The Contribution of Animal-Based Cultural Ecosystem Services to Tourist Well-Being at Cultural Heritage Sites

Abstract

This article explores the contribution of animal-based cultural ecosystem services to tourist well-being within the authentic cultural heritage experience. We assess the construction of tourists’ cultural ecosystem services through their cocreation of animal-based experience and its integrative direct links with objective authenticity, existential authenticity, and well-being. The objective is to provide empirical evidence of the cross-category tourist experiences of interactions with animals at cultural heritage sites within the context of those with the cats of the Forbidden City, China. Building on this relationship model, the study further examines and identifies the significant and important parallel mediation effects on the relationship between the cocreation experience and the well-being of the three combinations of (a) attention and objective authenticity, (b) involvement and existential authenticity, and (c) cultural ecosystem service and memorability. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided along with a discussion of research limitations and suggestions for future study.

Keywords

cultural heritage tourism well-being cultural ecosystem service cocreation animal-based experience consumer-based authenticity

Introduction

The impact of cultural heritage on tourist well-being has attracted some attention from the point of view of human rights (Wu et al. 2019). But this is minor compared with its impact on the development of the concept of cultural heritage itself (Chen, Lehto, and Cai 2013). This impact has supported the enrichment of the cultural achievements of mankind’s creations for tourism into a comprehensive cultural landscape that includes the natural environmental elements in and surrounding a destination (Cho, Um, and Lee 2016). Studying the cultural heritage tourism experience for contemporary tourists has achieved fruitful research results and theoretical advancement regarding perceived authenticity and such relevant factors as motivation, involvement, destination image (K. Park, Lee, and Lee 2017). Moreover, some of the previous research has already revealed the structural links between cultural heritage authenticity perception and tourist well-being (McCabe and Johnson 2013). However, those research studies concentrated on the cultural heritage site itself, and there is a lack of specific consideration on whether and how the natural environmental elements that are the organic attributes of cultural heritage contribute to tourist well-being.

In particular, animals, including both wild and domestic ones, have been acknowledged as contributing to tourist well-being in natural-based tourism destinations such as national parks (Carr and Young 2018; Lee et al. 2014). Moreover, animals as pets, companions, or decorative elements widely exist in cultural landscapes and have various meanings as social, cultural, and even political factors (DeMello 2012). In the context of cultural heritage tourism, some of the animals are attractive to tourists and may even be more famous than cultural relics, such as the deer in Nara, Japan. With respect to China, animals such as cats, birds, and dogs have a long history as companions of human beings, from royal families, and elite scholars, to the general public in China (Guo and Fang 2004), as seen in Chinese traditional painting, poetry, and literature. Meanwhile, animals also are attributed with much cultural meaning in the Chinese tradition, especially animals that are symbolized as auspicious, became important elements in the construction of cultural landscapes, such as royal palaces, gardens, and so on (Jia and Quan 2009).

In the current tourism industry, those animals, no matter whether they are living creatures or symbolic decoration in cultural heritage sites, have become tourism attractions (Shen, Piao, and Zhang 2013). Moreover, from the industrial practice aspect, this kind of animal-based visitation in cultural heritage sites can provide richer and different experiences for tourists and thus potentially enhance their psychological happiness, such as mental restoration and well-being (Cohen 2009). For the cultural heritage site, especially those classic cultural destinations that have been well known for many years for their cultural relics, this special visitation could be a newly emerging niche market as well (Carr and Young 2018). Therefore, it is compelling to blend those concepts together that assess the tourist animal interaction experience in the discourse context of cultural heritage tourism for a better in-depth understanding of tourist well-being.

To answer the above questions, the concept of cultural ecosystem services (CES) is adopted in the current study. Cultural ecosystem services are “the non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, p. 40). As the concept that align both service and the ecosystem (Haines-Young and Potschin 2013), CES represents the ways human beings obtain benefits from nature (Diener et al. 2009) that are purported to be linked with human traits such as self-esteem, life purpose, optimism, and relatedness (Ryan, Huta, and Deci 2008). Therefore, adopting this concept for the current study allows us to gain important clues about the psychological benefits in cultural heritage tourism from the animal interaction experience and understand their effect on the psychological well-being of the tourist.

Based on the above arguments, this study first of all explores what cultural ecosystem services are obtained from this animal interaction experience at cultural heritage sites and how they are received. Second, through integrating the animal-based tourism experience model proposed by Campos et al. (2017) and the cultural heritage consumer-based authenticity model proposed by Kolar and Zabkar (2010) that have been used in cultural heritage tourist experience research (Bryce et al. 2015; Ram, Björk, and Weidenfeld 2016), the present study discusses the potential link with cultural ecosystem services and its effect on tourist loyalty. Finally, a conceptual model of the contribution of animal-based cultural ecosystem service to the well-being of cultural heritage tourists is constructed and assessed through structural equation modeling alongside the joint serial mediation effects within the above framework.

Literature Review

Cultural Ecosystem Services and Tourism

Cultural ecosystem services (CESs) are the benefits that human beings obtain from the natural environment (Cooper et al. 2016). Fish, Church, and Winter (2016) define CES as the interaction between environmental spaces and cultural or recreational practices and the links that take place within them. Thus, for one thing, natural resources as raw materials are inventoried as recreation opportunities; for another, they are the places that provide a sense of belonging and meaning to life for human beings (Lee et al. 2014). Although the current measurements of CES benefits are relatively limited and mainly focused on identity and experience in spiritual and aesthetic aspects, it cannot be denied that there is a consensus that CES has strong links with human well-being in various contexts (Bieling and Plieninger 2013; Chan, Satterfield, and Goldstein 2012; Fish, Church, and Winter 2016).

The challenges of incorporating CES into the tourism framework mean they may be undervalued in favor of economic and ecological priorities (Milcu et al. 2013). Even for recreational benefits, it is insufficient to reflect on the CES only from the value perspective of symbolic and experience (Edwards, Collins, and Goto 2016). Thus, to recognize the extensive reach of CES in the natural experience of a cultural heritage destination, further in-depth interpretation of its contribution to human well-being is called for and its link with CES through nonmonetary measurements requires analysis (Bieling and Plieninger 2013). In the discussion of CES in the context of tourism, previous studies have used cultural ecosystem services to analyze the landscapes of some types of tourism, such as ecotourism, nature-based tourism, and heritage tourism (Bachi et al. 2020; Ghermandi, Camacho-Valdez, and Trejo-Espinosa 2020; Nahuelhual et al. 2013; Willis 2015).

