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Article

How Destination Social Responsibility Affects Tourist Citizenship Behavior at Cultural Heritage Sites? Mediating Roles of Destination Reputation and Destination Identification

by
Hongsheng Zhang
1,2,
Zhenfeng Cheng
3 and
Xin Chen
4,*
1
School of Government, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
2
Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng 224051, China
3
Business School, Guangzhou College of Technology and Business, Guangzhou 510850, China
4
College of Landscape Architecture and Tourism, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071000, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6772; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116772
Submission received: 1 May 2022 / Revised: 23 May 2022 / Accepted: 30 May 2022 / Published: 1 June 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Tourism, Culture, and Heritage)
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Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Cultural heritage tourism, as a typical integration of culture and tourism, has attracted extensive attention in recent years. Although some scholars have already explored the influencing mechanism of tourists’ behavioral intention in cultural heritage destinations, there remains a lack of research on how the social responsibility of cultural heritage tourism destinations affects tourist citizenship behavior. Exploring the formation mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior at cultural heritage sites from the perspective of destination social responsibility, this study intends to provide a theoretical reference for realizing the high-quality development of cultural heritage tourism. In this study, a chain mediation model based on destination reputation and destination identification is constructed to clarify the influencing mechanism of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior. The structural equation model and bootstrapping methods are applied to conduct empirical tests on 573 valid samples who have experienced cultural heritage tourism. The results show that: (a) the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations positively affects the tourist citizenship behavior; (b) the destination reputation plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior; (c) the destination identification plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior and tourist advocacy behavior; (d) the destination reputation and destination identification jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior. These research results not only clarify the internal mechanism between the social responsibility of cultural heritage sites and tourist citizenship behavior, but also presented certain significance for practically guiding the destination managers to promote the sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism.

1. Introduction

According to the “Statistical Bulletin of the People’s Republic of China on National Economic and Social Developments in 2021”, the operating income of cultural and tourism-related industries above the designated size in China reached 11,906.4 billion CNY in 2021 after an increase of 16.0% over that in 2020. As an important form of cultural tourism, cultural heritage tourism plays an important role in promoting the transmission and inheritance of traditional culture. However, in the process of development, there has been the phenomenon of homogenous competitions of blindly chasing profits and fighting for the source market through simply copying and imitating, which makes it difficult for tourism activities to become deeply rooted in people’s minds, and even makes it impossible to inspire tourists to generate supportive and advocacy behaviors [1,2]. The key to solving this problem lies in turning from the traditional profit-oriented logic to customer (tourist)-oriented and value-oriented ones, taking tourists as the core participants in the service process of tourism projects and constantly encouraging them to voluntarily create value together with destination managers [3], so that the effective transmission and inheritance of traditional culture is finally realized. Such spontaneous and voluntary behavior is called customer citizenship behavior [4]. Liu and Tsaur [5] first applied it to the tourism service scenario and named it so. Relevant studies have pointed out that customer citizenship behavior, as a voluntary action, can positively promote customer satisfaction, the establishment of long-term enterprise–customer relationships, and the improvement of organizational performances [6,7]. Given the consistency between the essential characteristics of tourist citizenship behavior and customer citizenship behavior, this study equates these two concepts.
Existing studies have conducted numerous discussions on the antecedent variables of customer citizenship behavior; however, most of them have focused on scenarios such as retail service and catering service [7,8,9], while the research on customer citizenship behavior in tourism service scenarios has not yet been fully implemented. Therefore, whether the effects of customer citizenship behavior apply to tourism service scenarios has become an important issue worthy of academic attention. Liu et al. [10] called for further research on tourist citizenship behavior and its influencing mechanism under the tourism service scenarios.
In response to this academic interest, this study focuses on the cultural heritage sites, and introduces destination social responsibility as an antecedent variable to deeply explore its influencing path and mechanism on tourist citizenship behavior. The concept of destination social responsibility is derived from the concept of corporate social responsibility [11], which plays a positive role in promoting the residents’ well-being, the tourists’ environmental responsibility behavior, intention of visiting, and the destination reputation [12,13,14,15]. It requires destination managers to pay more attention to social, cultural, and environmental benefits, on top of their own economic interests [11], which is consistent with the very essence of cultural heritage tourism. To achieve this, exploring the influencing mechanism of the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations on tourist citizenship behavior has become an important topic in academia and industry.
In addition, it remains necessary to clarify the mediating mechanism through which this social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations affects tourist citizenship behavior. Destination reputation, as a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits and functional characteristics made by tourists on the destination, reflects the level of trust and favorability of tourists about the destination [16] and plays a key role in tourists’ behavior and the decision-making process [17]. Existing studies have pointed out that a good destination reputation had a positive effect on tourists’ satisfaction [18], attachment to destination [17], and trust and revisit intention [15]. However, the important role of destination reputation in cultural heritage sites and its antecedent variables remain pending to be revealed. Meanwhile, some scholars have called for further research on the relationship between destination identification and tourists’ behavioral willingness in the future [19], Especially in the context of cultural heritage tourism, the effects of destination identification on both destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior remains to be explored. Because of this, our study empirically examines the mediating mechanisms of destination reputation and destination identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior.
To sum up, this study attempts to answer the following questions: How does destination social responsibility affect tourist citizenship behavior at cultural heritage sites? What role do destination reputation and destination identification individually play in the above influencing process? How can destinations inspire the tourist citizenship behavior through the fulfillment of social responsibility? How do we realize the inheritance of traditional culture from the tourist perspective? Focusing on the above issues, a chain mediation model based on destination reputation and destination identification has been constructed under the context of cultural heritage sites in our study to explore the impacts of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behaviors, such as tourist feedback behavior and tourist advocacy behavior, to provide evidence for the theoretical basis and practical path of tourist citizenship behavior. The marginal contributions of this study are mainly: deepening and expanding the scope of related research on the formation mechanism of tourists’ citizenship behavior by exploring the important effects of cultural heritage sites’ social responsibility; providing a new theoretical framework for revealing the mediating mechanism between the social responsibility of cultural heritage sites and tourist citizenship behavior by clarifying the mediating effects of destination reputation and destination identification.

2. Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

2.1. Destination Social Responsibility and Tourist Citizenship Behavior

The concept of destination social responsibility is derived from the concept of corporate social responsibility, and mainly focuses on the economic, social, and environmental benefits of destinations [11]. Most of the existing studies on the social responsibility of tourism destinations adopted the perception of corporate social responsibility, although it might not be completely applicable to the tourism context [15]. A tourism destination is a comprehensive concept that includes all service providers and tourism-related enterprises [20], which is more complex in terms of management and organization, while corporate social responsibility only focuses on the obligations of individual companies, regardless of the overall impact of stakeholders [21]. Therefore, the concept of destination social responsibility can better describe the social obligations in the context of tourism [15]. Some scholars have defined destination social responsibility as activities committed to improving destination social well-being [11,13], of which the core idea is to establish a long-term, mutually beneficial mechanism among interested parties. The fulfillment of social responsibility in tourist destinations plays a positive role in promoting tourist satisfaction and loyalty [22,23], destination reputation [24], tourists’ environmental responsibility behavior [13], and destination residents’ satisfaction [25].
Some scholars used a one-dimensional scale to evaluate the impact of destination social responsibility activities on tourists’ pro-environment behaviors [26,27]. Some scholars have regarded the destination social responsibility as a concept with a multi-dimensional structure and explained it from economic, social, and environmental perspectives [11,13]. This study chose to focus on whether destination social responsibility has different impacts on tourist citizenship behavior, rather than whether it has different degrees of impacts on tourist citizenship behavior in different dimensions. Therefore, this study follows the suggestions of Hassan et al. [15] to integrate the destination social responsibility into a one-dimensional framework for empirical analysis.
On the other hand, the concept of customer citizenship behavior is derived from the essence of organizational citizenship behavior. Groth [4] extended the framework of this concept and applied it to the field of consumers. Liu and Tsaur [5] extended the concept of customer citizenship behavior to tourist citizenship behavior and defined the latter as the voluntary altruistic behavior performed by tourists during their travels. Therefore, in this study, customer citizenship behavior and tourist citizenship behavior are regarded as equivalent concepts. Relevant studies have pointed out that the former, as a kind of extra-role behavior, played a positive role in promoting the service quality, brand equity, and sustainable development of enterprises [4,6,7]. Other research on the sub-dimension of customer citizenship behavior has been gradually perfected and has generated a lot of results. The four-dimensional model proposed by Yi and Gong [28], including feedback, advocacy, help, and tolerance, has been widely used. Specifically, customer citizenship behavior can be divided into two dimensions: one is the favorable behavior of customers toward the enterprise, and the other is the positive behavior of customers toward other customers. The purpose of this study is to facilitate cultural heritage tourism managers to formulate more effective strategies by clarifying the formation mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior. Therefore, this study mainly focuses on the favorable behavior of tourists toward the destination, therefore it only explores the two dimensions of tourist feedback behavior and tourist advocacy behavior. The former mainly refers to the participation of tourists in providing relevant suggestions to support the better development of tourism service providers. The latter mainly implies the tourists’ support and recommendation of destinations.
