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Keeping your audience: Presenting a visitor engagement scale

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 42; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.tourman.2013.12.011

1879-3193

Babak Taheri, Aliakbar Jafari, Kevin D. O’Gorman,

Digital Marketing and Social Media

Understanding visitors' level of engagement with tourist attractions is vital for successful heritage management and marketing. This paper develops a scale to measure visitors' level of engagement with tourist attractions. It also establishes a relationship between the drivers of engagement and level of engagement using Partial Least Square, whereby both formative and reflective scales are included. The structural model is tested with a sample of 625 visitors at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, UK. The empirical validation of the conceptual model supports the research hypotheses. Whilst prior knowledge, recreational motivation and omnivore-univore cultural capital positively affect visitors' level of engagement, there is no significant relationship between reflective motivation and level of engagement. These findings contribute to a better understanding of visitor engagement in tourist attractions and a series of managerial implications are proposed.