With respect to the construction of CES in the context of tourism destinations, Zoderer et al. (2016) chose four indicators of CES to evaluate the benefit that tourists obtain from Alpine region recreation activities that include the opportunity for leisure activities in nature, aesthetic beauty, spirituality, and cultural heritage. Meanwhile, Bachi et al. (2020) propose the use of aesthetics, recreation/ecotourism, cultural heritage, and inspiration as indicators to evaluate this concept in Araucaria and the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. However, although tourism is a social phenomenon, current research on this concept is mainly through spatial mapping methods such as GIS to determine its effects in certain places. Only a few studies of this concept have been made from social science perspectives, especially sociology (Ishihara 2018; Katz-Gerro and Orenstein 2015). The CES in this study is therefore designed to assess what benefit tourists obtain from their interaction with animals in cultural heritage destinations.

A Consumer-Based Authenticity Model of Cultural Heritage Tourism

Cultural heritage, in its broader sense, is that heritage which present generations anywhere wish to safeguard for future generations (Lowenthal 2005). The growing field of heritage studies has therefore critically examined the ways in which “heritage” have been defined, resourced, and showcased (Meng et al. 2019). Cultural heritage should not only recognize material cultural artifacts within a landscape but also the spiritual and religious values that are attached to landscapes (E. Park, Choi, and Lee 2019; Taylor and Lennon 2011). Meanwhile, Yu and Lee (2014) revealed that cultural heritage tourism relates certain special interest and is the cultural process that tourists engage in and search for new and deep experience in aesthetics, emotion, ethnic, or psychological aspects. Based on these discourses of cultural heritage tourism, Richards (2018) pointed out that the previous emphasis of tangible heritage has been shifted to the much broader and diverse fields of cultural practice.

The consumer-based model of authenticity proposed by Kolar and Zabkar (2010) identified the tourist experience in heritage destinations regarding the structural relationships between cultural motivation, perceived authenticity, and behavioral intention. They also point out that evaluating tourists’ experience and authentic perception of other cultural heritage settings including both general and specific sites and attributes is expected in future study. This model has been used to explore other cultural settings including Chinese calligraphy heritage (Zhou, Zhang, and Edelheim 2013) and Japanese cultural heritage (Bryce et al. 2015). These previous studies have also indicated that the model has potential for extension with the adoption of a wider range of psychological constructs to enrich the research results.

In the tourism literature, it is clear that the travel decision for an individual is derived from many motivations. The previous literature of tourism motivation has identified that the push elements felt by potential tourists and the pull factors of a destination are the two main categories (Crompton 1979). Motivations have been found to influence both tourists’ environmental cognition and expectations (Beerli and Martin 2004; Sopha, Jittithavorn, and Lee 2019). Object-based authenticity, which is mainly about tourist experience in historical sites as well as the building of a genuine knowledge of arts, crafts, and objects, is a crucial variable in the assessment of the authentic experiences in cultural heritage sites of tourists and is affected by their motivation (Kolar and Zabkar 2010). Such physical perceptions of authenticity are also linked to loyalty (Choi, Meng, and Lee 2018). On the other hand, existential authenticity in the context of tourism (E. Park, Choi, and Lee 2019) has confirmed the effective links in tourist motivation (Kolar and Zabka 2010) and objective-based authenticity (Steiner and Reisinger 2006). Moreover, for tourist loyalty, both of the two dimensions of authenticity have an effect on this (Bryce et al. 2015). However, in this study, we explore whether travel motivation has an effect on tourists’ perceived authenticity of a cultural landscape in the animal-based cultural heritage tourism experience in the postmodern era. Consequently, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Tourist motivation has a positive impact on objective authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 2: Tourist motivation has a positive impact on existential authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 3: Tourist objective authenticity has a positive impact on existential authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

The Animal-Based Tourism Experience Model

Animals are made into tourism products for consumption either metaphorically or materially by tourists as tourism attractions, souvenirs, and even as food and transportation (Cohen 2009; Fennell 2012). In the travel narrative, the dominant mode of engagement with wildlife is visual, and tourists can gain satisfaction and enjoyment from seeing these animals at close range (Bertella 2016; Haanpää, Salmela, García-Rosell, and Äijälä 2021). Understanding of animals is molded largely by their cultural representation in art, literature, and customs, and many of us unselfconsciously pack these understandings with us when we travel in search of them (Bertella, Fumagalli, and Williams-Grey 2019). Moreover, human–animal relation study inquiries examine the complex interrelationships between human beings and animals as constituted within our social and cultural worlds, and the ways in which those relationships, and the meanings that are attached to them, are changing (DeMello 2012). Clearly, there is a dearth of academic literature about these issues although tourism is an ideal context for their exploration because of the opportunities it affords for various forms of interaction (Cohen 2009).

From the cultural anthropological study of the perspective, animals have been identified as repositories of totemic power (Leach 1964), structural order (Lévi-Strauss 1968), sexual innuendo (Geertz 1973), symbolic ecology in the context of global capitalism (Biersack 1999), and ethno-ecological knowledge (Berkes 2008). In the context of China, they are an important natural element, and the cultural implications of animals have been studied regarding their cultural connotations and symbolic meanings in Chinese traditional culture (Anjomshoa and Sadighi 2015; Yu 2019), especially the influence from the theory of the unity of human and nature, and the thought of moral striving and religious belief from Buddhism and Taoism, customs, literature, and art (Guo, Zhang, and An 2008). In cultural heritage constructions, animals are important elements that not only include live creatures but also the various images, sculptures, and other decorations depicting them, especially in the royal palaces, traditional folk houses, gardens, and temples. For one thing, animals as leisure pets represent the human interaction with nature from the Taoist unity of human and nature (Jia and Quan 2009) and moral improvement inspired from animals in Confucianism (Shen, Piao, and Zhang 2013). For another, animals are metaphorically given positive wills to fend off evil in association with the influence of the Chinese traditional desire for longevity, happiness, luck, success, and safety (Guo and Fang 2004). Therefore, visiting those animals in cultural heritage sites cannot be treated as a purely day-to-day human–animal experience but as the practice of their inclusion as natural creatures in Chinese culture.