To illustrate, the signaling theory is used to explain how individuals communicate information with each other under uncertainty [29]. According to this theory, signals are sent to their receivers as a carrier of serial specific information to reduce information asymmetry [30]. The sender can use a variety of signals to convey information and influence the recipient’s cognition, decision-making process, and behavioral intention [31]. Based on the signaling theory, tourist destinations can transmit various signals to influence and change tourists’ perceptions and attitudes. As a series of activities carried out to improve social well-being [13], destination social responsibility has been a positive signal conveyed by tourism destinations to the outside world (including tourists) [26]. As the recipient of this information, tourists can effectively identify the destination as being committed to improving social well-being and actively fulfilling social responsibility through such positive activities, and then they can make feedback and support behaviors conducive to the development of tourism destinations. Some scholars have also provided evidence that positive signals from tourist destinations are significant driving factors of tourists’ behavioral intentions [13,14,15]. To validate this, the following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 1 (H1).
Destination social responsibility has a significantly positive impact on tourist citizenship behavior.
Hypothesis 1a (H1a).
Destination social responsibility has a significantly positive impact on tourist feedback behavior.
Hypothesis 1b (H1b).
Destination social responsibility has a significantly positive impact on tourist advocacy behavior.

2.2. The Mediating Role of Destination Reputation

Corporate reputation, as an integration of recognition and judgment of enterprises by stakeholders [32,33], includes admiration, respect, and trust for enterprises [34]. Corporate reputation is relatively consistent and stable, which cannot be quickly or easily shaped. It is established on the basis of the long-term organizational behavior, action, and communication [35], which has become an important source of competitive advantage for enterprises. Previous studies have shown that corporate reputation has a direct impact on customers’ behaviors and decisions. For example, a good reputation has a positive effect on promoting customer satisfaction and loyalty [33,36]. Meanwhile, it can enhance the competitiveness by shaping the corporate image and obtaining the support of stakeholders, so that a sustainable competitive advantage is achieved [17]. Based on the concept of corporate reputation, some scholars have defined destination reputation as the level of tourists’ trust and favor for the destination based on the evaluation of tourists’ attitudes, opinions, and behaviors about the destination in the past period [37]. As tourism products have been remote and intangible, they usually attach more importance to reputation [16]. Some scholars have pointed out that destination reputation is a more stable indicator of performance than its brand or image [37]. In addition, destination reputation also has a positive effect of attracting tourists and fostering loyalty [17,18,37]. This also improves the competitiveness of destinations and becomes conducive to the sustainable development of destinations [38].
According to the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) theoretical model, the environment, as an external stimulus, affects the individual behavior by influencing people’s internal states [39]. The S-O-R model evolved from the stimulus–response model. This theoretical model hypothesizes that the external stimuli affect internal states first and then influence subsequent behavioral responses [40], revealing the mediating role of internal psychological states between external stimuli and behavioral responses. The term stimulus usually refers to an external environmental factor, and the organism is generally considered to be the internal state induced by this stimulus, while the response is the final result [39]. The S-O-R model has been applied in many fields, including the retailing [40,41], online consumer behavior [42], and tourism service context [43,44], and empirical studies have also proved the mediating effect of the internal states between external stimulus and behavioral response. In this paper, the social responsibility performed by cultural heritage tourism destinations can act as the external stimulus, firstly influencing the internal psychological state of tourists (by destination reputation), and finally affecting a series of citizenship behaviors such as advocacy and the feedback behaviors of tourists. Therefore, the S-O-R model provides a theoretical basis for establishing a mediation mechanism between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior at cultural heritage sites. Based on this, the following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 2 (H2).
Destination reputation plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior.
Hypothesis 2a (H2a).
Destination reputation plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior.
Hypothesis 2b (H2b).
Destination reputation plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior.

