Performance of tourism products in a slow city and formation of affection and loyalty: Yaxi Cittáslow visitors’ perceptions

Abstract

Although slow cities offer critical forms of sustainable tourism on a global scale, little empirical research has investigated how the performance of pro-sustainable Cittáslow destinations is beneficial to place identity and dependence, and slow city research in China is still at a relatively early stage. This research took Yaxi Cittáslow, the first Chinese slow city, as an example to probe its destination performances and detect the impact of place identity and dependence on tourists’ attachment and loyalty toward Cittáslow city tourism. The structural model evaluation revealed that the performance of Yaxi Cittáslow tourism products and services greatly and positively affected responsiveness constructs, which provides a reference for predicting tourist affection and loyalty to a slow city, even their future decision-making process. Additionally, the moderating effect of past experience and trip length was estimated on the conceptual framework. Implications and suggestions for destination operators and future research directions were discussed.

Keywords:

• Performance of slow city products
• sustainable tourism
• place identity
• dependence
• attachment
• loyalty
• past experience
• length of trip

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaoting Chi

Xiaoting Chi is a Graduate Student in the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Sejong University, South Korea. Her research interests include rural tourism, slow tourism, and adventure tourism. She has published many papers in the area of hospitality and tourism marketing.

Heesup Han

Heesup Han is a Professor in the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Sejong University, South Korea. His research interests include sustainable tourism, airline, medical tourism, and hospitality marketing. His papers have been selected as the most downloaded and read articles in many top-tier hospitality and tourism journals. Heesup Han is a 2019 and 2020 highly cited researcher (HCR) of the world in social science (identified by the Web of Science Group).