Besides, in contemporary China, animals, especially those that look cute and adorable, have attracted large numbers of visitors given the popularity of Japanese animation and cartoons in which the animals are usually fiction but are the key players (Paidi, Akhir, and Lee 2014). Those animal-based experiences attract visitors who are relatively younger and “are inwardly focused and derive primarily intangible results and knowledge from their activities” (Thorne 2011, p. 161). This demonstrates a wide popularity as the “animation pilgrimage” (Nishida 2016), which results in enjoyment and a sense of belonging for those participants (Sun 2017). In this situation, the current visitation of animal in Chinese cultural heritage sites is a special cultural activity blended from the traditional culture resource and the modern cultural stream.

According to the animal-based tourism experience research by Campos and colleagues (2017), the concept of cocreation with animals depends on attention, involvement, and memory. Prebensen, Kim, and Uysal (2015) defined cocreation as a customer’s physical and mental participation process rather than the consumption experience itself in the creation of experience. Meanwhile, direct interactions become increasingly important for tourists who cocreate experience. Based on animals’ capabilities in both emotional and recreational aspects, interaction with animals has been found to contribute to tourists’ experience memorability (Bertella 2016). Attention in visitor studies is the psychological processing of information that originates from external sensation or internal memory and thought (Sternberg 2006) and has an effect on tourists’ perception, memory, and learning (Dayan, Kakade, and Montague 2000). Attention is also understood as focused mental engagement on a particular item among all those that we are aware of in the environment and its influence on behavior and selection (Ocasio 2011).

Involvement is defined as the degree to which consumers perceive the personal relevance of these experiences in relation to the objects or their consumption contexts (Kang, Lee, and Han 2018; Sohn and Lee 2017). It has been identified as the link with consumer behavior regarding tourism products, activities, experience, and destinations (Carneiro and Crompton 2009; Josiam, Kinley, and Kim 2005; Slater and Armstrong 2010; Zhang, Shi, and Lee 2021) and behavioral intention (Hwang, Lee, and Chen 2005), including such variables as tourist satisfaction and perception of quality (Kim, Lee, and Ko 2016). Meanwhile, this concept also could link with tourists’ understanding of destinations (Rybina and Lee 2021) and the level of their attachment to those destinations (K. Park, Lee, and Lee 2017).

Memories illustrate the tourists’ filtering process of the experience of the outcomes regarding specific tourism events in both emotional and perceptual aspects (Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung 2007). The ability to deliver memorable tourism experiences usually depends on the distinctiveness and competitive advantage of tourism products (J.-H. Kim, Brent Ritchie, and McCormick 2012; Neuhofer, Buhalis, and Ladkin 2012). Meanwhile, memories about certain activities, encounters, spaces, and destinations could relate to future consumption and travel intention by tourists as well (Marschall 2012; E. Park, Choi, and Lee 2019; Prebensen, Woo, Chen, and Uysal 2013). Moreover, consumer involvement and engagement are associated with their personal meaning formation and the unique cocreated experience they perceive (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004), and thus both are identified as having a leading role in memorability (Kim et al. 2012). Based on the above discussion, the following analyses are proposed:

Hypothesis 4: Tourist cocreation has a positive relationship with attention in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 5: Tourist cocreation has a positive relationship with involvement in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 6: Tourist attention has a positive relationship with memorability in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 7: Tourist involvement has a positive relationship with memorability in cultural heritage destinations.

Association with cultural ecosystem services

Meanwhile, the cocreation tourism experience has been identified as having significant effects on tourists’ perceived value (Prebensen and Xie 2017). The cultural ecosystem service in the social science perspective is the sociocultural value of an ecosystem (Fagerholm, Käyhkö, Ndumbaro, and Khamis 2012) and covers how individuals perceive and benefit from this. As tastes represent general dispositions, preferences, or orientations regarding cultural aspects of the environment, cultural ecosystem services are the array of environmental practices and opinions available to the tourist in this situation (Katz-Gerro and Orenstein 2015). This study aims to determine their relation to tourist cultural ecosystem services in the context of the animal interaction tourism experience; thus, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 8: Tourist cultural ecosystem services are positively related to (a) cocreation, (b) attention, and (c) involvement in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 9: Tourist cultural ecosystem services have a positive relationship with their memorability in cultural heritage destinations.

Links with the consumer-based authenticity model

With respect to the link between the consumer-based authenticity model and the animal-based experience model, the literature indicates that motivation in cultural heritage tourism can be seen as a cluster of interrelated, intellectually based interests in culture, history, and heritage (Kolar and Zabkar 2010). A review of the previous literature on tourism motivation reveals that it is an important psychological factor that influences tourist perceptions and behavior. Moreover, motivation also has a crucial role in consumer engagement with marketing innovations and service experience (Fernandes and Remelhe 2016; Roberts, Hughes, and Kertbo 2014; Yoo, Lee, and Lee 2015). Several studies have identified the significant effect of motivation on tourists’ involvement (Josiam et al. 2005; Prebensen et al. 2013). Finally, perceived authenticity also relates to memorable experiences in gastronomy tourism (Antón et al. 2019). Psychological studies have also noticed self-attention and its link with authenticity for consumers (Boyraz and Kuhl 2015). And the “authentic experiences” of tourists are linked to their experiential involvement in tourism activity (Zatori, Smith, and Puczko 2018). Based on the literature, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 10: Tourist motivation has a positive relationship with (a) cocreation, (b) attention, and (c) involvement in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 11: Tourist memorability is positively related to (a) objective authenticity and (b) existential authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 12: Tourist attention has a positive relationship with objective authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 13: Tourist involvement has a positive relationship with existential authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Tourist Well-Being

Well-being is an indicator of how well a person has been living his/her life. Positive feedback well-being is a philosophical tradition having both hedonic and eudaemonic aspects (Di Fabio and Palazzeschi 2015). Hedonic well-being is about the positive and good feelings experienced when engaging in a certain activity, such as happiness and pleasure (Diener et al. 2009). Eudaimonic well-being concentrates on positive personal development (Ryff, Singer, and Dienberg Love 2004). Previous studies have obtained rich research results about tourist well-being (Lyu, Mao, and Hu 2018; Nawijn 2010; K. Park, Lee, and Lee 2017; Saayman et al. 2018). However, these studies mainly focused on hedonic well-being and neglected eudaimonic well-being (Knobloch, Robertson, and Aitken 2016). Therefore, this study takes both aspects of well-being into consideration to explore its demonstration in animal-based cultural heritage tourism.