2.3. The Mediating Role of Destination Identification

Tajfel [45] proposed the social identity theory, pointing out that identity is an individual’s sense of belonging to a specific group. With the development of this theory, the identity concept has received extensive attention from management researchers. Bhattacharya and Sen [46] formally introduced the concept of organizational identity into the field of marketing research and constructed a theoretical framework for analyzing customer-enterprise identity based on social identity theory. Customer-enterprise identity refers to the tendency of customers who frequently patronize an enterprise to integrate its certain characteristics (such as corporate values, employees and brands) into a part of their self-identity [47].
Proshansky [48] put forward the concept of place identity based on the cognitive connection between the self and the physical environment, as he believed that place identity was determined by the complex interactions of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, values, and behavioral trends existing in people’s consciousness and unconsciousness. When explaining this concept, Proshansky et al. [49] explained in detail that its effects include the recognition function, meaning function, expressive requirement function, mediating change function, and anxiety and defense functions. They can also be regarded as the interpretation of place identity from the conceptual structure, indicating the action mechanism of place identity in people’s cognition, emotions, and behaviors. Some scholars have also pointed out that place identity is the sense of belonging to a place, which was generated by the interactions between people and places at the emotional and cognitive levels [50]. It emphasizes the emotional attachment in the man–land relationship [51], that is, emotionally considering oneself as a member of a place. In this process, individuals’ behaviors will be influenced by the expectations of other members of the identity group, who will be committed to defending the interests of the group and actively undertake corresponding responsibilities [50]. In addition, some studies have also demonstrated that, the higher the degree of destination identification of tourists, the stronger their willingness to revisit and recommend it [17,37]. Combining with the definition of place identity, this study holds the view that destination identification refers to the individual’s emotional attachments to the destination on the psychological and emotional levels.
Destination identification can serve as a mediating mechanism between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior, which can be explained and responded to by social identity theory. According to this theory, individuals will identify themselves as a group and acquire certain emotional value due to their group membership [45]. Based on social classification and comparison, individuals would identify with specific groups and hold positive attitudes and emotions towards them [52]. Some scholars have pointed out that social identity would prompt individuals to obey and support the social group they identified themselves with [53]. Therefore, social identity has an important influence on the perceptions and behaviors of group members. Relevant studies have also revealed that the fulfillment of social responsibility in tourism destinations can facilitate the building of a good destination reputation and image [15,24,37]. Tourists will regard destinations that actively fulfilled their social responsibilities as organizations that actively undertook their social responsibilities and generate a sense of contribution. Tourists with moral awareness and moral concepts will integrate themselves with the destination and further enhance their identity with the destination that fulfilled social responsibilities. This sense of identity will drive them to develop a long and stable relationship with the destination and to actively recommend the destination to others [54]. Based on this, the following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 3 (H3).
Destination identification plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior.
Hypothesis 3a (H3a).
Destination identification plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior.
Hypothesis 3b (H3b).
Destination identification plays a mediating role between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior.

