Evaluating Local Cultural Immersion Strategies and Their Impact on Visitor Loyalty Toward Destination Hospitality Providers
Nguyen Gia Han
ABSTRACT
This conceptual paper proposes an economics and business framework for evaluating how local cultural immersion may influence visitor loyalty toward destination hospitality providers. Cultural immersion is defined as provider-facilitated, respectful participation in local traditions and practices, including food preparation, storytelling, craft-making, heritage walks and interaction with residents. The proposed model examines perceived authenticity, memorable experience quality, satisfaction and place attachment as potential antecedents of provider-specific rebooking, recommendation and positive electronic word-of-mouth intentions.
A sequential exploratory mixed-method, multi-provider design is proposed, combining local stakeholder interviews, a structured visitor questionnaire and a prespecified statistical analysis. Conceptual figures, explicitly synthetic illustrations, procedural algorithms and measurement tables outline future implementation. The framework integrates community participation, cultural safeguarding and transparent economic evaluation. No field data have been collected or analyzed for this paper, and the proposed relationships remain untested. The term impact in the title denotes the focus of future empirical evaluation, rather than an established effect. The paper offers a conceptual managerial framework and research protocol, not empirical findings.