Meanwhile, empirical research also shows that positive and memorable tourism experiences contribute to tourists’ well-being in both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects (Sirgy et al. 2010). Nawijn’s study (2010) demonstrates that people who take vacations appear to be marginally happier than those who do not, and the memories of vacations produce effects in people’s lives. This has been identified by other researchers as well (Chandralal, Rindfleish, and Valenzuela 2015; McCabe and Johnson 2013; Sirgy et al. 2010). Previous studies also found that Chinese urban-city migrant subjective well-being has been significantly affected by the perceived authenticity of their tourism experiences (Meng et al. 2019). Hence, this study proposed the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 14: Tourist well-being is positively related to (a) objective authenticity and (b) existential authenticity in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 15: Tourist memorability is positively related to well-being in cultural heritage destinations.

Hypothesis 16: Tourist cultural motivation is positively related to well-being in cultural heritage destinations.

Parallel Serial Mediation Effects on Tourist Well-Being

The concept of attention represents the awareness of advertising messages by signifying the allocation of cognitive efforts toward the message (Kahneman 1973). As consumers pay attention to messages, they may become curious or interested in them by being ready and willing to process the information provided by the message (Roberts, Hughes, and Kertbo 2014). Thus, in turn, it is assumed that the higher the attention that consumers give to certain messages, the higher their enjoyment and gratitude when there is a favorable outcome. On the other hand, the previous literature has provided evidence that the attentive selection of messages and their engagement in tourism activity by consumers are helpful in their authentic perception of the factors influencing perceived authenticity and their well-being (Boyraz and Kuhl 2015; Zatori, Smith, and Puczko 2018). Therefore, this study proposes the following parallel serial mediation hypothesis:

Hypothesis 17: The relationships between tourist cocreation and well-being are sequentially mediated by (a) the attention paid to them and their objective authenticity, and (b) their involvement in cultural heritage destinations in terms of existential authenticity.

Meanwhile, memorability among tourism products, such as activity, experience, and destination, been found to contribute to tourist happiness and well-being (Sirgy et al. 2010; Sthapit, Coudounaris, and Björk 2019). Based on extant research, this study proposed a serial mediation relationship regarding tourist well-being: tourist cocreation experience with animals in a cultural heritage site increases tourists’ cultural ecosystem service and involvement. Thus, a higher level of memorable experience about a visit results in higher perceptions of well-being (hypothesis 18). These aspects are summarized in Figure 1.

Hypothesis 18: The relationship between tourist cocreation and well-being is sequentially mediated by cultural ecosystem services and memorability in cultural heritage destinations.

Figure 1.

A conceptual framework of animal-based cultural heritage tourist well-being.

Methodology

Research Setting

In China, cats have been kept as pets for human beings by royal palaces, scholars, and common people for thousands of years (Li 2015). They are useful for mice catching and are a longevity metaphor in Chinese traditional culture. The Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming (1368 to 1644) and Qing (1644 to 1921) dynasties. The Forbidden City is a world famous national museum destination and has been open to the public since the 1920s. The City was registered as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO. During the Ming dynasty rule, cats became the favorite pet for the royal family, and they were still royal pets in the Forbidden City after the Qing dynasty came to power. However, as the Forbidden City lost its governance role in the period of political unrest and wars from the 1920s to 1949, those royal pets became stray cats, although some of them still live in the palace (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

A cat in the Forbidden City.

Cats as a tourist attraction for visitors to the Forbidden City are a new phenomenon in recent years. In the 1990s, a British visitor was attacked by one of the stray cats in the Forbidden City, which affected the destination’s reputation. Without driving them away, the managers classified the cats as special “security officers” for mice catching in the palace. They are not only named based on ancient Chinese literature but also support the production of various creative cultural products as souvenirs with a strong flavor of the Forbidden City and the royal palace culture and make remarkable profits in doing so. For example, one of the cats named Ping’an has been re-created in various anthropomorphic creative products such as schoolbags, kettles, magnets, and so on. Besides, cats also play an important role in popular animation and cartoon products that are attractive for the younger market, such as the My Neighbor Totoro, Natsume’s Book of Friends, and Doraemon. Thus, the cats who live in the royal palace have become popular tourism attractions along with the other subcultural creative products. In fact, many tourists visit this cultural heritage site only for the purpose of being with those cats. The large numbers of royal cat photos that are posted on social media such as WeChat and web 2.0 indicate their popularity and the increasing visits to this cultural heritage site to see them. For these reasons, the Forbidden City was selected as the research site for the current study.

Research Instrument

A 5-point Likert type scale of self-administered questionnaire that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) for each of the questions was adopted in this study. This was designed to collect information on tourists’ attitudes to cocreation, attention, involvement, memorability, cultural motivation, objective authenticity, existential authenticity, and loyalty. First, variables from the consumer-based authenticity model, cultural motivation, objective authenticity, existential authenticity, and loyalty are evaluated by the scales proposed by Kolar and Zabkar (2010) and previous researchers (Bryce et al. 2015; Zhou, Zhang, and Edelheim 2013). Modifications are made according to the current study context. Second, the animal-based tourism experience model proposed by Campos et al. (2017) has provided the structural scales for the four variables of cocreation, attention, involvement, and memorability.

This study first provides a brief explanation of tourist perceptions of cultural ecosystem services. Then four services that are adopted from the research by Zoderer et al. (2016) are investigated in the survey. Meanwhile, the measurement of well-being was carried out through by adopting the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) developed by Diener (1984) and Ryff (1989) from the aspect of the two dimensions of hedonic and eudaemonic impact. The content validity of those measurements was assessed through a focus group discussion of a panel of three tourism experts. The ambiguity and error for each item are checked along with the adjustments of the wording of several items for better understanding. The finalized questionnaire was then pretested on a small sample of visitors (95) who had visited the cats in the Forbidden City in the past year.

Data Collection

The following assumption was used to represent the visitors to the cats in the Forbidden City for purposive sampling: domestic tourists go to the Forbidden City mainly for the purpose of visiting the cats. The reason for this assumption is that the Forbidden City is familiar to most Chinese, which makes it easier for researchers to recruit visitors who actually visit the Forbidden City for the live cats rather than the cultural relics. The Shengwu and Donghua doors of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, were selected as the survey sites to obtain qualified respondents through convenience sampling. According to the current visit routine of the Forbidden City, tourists are required to leave through these two doors after they finish their journey. Therefore, both are selected as the survey sites to pursue the qualifying respondents. Two trained research assistants from Beijing distributed the questionnaires after ensuring that each tourist qualified.