2.4. The Chain Mediation Effects of Destination Reputation and Destination Identification

Cultural heritage, as the tourism motivation of tourists, has been gradually recognized by scholars [55,56]. Based on the S-O-R theory [39], tourists make a cognitive evaluation of the destination’s social responsibility performance in the process of cultural heritage tourism, and the result further affects the tourists’ inner psychological state (perceived destination reputation). This means that the specific perception evaluation by tourists on the fulfillment of destination social responsibility will influence tourists’ actual perception of the destination reputation. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions points out that they can expand the scope of an individual’s thinking and action, and then construct the sustainable personal resources, including the psychological, social, physiological, and intellectual ones, so that long-term benefits are brought to these individual [57]. Based on this theory, a good destination reputation, as a positive emotion, will be conducive to the construction of an individual’s psychological resources (destination identification) to a certain extent. Some studies have pointed out that corporate reputation had been an important antecedent variable of customer identification [58,59]. According to the place identity theory, tourists are more trusting and related to a tourist destination with a better reputation. A better reputation often represents higher qualities of products or services, for which tourist destinations can obtain more product premiums [60]. Therefore, the destination reputation has a positive effect on destination identification [37]. Moreover, destination identification, as an important pre-factor of behavioral response, can stimulate tourists’ recommendation, feedback, and support behaviors that are beneficial to destinations [61,62,63]. To sum up, this study predicts that destination reputation and destination identification will jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior, that is, the fulfillment of the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations facilitates the construction of a good destination reputation, which can further influence the destination identification. Finally, it induces the customer citizenship behaviors. Based on the above discussion, the following hypotheses are made:
Hypothesis 4 (H4).
Destination reputation and destination identification jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior.
Hypothesis 4a (H4a).
Destination reputation and destination identification jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior.
Hypothesis 4b (H4b).
Destination reputation and destination identification jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior.
To summarize, a chain mediation model based on the effects of destination reputation and destination identification was constructed in this study, as presented in Figure 1.

3. Research Methods

3.1. Measurement Development

The variables measurement indicators involved in this study are mainly from the existing literature and to be adapted for the research purpose. To ensure the validity and applicability of the English scale applied in this study under the context of China, the back-translation method [64] was used to complete relevant work. A total of 2 professional translators and 2 tourism management teachers (proficient in English) were invited to complete the cross-check of these translations. Afterwards, it was handed over to 10 teachers and management practitioners in tourism for final proofreading to ensure the accuracy of the measurement items. Finally, a preliminary survey was conducted on 80 tourists with experience in cultural heritage tourism, and the questionnaire items were further improved according to the survey results.
The measurement scale of destination social responsibility mainly was sourced from the research of Lee et al. [13] and WANG et al. [24], with 6 items in total; some original items included “I think the tourism organization of Upo Wetland gives back to the local community”, “I think the tourism organization of Upo Wetland is concerned with improving the general well-being of society”. The measurement item of destination reputation referred to the scale developed by Su et al. [18], with a total of 3 items; some original items included “The Yuelu Mountain destination is successful”, “Yuelu Mountain is a well-established destination”. The scale of destination identification was adapted from the one also developed by Su et al. [18], with a total of 4 items; some original items included “The successes of the Yuelu Mountain destination are my successes”, “When someone criticizes the Yuelu Mountain destination, I feel embarrassed”. The measurement item of tourist citizenship behavior was mainly adapted from the research of Assiouras et al. [65] and consisted of 6 items in total, including 3 items of tourist feedback behavior and 3 items of tourist advocacy behavior; some original items included “I will recommend the hospitality service provider and the employee to others”, “When I experience a problem, I will let this hospitality service provider know about it”. A Likert 7-point scoring method was adopted for all scales (1 meant “strongly disagree”, 7 meant “strongly agree”).

