Tourism and conserving intangible cultural heritage: Residents’ perspectives on protecting the nüshu female script

Wenbin Luo, Yulian Lu, Dallen J. Timothy, Xiaolin Zang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Combining intangible cultural heritage (ICH) with tourism is one way of protecting living culture, and community residents have long been the most important stakeholders in these efforts. This paper explores the relationship between residents’ role in heritage conservation and heritage tourism and determines a means of protecting ICH by introducing a Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model and data from a survey and field interviews in Jiangyong, China. The results show that inhabitants’ behavioral attitudes, subjective norms and perceptual behavior control for conserving Nüshu (an ancient and unique women’s written language) have a significant impact on intentions to protect this ICH. The external pressure of subjective norms is more important than any other factor. The sustainable development of tourism and the protection of ICH are complementary, and community involvement is critical for sustaining ICH and developing heritage tourism. Finally, the study highlights several managerial implications.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1305-1329
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of China Tourism Research
Volume18
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Keywords

  • Intangible heritage
  • community-based tourism
  • empowerment
  • gendered heritage
  • nüshu

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Tourism and conserving intangible cultural heritage: Residents’ perspectives on protecting the nüshu female script'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this