Data collection was carried out from November 1, 2019, to the end of December 2019. This on-site survey distributed 600 questionnaires to eligible respondents. After screening the responses and removing unusable questionnaires, 475 valid samples were obtained, giving a valid response rate of 79.2%. The sample size in this study is based on the rule of thumb by Sekaran and Bougie (2013), which states that a minimum sample of 210 is sufficient for social science studies. This number is backed by Krippendorff (2013) and Randall and Gibson (1990), who assert that a minimum of 230 respondents is required for a reliable sample. The valid responses were randomly split into two parts for model estimation and hypotheses validation. AMOS 25.0 was adopted for the statistical analysis. First, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the initial sample (237) through the principal component method with varimax rotation on those major variables to assess the content validity. Cronbach’s alpha was used to evaluate the internal consistency. The construct validity of the second group samples (238) is by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Structural model equation analysis is used to test the direct effect hypotheses between cultural ecosystem services and well-being. In addition, the serial mediating hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Model 6, which is a conditional process modeling program using a logistic-based path analytical framework of bootstrap analyses with 1,000 bootstrap samples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals (Hayes 2012).

Results and Analysis

Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents

Overall, females (54%) outnumbered males (46%) in the population of visitors. In terms of their ages, the 20- and 30-year-olds were most represented, at 75%, while the 18- to 20-year age group who had just become adults contributed 19%. About two-thirds of all respondents (65.6%) had a bachelor’s degree or higher education level. Monthly individual income was distributed within the range of RMB2,000 (US$300) to more than RMB10,000 (US$1,500), while more than 30% of the respondents’ monthly income level was within RMB4,000-6,000. Finally, students and employees in a private company with less than five years’ working experience made up 68% of all respondents. In particular, students made up more than 30% of the total respondents. As previously mentioned, cats as the source of popular Japanese cartoon figures have a high potential for popularity among the younger cartoon consumers. Moreover, the relevant creative products about those royal cats and social media promotion, which are the representation of subcultures that youngsters are enthusiastic about, also induce their visits. However, since the survey period was not a public holiday, only students, especially college students who have relatively flexible schedules, could visit these royal cats when most of the other potential visitors were busy working. As shown in Table 1, all the measurements of the variables have been identified as stabile and consistent by the results of the factor analysis. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin KMO index was 0.89, p < 0.001, and the total variance explanation rate was 76.5%. All of the Cronbach’s alpha values were higher than the suggested threshold of 0.70 (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994).

Table 1.

Measurement Items, Cronbach Alpha, Standard Loadings, and Composite Reliability.

Factors	Cron-bach α	Standard Loading	CR
Cocreation (C-C)	.912		.868
In this experience, I had great play time with the cats in the Forbidden City (FC)		.904
In this experience, I directly interacted with the cats in the FC		.876
In this experience, I have been able to act as if I were a cat owner in the FC		.863
In this experience with the cats in the FC, I have been physically active		.892
Attention (ATT)	.871		.916
I often discuss with others my ongoing experience		.906
I concentrated on my behaviors and interactions with the cats in the FC		.878
I was completely aware of my bodily sensations and sensory stimuli		.875
I was conscious of my own emotions and thoughts		.852
I talked with others about the introduction and info about cats in the FC		.940
Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES)	.912		.903
I have an opportunity for leisure activities with the cats in the FC		.858
I feel the aesthetic beauty of the cats in the FC from the visual appreciation of the scenery		.809
I have a spiritual experience with the cats in the FC such as pressure relief and recreation		.856
I obtain knowledge of the specific features of the cats in the FC associated with cultural meanings and histories		.862
Involvement (INV)	.901		.859
F1. Pleasure/Interest
It gives me pleasure to participate in this experience		.907
Participating in this experience is like giving a gift to myself		.911
This experience is somewhat of a pleasure to me		.893
I attach great importance to this experience		.817
I can say that this experience interests me a lot		.915
F2. Sign value
I can tell a lot about a person by whether she or he chooses to have this experience		.971
This experience gives a glimpse of the type of man or woman I am		.961
Memorability (MEM)	.892		.877
Interaction with the cats in the FC is something unforgettable		.863
I have strong images of my own behavior and interactions that will persist		.917
I can describe in detail my bodily sensations and the sensory stimuli		.909
I will always remember my own emotions and thoughts		.881
The overall experience setting will be an everlasting memory		.869
Cultural Motivation (CM)	.951		.832
Discover new places and things		.844
Be in a calm atmosphere		.922
Have a good time with friends		.882
Visit cultural attractions		.864
Visit historical attractions		.789
Interest in history		.857
Increase my knowledge		.842
Objective Authenticity (OA)	.849		.835
The overall architecture and impression of the buildings		.895
The peculiarities about the interior design and furnishings		.818
The way the site blends with the attractive landscape and scenery		.862
The information about the site and finding it interesting		.794
Existential Authenticity (EA)	.876		.831
Special arrangements, events, concerts, and celebrations connected to the site		.930
Thorough insight into this cultural heritage site’s historical era		.912
Feel connected with the related history, legends, and historical personalities		.894
Enjoy the unique religious and spiritual experience		.950
Calm and peaceful atmosphere during the visit		.885
Feel connected with human history and civilization		.890
Well-being (WB)	.861		.893
F1. Hedonic well-being
In most ways, this cat visit trip in the FC was close to ideal		.862
The conditions on this cat visit trip in the FC were excellent		.871
I was satisfied with this cat visit trip in the FC		.906
I achieved the most important things on this cat visit trip in the FC		.920
I would not change the plans I made for this cat visit trip in the FC		.927
F2. Eudaemonic well-being	.908		.860
I feel like living life one day at a time		.873
I feel like I have a sense of direction and purpose in life		.838
I enjoy making plans and working to make them a reality		.907

Measurement Model Evaluation

Mardia’s standardized coefficient was used to confirm if the data assumed multivariate normality. This coefficient for the measurement model in this study was 43.58 and is much higher than the criterion of 5, and indicated the data were normally distributed (Byrne 2006). Meanwhile, in the proposed model, the correlations between the constructs were generally 0.75 or lower (Table 2), which indicated the relatively low multicollinearity level of this measurement model (Green, Carrol, and DeSarbo 1978). The statistics of the measurement model for confirmatory factor analysis to assess the reliability and validity are conducted as well and indicated fitness. Meanwhile, Table 1 shows that the composite reliability values of the multi-item scales in this study were between 0.789 and 0.923, which is higher than the minimum criterion of 0.6 (Bagozzi and Yi 1988) and shows the reliability of those measurements.

Table 2.