3.2. Data Collection and Profile of Respondents

World-class cultural heritage sites such as the Great Wall in Badaling and the Summer Palace in Beijing, the Confucius Temple, Confucius Mansion, Confucius Forest in Shandong Province, and the Classical Gardens in Suzhou were selected as the main research objects in this study. The above-mentioned scenic spots, as the famous world-class sites of cultural heritage, have outstanding advantages in terms of popularity and cultural attraction, which are representative and typical to a certain extent, as well as fit in with the theme and purpose of this study. The research team surveyed Chinese tourists visiting the above-mentioned cultural heritage sites by a random interception on-site and gave sufficient guidance and explanation before the questionnaire was issued or being completed, then offered small gifts to the tourists who participated in the survey to express the gratitude. The data was collected and summarized from 18 December 2021 to 16 February 2022. A total of 780 questionnaires were distributed, and 695 were retrieved in this formal survey. After excluding 122 invalid ones with inconsistent logic or numerous blank items, 573 valid ones were finally accepted, with an effective rate of 82.4%.
Among the effective research samples, females account for 54.6%, and males account for 45.4%; those aged 20 and below account for 9.1%, those aged 21 to 30 account for 22.3%, those aged 31 to 40 account for 35.2%, those aged 41 to 50 account for 22.4%, those aged 51 to 60 account for 8.3%, and those aged over 60 account for 2.7%, respectively. In terms of education, those with junior college or bachelor’s degree account for the highest proportion, 56.5% of the total survey samples; in terms of average monthly income, those who earned 2000 to 8000 CNY per month accounted for 71.3%.

4. Results

4.1. Common Method Variance Test

Data collection in a self-reported method may suffer the common method variance issues [66]. Therefore, different methods were used to test it before carrying out the hypothesis testing. First, exploratory factor analysis was performed on all variables involved in this study by Harman’s single-factor test method [67]. The results showed that the variance explanation rate of the first factor before rotation was 42.248%, which fell below 50%, indicating that the common method variance problem was not serious here. Second, the confirmatory factor analysis was individually performed on the single-factor and multi-factor models to test for common method variance, which showed a significant difference between these two models [Δx2 (10) = 3214.59, p < 0.001], indicating again that the study data was less susceptible to the common method variance [68].

4.2. Reliability and Validity Test

First, a goodness-of-fit test was performed by the confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed that the measurement model had a significant goodness of fit (X2/DF = 2.215, GFI = 0.943, AGFI = 0.923, CFI = 0.977, NFI = 0.958, TLI = 0.972, RMSEA = 0.046, SRMR = 0.037).
Secondly, reliability analysis was conducted on the measurement scale to ensure the reliability of the research tool. The analysis results are shown in Table 1. It could be seen that the reliability coefficients of all variables involved in this study ranged between 0.866 and 0.918, being greater than 0.7, and indicating that the measurement scale maintained a good reliability.
Confirmatory factor analysis results are shown in Table 2. The standardized factor loadings of each measurement item are between 0.708 and 0.889, and the CR values of all variables range from 0.868 to 0.920, exceeding the threshold value of 0.7. Moreover, the AVE values of each variable are between 0.660 and 0.711, which are all greater than 0.5, indicating that all variables have a good convergent validity.
Discriminant validity analysis is used to compare the square root value of the variable AVE and the correlation coefficient between this variable and the others. As shown in Table 3, the square root value of the AVE of each variable is greater than the correlation coefficient between this variable and the others. Therefore, all variables involved in the study have a good discriminant validity.

4.3. Hypothesis Testing

4.3.1. Main Effect Testing

AMOS 24.0 was used to test the structural model fit in this study. The results showed that it was within the acceptable range (X2/df = 2.840, GFI = 0.936, AGFI = 0.914, CFI = 0.964, NFI = 0.946, TLI = 0.958, RMSEA = 0.057, SRMR = 0.052); hence, the main effect test could be carried out further. The results of the main effect analysis are shown in Figure 2. As presented, destination social responsibility exerted significantly positive impacts on tourist feedback behavior (β = 0.333, p < 0.001) and tourist advocacy behavior (β = 0.320, p < 0.001). Hence, hypotheses H1a and H1b were supported.

