). In this regard, the 5Cs strategic objectives (credibility, communication, capacity-building, conservation, and community) set by the World Heritage Committee have become a main issue for WHS sustainable development. As one of the key stakeholders of WHS, tourist’s perceived OUV attractiveness, congestion, and attitudinal behavior have significant implications for heritage protection and tourism’s sustainable development. Based on the perspectives of OUV attractiveness and perceived tourist crowding, and taking into account destination attachment, the influencing factors and mechanisms of tourist satisfaction are investigated. In view of the 536 questionnaire responses from tourists of Mount Sanqingshan National Park, the structural equation modeling approach was employed to study tourist satisfaction. The conclusions were sketched: (1) tourist crowding perception did not have a significant negative effect on OUV attractiveness; destination attachment, and tourist satisfaction, and the degree of crowding perception was low; (2) the OUV attractiveness has a significant positive influence on destination attachment and tourist satisfaction, which fully highlights the charm of OUV and its important role in shaping tourists’ attitudes/behaviors; (3) destination attachment has a significant positive effect on tourist satisfaction, indicating that tourists’ heritage-place attachment contributes to tourist satisfaction. Finally, the analysis of tourism crowding, OUV, and the satisfaction framework proposed broaden the horizons of visitor satisfaction research, which is also a positive response to the strategic objectives of the 5Cs of WHS, with some practical implications for heritage preservation and visitor management in World Heritage Sites.