The Correlation among Latent Constructs (Squared Correlation).

	CES	ATT	C-C	INV	MEM	CM	OA	EA	WB
CES	1.000
ATT	0.617(0.325)	1.000
C-C	0.502(0.029)	0.512(0.273)	1.000
INV	0.324(0.016)	0.473(0.050)	0.449(0.103)	1.000
MEM	0.319(0.022)	0.494(0.021)	0.307(0.024)	0.305(0.012)	1.000
CM	0.340 (0.091)	0.379(0.194)	0.234(0.013)	0.321 (0.043)	0.397(0.116)	1.000
OA	0.351 (0.021)	0.397(0.045)	0.295(0.027)	0.191(0.062)	0.351(0.050)	0.286(0.052)	1.000
EA	0.254 (0.019)	0.314(0.015)	0.305 (0.011)	0.357(0.021)	0.245(0.038)	0.195(0.041)	0.288 (0.064)	1.000
WB	0.124(0.014)	0.285(0.028)	0.179(0.053)	0.311(0.040)	0.274(0.053)	0.284 (0.110)	0.147(0.032)	0.153 (0.022)	1.000
AVE	0.518	0.674	0.714	0.785	0.682	0.798	0.693	0.618	0.751
Mean	4.092	3.591	3.693	4.011	3.849	3.905	4.201	3.978	3.964
SD	1.268	1.425	1.384	1.297	1.162	1.358	1.308	1.352	1.106

Note: The numbers in the parentheses indicate the squared correlation among latent constructs; all correlations are significant at p <0.01. CES = Cultural Ecosystem Services; ATT = Attention; C-C = Cocreation; INV = Involvement; MEM = Memorability; CM = Cultural Motivation; OA = Objective Authenticity; EA = Existential Authenticity; WB = Well-being; AVE = average variance extracted; SD = standard deviation.

For the test of the construct validity, factor loadings for each construct are evaluated based on their average variance extracted (AVE) and the correlations. Table 2 illustrated that all of the AVE values are higher than the suggested cut-off of 0.5, which means the convergent validity of those constructs exists (Hair et al. 2006). Discriminant validity exists as well as the Table 2 demonstrated because all AVE values were greater than the squared correlations between the constructs (Fornell and Larcker 1981). Besides, values of selected fit indexes for this specified model generally suggested an adequate overall fit: X²/df = 3.081, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.925, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.908, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.056.

Structural Model Results

Hypothesis evaluation

In terms of hypothesis testing, the consumer-based authenticity model has been confirmed since hypotheses 1 to 3 regarding the links of cultural motivation, objective authenticity, and existential authenticity all demonstrated significant coefficients. This result not only supports these hypotheses but is also consistent with previous studies (Bryce et al. 2015; Kolar and Zabkar 2010; Zhou, Zhang, and Edelheim 2013). Hypotheses 4 to 7 posited a structural link between tourist cocreation and attention, involvement, and memorability. This study showed that tourist cocreation, attention, and involvement with animals in a cultural heritage site all have a positive effect on their memorability. All the three variables exert positive relations with the perception of memorability. Thus, those hypotheses are supported and are consistent with the results of Campos and colleagues (2017). Their path coefficients are 0.298, 0.285, 0.289, and 0.291, respectively.

Furthermore, tourist cultural ecosystem services relating to animal experiences within cultural heritage demonstrated statistically significant relationships from tourist cocreation, attention, involvement, and significantly related with their memorability as follows: attention (β_ATT-CES = 0.405, t = 3.101, p < 0.05), cocreation (β_C-C-CES = 0.252, t = 2.314, p < 0.05), involvement (β_INV-CES = 0.184, t = 2.671, p < 0.05), memorability (β_CES-MEM = 0.327, t = 2.524, p < 0.01). Thus, hypotheses 8a-8c and 9 are supported. Meanwhile, with respect to the links between consumer-based authenticity experience and animal-based experience, the potential effect of tourists’ cultural motivation on their cocreation, attention, and involvement has been confirmed, with the path coefficients being 0.173, 0.195, and 0.284, respectively. Therefore, hypotheses 10a-10c is supported. Finally, the links between objective authenticity, existential authenticity and tourist attention, involvement, and memorability are also identified, which supports hypotheses 11a, 11b, 12, and 13. The factors that could link with tourist well-being, cultural motivation, objective authenticity, existential authenticity, and memorability are all identified, while existential authenticity in general demonstrated the most significance (β_EA-WB = 0.674, t = 3.215, p < 0.05). Again, therefore, hypotheses H14a H14b, H15, and H16 are supported (Table 3).

Table 3.

Hypothesis Testing Results.

Structural Relationship	Standard Path Coefficient β	t	SE
CM→OA	.475***	3.295	.057
CM→EA	.260**	2.198	.062
OA→EA	.291**	1.521	.043
C-C→ATT	.289*	2.119	.038
C-C→INV	.292*	3.054	.074
ATT→MEM	.187*	4.002	.063
INV→MEM	.274*	2.186	.059
C-C→CES	.252*	2.314	.096
ATT→CES	.405**	3.101	.083
INV→CES	.184**	2.671	.071
CES→MEM	.327***	2.524	.086
CM→C-C	.173*	3.121	.056
CM→ATT	.195***	2.804	.068
CM→INV	.284*	2.513	.039
OA→MEM	.228***	3.151	.049
EA→MEM	.316*	2.732	.058
ATT→OA	.405**	3.680	.027
INV→EA	.349***	2.947	.035
OA→WB	.475***	3.205	.028
EA→WB	.386**	2.652	.047
MEM→WB	.373**	2.054	.050
R ²		0.69
Adjusted R²		0.65

p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 (two-tailed tests).

Parallel serial mediation effects on tourists’ well-being

To test the internal process of the construction of tourist well-being within the integrative extended framework, serial mediation effects as a specific directed causal flow link of the mediators (Hayes 2012) are adopted through a parallel approach. The results from using the PROCESS model can be found in Figure 3 and Table 4.

Figure 3.

Path coefficient of the serial mediation model.

Table 4.

Parallel Serial Mediation Analysis.