4.3.2. Mediating Effect Testing

The bootstrap method was used to test the mediation effects in this study. The number of iterations was set to 5000 and the confidence level was set as 95%. The results are shown in Table 4. The indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist feedback behavior through destination reputation is 0.011, the 95% confidence interval is [−0.010, 0.034], and the confidence interval contains 0, indicating that the mediating effect of destination reputation between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior has not been verified. Hence, H2a is not supported. Next, the indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist advocacy behavior through destination reputation is 0.087, the 95% confidence interval is [0.056, 0.129], and the confidence interval does not include 0, revealing that the mediating effect of destination reputation between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior has been verified. Therefore, H2b is supported. Moreover, the indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist feedback behavior through destination identification is 0.111, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.075, 0.153]. The indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist advocacy behavior through destination identification is 0.087, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.057, 0.126]. The above effects’ confidence intervals do not contain 0, indicating that the mediating effect of destination identification between destination social responsibility, tourist feedback behavior, and tourist advocacy behavior (tourist citizenship behavior) has been verified. Hence, the hypotheses of H3a and H3b are both supported.
Furthermore, the indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist feedback behavior through the chain-mediation paths of destination reputation and destination identification is 0.037, and the 95% confidence interval is [0.024, 0.057]. Moreover, the indirect effect of destination social responsibility on tourist advocacy behavior through the chain-mediation paths of destination reputation and destination identification is 0.029, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.016, 0.047]. The above effects’ confidence intervals do not include 0, revealing that destination reputation and destination identification jointly play a chain mediation role between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior together with tourist advocacy behavior. Hence, the hypotheses of H4a and H4b are both supported.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. Discussion

It is found that the fulfillment of social responsibility by cultural heritage sites will effectively stimulate the tourist feedback and advocacy behaviors conducive to the development of destinations. This research conclusion enriches and expands the relevant studies on the outcome variables of destination social responsibility [12,13,14,15] and on the antecedent variables of tourist citizenship behavior [7,8].
Arica et al. [6] pointed out that future research should further empirically explore the formation mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior. Therefore, this study adopts a structural equation model to empirically test the mediating effects of destination reputation and destination identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior. The results show that tourists’ perceived destination social responsibility indirectly exerts a significant influence on tourist advocacy behavior by influencing the destination reputation in the process of cultural heritage tourism. This result provides further evidence that reputation plays an important role in the relationship between the external environmental stimulus and behavioral intention [37].
The existing literature has presented a large number of studies on tourist behavior intentions [44,69]; however, it has neglected the significant influence of destination identification in specific tourism scenarios [16]. This study has provided evidence for the mediating effect of cultural heritage tourism destinations’ identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior. This finding further supports the theoretical framework of social identity [39] and extends the research conclusions of Artigas et al. [16]. The results also further clarify the mediating role of destination identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior and illuminates the emotional driving path of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior.
This study provides evidence for the chain mediation effects of destination reputation and destination identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior. This finding further highlights the significant role of destination identification and expands the results of research on tourist citizenship behavior [7,65]. These research results further reveal the influencing mechanism of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior and reach a pathing relationship of “destination social responsibility → destination reputation → destination identification → tourist citizenship behavior”, which clarifies the chain mediation mechanism between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior, and further enrich the relevant studies’ results [14,15].