	Effect Boot	Boot SE	95% Confidence Interval
	Effect Boot	Boot SE	Boot LLCI	Boot ULCI
Total	.472	.042	.145	.389
Ind1	.238	.039	.191	.254
Ind2	.106	.046	.204	.337
Ind3	.591	.044	.183	.445
Note:
Ind1: Cocreation→ Attention → Well-being
Ind2: Cocreation → Objective authenticity → Well-being
Ind2: Cocreation → Attention → Objective authenticity → Well-being
	Effect Boot	Boot SE	95% Confidence Interval
	Effect Boot	Boot SE	Boot LLCI	Boot ULCI
Total	.197	.037	.293	.374
Ind1	.384	.162	.101	.132
Ind2	.295	.028	.162	.433
Ind3	.211	.021	.154	.249
Note
Ind1: Cocreation→ Involvement → Well-being
Ind2: Cocreation → Existential authenticity → Well-being
Ind3: Cocreation → Involvement → Existential authenticity → Well-being
	Effect Boot	Boot SE	95% Confidence Interval
	Effect Boot	Boot SE	Boot LLCI	Boot ULCI
Total	.278	.049	.150	.261
Ind1	.392	.036	.121	.174
Ind2	.303	.029	.202	.238
Ind3	.563	.031	.056	.108
Note
Ind1: Cocreation→ Cultural ecosystem service → Well-being
Ind2: Cocreation → Memorability → Well-being
Ind3: Cocreation → Cultural ecosystem service → Memorability → Well-being

As Table 4 illustrates, the first indirect effect of tourist cocreation messaging on their well-being through attention is 0.238 and the bootstrap confidence interval is above zero (0.191 to 0.254), which indicates the positive nature of this effect. And the second indirect effect of tourist cocreation on their well-being through objective authenticity is 0.106 (95% CI 0.204, 0.337). The third indirect effect is the serial links of tourist attention and objective authenticity in their cocreation on well-being. As the Table 4 demonstrated, this indirect effect (0.59) is positive as well because the confidence interval is also above zero. And the direct effect of tourists’ cocreation on their well-being was statistically significant (β = 0.184, p < 0.05), indicating this serial mediation is a partial situation.

The same five thousand bootstrap samples to create a 95% bias-corrected confidence interval (CI) is conducted to evaluate whether the significance of indirect effects if the CI did not include zero (Hayes 2017) regarding the serial mediation effects from tourist involvement and existential authenticity and their cultural ecosystem service and memorability between their cocreation and well-being. The indirect effects of tourists’ cocreation on well-being jointly through involvement and existential authenticity (β = CC – INV - EA – WB = 0.211, 95% CI 0.154, 0.249), through cultural ecosystem service and memorability (β = CC – CES – MEM – WB = 0.563, 95% CI 0.056, 0.108), are identified as also being significant. Specifically, indirect effects through the combination of mediators were found to be significant, whereas direct effects are found to be insignificant, indicating the presence of full mediation. These results imply that these variables acted as important mediators within the proposed theoretical framework.

To sum up, these parallel mediation effect results indicate that the three configurative mediation variables from both the consumer-based authenticity model and the animal-based experience model all demonstrate a mediation effect on the path between tourist cocreation experiences with animals in cultural heritage destinations and tourist well-being. In particular, the path coefficients of the combination of cultural ecosystem service and memorability demonstrate the most significant indirect effects on tourist cocreation and well-being.

Discussion and Conclusions

Discussion

This study aims to strengthen the debate in the literature concerning cultural heritage and the well-being of tourists using an integrative model of animal-based experience and consumer-based authenticity. Moreover, this study explored the adoption and evaluation of the demonstration of this model and its effect on the concept of cultural ecosystem services in the context of tourism management. In particular, this study includes the enhancing effect of animal-based experience on tourist well-being and offers a new option for cultural heritage destinations. This is to generalize the animal interaction experiences for more tourists through the potentiality of live ecosystem landscapes rather than the existing traditional relics. It does not intend to abandon the endeavor to position some aspects of cultural heritage well-being across the general range of cultural heritage resources but calls for recognition of the fact that understanding a particular tourist group’s well-being when linked with its own cultural practice of the animal interaction experience is based on the tourists’ capability to do so. Attention should be paid to the underlying cultural activities that could influence tourist attitudes and their understanding of the elements like culture, nature, and heritage. The following section highlights the theoretical contribution alongside the managerial implications for industrial practitioners.

Theoretical Contributions

The current study constructs an exploratory model of tourist well-being based on the variables discussed and assesses the direct and indirect links between cultural ecosystem service, animal-based experience, and the traditional cultural tourism authenticity framework, to provide empirical evidence for the cross-category tourist cultural heritage experience. Building on this relationship model, the study examines the causal effect of animal-based experience on tourist well-being, which revealed its significant influence on traditional cultural heritage tourism experiential factors such as cultural motivation, objective authenticity, and existential authenticity, and additionally, the relationships creating well-being. As an empirical demonstration of the importance of the new emerging, less classical, and noncultural elements in cultural heritage tourism destinations, it sheds light on popular animals as a potential main tourist attraction for cultural heritage tourists that would provide additional resources to cultural heritage sites when they are attempting to diversify their attractions.

Specifically, this study offers three key theoretical contributions. First of all, it evaluated the performance of cultural ecosystem services in cultural heritage tourism and its role as the “bridge” between the animal-based and tourist authentic cultural heritage experiences. As a concept that has been recently assessed in the tourism field concerning its spatial distribution (Bachi et al. 2020; Ghermandi, Camacho-Valdez, and Trejo-Espinosa 2020), this was done to obtain tourists’ psychological cognition of their experience of cultural ecosystem services in cultural heritage tourism. The four indicators proposed by Zoderer et al. (2016) have been identified as reliable in this context as well. Moreover, this study also constructed a theoretical framework examining the dynamics between the cultural ecosystem services within cultural heritage destinations. In particular, the direct effect of tourist attention on animal interaction experience in their cultural ecosystem services has been identified as the most significant aspect in this study. Meanwhile, the cultural ecosystem service has also been shown to have a significant effect on memorability.

Second, this study proposed and identified the new association of animal interaction with tourists’ cultural heritage experience that has not been previously examined. Cultural motivation as a variable that indicated tourists’ potential desire for the culturally relevant elements in cultural heritage sites (Kolar and Zabkar 2010), in this study, is revealed to have a significant influence on tourists’ animal interaction experience. On the other hand, the animal interaction in cultural heritage destinations with tourists has been found to have effective links to their perceived authenticity both objectively and existentially. This supports the concept of there being structural relationships between the variables in the cultural heritage tourism context. Also, animals in a cultural heritage destination clearly have been perceived as cultural attractions as the relics for those tourists in both visit motivation and experience, which enriches the previous studies of animal-based tourism experiences (Bertella 2016; DeMello 2012; Haanpää et al. 2021). Particularly, the identified structural links between the visitors’ cultural authentic experience and their well-being perception revealed that animals, such as the cats in this study, both represent strong traditional cultural connotations and are attractive to contemporary visitors with the influence of popular animation and cartoons. Thus, visiting those animals is a sacred pilgrimage, which provides a special and efficient pathway for traditional cultural heritage sites to enhance their visitors’ sense of well-being (Sun 2017). In other words, animal visitation in the context of cultural heritage sites is the trigger that both high-level classical culture and relatively low popular culture can innovate fresh and memorable experiences for tourists through their integration.

Third, this study comprehensively discussed the direct and indirect impacts of cultural ecosystem services, and the antecedents from the tourists’ interaction with animals and its authentic experience on their well-being. The configurative mediating variables are a critical phase of tourists’ cocreation of animal-based tourism experience, and their well-being within three parallel mediation effects in this article show the joint mechanism of the tourists’ animal interaction experience and their authentic perception construction. Past empirical assessments have confirmed the direct influence on tourist well-being in both animal-based tourism and authentic experience (Choi, Meng, and Lee 2018; Kolar and Zabkar 2010; Yi et al. 2018). By considering the three groups of sequential mediation effects between tourists’ cocreation experience with animals and their well-being, this study underscores the joint role of animal interaction factors and the tourists’ authentic relevant constructions in the context of animal-based cultural heritage tourism. No prior study until now has proposed and examined the sequential mediating effect of these variables on the association of tourist well-being, as well as its drivers, with the cultural heritage tourism and animal-based tourism sectors.

Managerial Implications

This study has shown that animal-based tourism experiences have a significant role as both a direct and indirect mediator and a provider of mediation links with other constructs in the authentication framework of tourist well-being. For those tourists who are fans of animal-based culture, postmodern thinking and imagination are the most important part of understanding a real cultural heritage site. Thus, tourism marketers should find a strong effect from such authenticity in practice in tourism. The positive influence of objective authenticity and existential authenticity on tourist well-being is strengthened when tourists accept such animal-based experiences. This indicates that the boundary between animal and culture in the mind of tourists can be blurred and mixed. Therefore, the strength of tourist well-being and perceived destination authenticity is conditional on their perception of animal-based experiences. This study provides empirical evidence that the constitutive function of animal-based experience in cross-category cultural heritage tourism practice can play an important role in the interpretation of what is nature and what is culture.

Demonstration of the importance of animal-based authentic experiences to tourist well-being in this study is identified as a customized mode in complex cross-category cultural heritage tourism. Postmodern tourists are not concerned with authenticity and the origins of attractions if they enjoy them. Animal-attached tourists in the Forbidden City understand that their personal care is bound up with their self-experiences with those animals, in this case, the “royal” cats, rather than in the argument about fake or real, which used to be the central point of previous analyses of cultural tourism. The significant contribution of animal-based experience to their perception of authenticity moreover suggested that for the Forbidden City, staged authenticity is helpful in the protection of cultural heritage, but the new creative animal-relevant products may change or add new rich meanings to this to enrich tourists’ well-being to such traditional classical heritage attractions and the achievement of sustainable development goals.

There are practical implications from the findings of this study. First, for a cultural heritage destination like the Forbidden City, which has a high reputation and uniqueness but is too old and familiar for most tourists, experience innovation through the special tourism products, such as animal interaction, is necessary and practical to induce more visitors and more happiness for them. Second, for the domestic Chinese tourists who visit the cats in the Forbidden City, the objective authenticity that relates to both intangible and tangible heritage factors is identified as a critical determinant of tourist well-being but is less important than the existential authenticity in this study. Therefore, preservation of the integrity of the physical heritage is crucial for destination practitioners as the primary marketing point. This study shows that the architecture of the Forbidden City is well protected, while the intangible factors that are attractions to match the buildings, such as the traditional lifestyles, ceremonies, and rituals of the royal family, and the cats, have much space for improvement. Virtual reality thematic programs and historical reenactments could be a potential way to provide a more authentic experience of past royal lives. Finally, the different levels and types of storytelling about the traditional animals in line with local or national traditions and culture should be widely introduced to diversify and enhance the impression of visitors in a cultural heritage tourism destination.

Limitations and Further Research

Although the current study empirically identified the construct reliability of the animal-based authentication model of tourist well-being in the same way as the previous mainstream research of tourists’ perceived authenticity from the cultural relic point of view did, refining these scales through adding or revising measure items to enhance reliability is expected in future studies. Meanwhile, the mixed method with qualitative approaches is encouraged for further studies of this topic to gain a more insightful understanding of tourist cross-category authenticated well-being in the cultural heritage tourist context and their loyalty. Second, this study concentrated on market practice from the management aspect with empirical examination of similar dimensions of the authentication processes in cultural heritage tourism settings. An interdisciplinary approach that uses theories from biology, anthropology, and geography within the current management framework to identify how the cross-category authentication process can shape the experience of cultural heritage tourists with specific visit intentions and their conception of well-being calls for further development.

Third, with respect to the research target of this study, the animal-based visitors to a cultural heritage site, data were only obtained in the Forbidden City in China and only Chinese domestic tourists were invited as survey targets. Data collection at more sites and from other visitor groups, such as Japanese tourists who have a strong cat culture, in future studies has a high potential to establish a more comprehensive portrait of those special tourists. Fourth, the limited numbers of valid responses in this study should be acknowledged given the handful budget and human resources although it meets the statistical analysis need in general. It would be meaningful to conduct further surveys of this tourist group using wider and larger sample sizes in the future to obtain more useful data.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Timothy J. Lee

Author Biographies

Yang Zhang’s main research interests are tourism anthropology, tourism migration, and cultural heritage tourism. She has published more than 20 research articles, books, and conference proceedings. She has also won the best paper awards at three international academic conferences.

Timothy Lee has published more than 230 research articles in academic journals (including 90 in the SSCI-listed, and 100 in A* or A-ranked journals in ABDC. His interests are health-oriented tourism, food tourism, cultural heritage tourism, and tourism development that incorporates East Asian values. He is the Founding Director of the ICOHOTH (International Congress of Health-Oriented Tourism & Hospitality, www.icohoth.org) and GLOSITH (Global Congress of Special Interest Tourism & Hospitality, www.glosith.net). His personal website is .

Yu Xiong’s main research interests are tourist behavior and destination marketing. She has published many research articles and conference proceedings.

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