5.2. Conclusions

In response to the academic urge for further exploration of the variables affecting tourist citizenship behavior [8], this study has focused on the cultural heritage sites, constructed a chain mediation model based on destination reputation and destination identification, and has explored the influencing mechanism of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior before drawing the following conclusions:
First, the social responsibility of cultural heritage sites exerts a significantly positive impact on both the tourist feedback behavior and tourist advocacy behavior through the structural equation model. Second, destination reputation indeed plays a mediating role in the relationship between destination social responsibility and tourist advocacy behavior at cultural heritage sites. However, the mediating effect of destination reputation between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior has not been tested yet. One possible explanation is that when cultural heritage destinations have a good reputation, it will stimulate tourists’ sense of trust and goodwill towards itself. According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, such positive emotional connections will prompt tourists to continue experiencing positive emotions in the future. This virtuous circle alleviates tourists’ discomfort during travel to a certain extent and make them ignore the problems possibly existing within the products or services, so that no further complaints for products or services can be issued. Therefore, the mediating effect of destination reputation between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior has not been tested yet. Thirdly, the social responsibility of cultural heritage sites will indirectly exert a positive impact on tourist citizenship behaviors by affecting the destination identification. Finally, although the single mediating effect of destination reputation between destination social responsibility and tourist feedback behavior is insignificant, it can further influence the tourist feedback behavior by affecting the destination identification.

5.3. Theoretical Contributions

The theoretical contributions of this study are listed as the follows:
First, destination social responsibility, as a key factor for tourist destinations to gain a competitive advantage, has attracted extensive attention from the academic community in recent years. As pointed out by some scholars, the fulfillment of the social responsibility by the tourist destination exerts an important effect in promoting the environmental responsibility behaviors of tourists, the destination reputation, and the loyalty of tourists altogether [14,15,24,70]. However, few studies have explored destination social responsibility in the context of cultural heritage tourism, especially the influencing mechanism of the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations on tourist citizenship behavior. This study focuses on cultural heritage sites and empirically explores the important effect of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior. On the one hand, the research results enrich and expand those related to destination social responsibility [12,13,14,15]; on the other hand, this study also responds to the academic concerns expressed by Arica et al. [6] to strengthen the empirical research on the antecedent variables of tourist citizenship behavior.
Second, previous research on the antecedent variables of tourist citizenship behavior has mostly been based on the “stimulus–response” theory. This study tries to explain the formation mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior by invoking the signaling theory and finds that the positive signals of performing social responsibility released by cultural heritage destinations can stimulate and strengthen tourist citizenship behavior. It does not only expand the application field of signaling theory, but also provides a theoretical basis for the future research on the internal influencing mechanism of cultural heritage destinations’ social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior.
Third, this study empirically tests the single mediation and chain mediation effects of destination reputation and destination identification between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior and explores the complete influencing path from destination social responsibility to tourist citizenship behavior. Moreover, this study also clarifies the influencing mechanism of cultural heritage destinations’ social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior, which further enriches and deepens the previous research on the formation mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior and provides a new theoretical framework for exploring the relationship between “social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations and tourist citizenship behavior”. The research conclusions not only offer a new perspective for understanding the relationship between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior, but also provide a useful supplement to the theoretical system of tourist citizenship behavior.

5.4. Managerial Implications

This paper has the following implications for management practice:
First, this study gives evidence that the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations exerts positive effects directly and indirectly on tourist citizenship behavior, indicating that the active fulfillment of social responsibility by cultural heritage sites is an important way to strengthen the tourist citizenship behavior. Therefore, managers of cultural heritage tourism destinations should design and share a clear plan of how destinations will actively fulfill their social (improving social well-being, etc.), economic (promoting local economic development, etc.), and environmental (protecting ecological environment, etc.) responsibilities, and strive to honor their commitments. Managers can also use social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, Weibo, etc.) to convey relevant information about the destination’s fulfillment of social responsibilities to the outside world. They can also conduct training for relevant tour guides and staff to convey to tourists a signal that the destination fulfills its social responsibilities, thereby strengthening tourists’ positive perception of the destination’s reputation and image. Nowadays, destination social responsibility has attracted considerable attention, therefore managers should also integrate this type of elements into their products and services, such as the development of green ecological products. In addition, managers can design relevant activities to strengthen tourists’ awareness of the destination social responsibility, such as inviting tourists to participate in the designed activities to feel the actual performance of the destination social responsibility. When tourists participate in the social and economic activities of the destination, they will regard it as an important organization making contributions to the society, thus strengthening the identification of tourists with the destination before effectively stimulating the tourist feedback and advocacy behaviors conducive to the development of the destination.
Second, given the mediating effects of destination reputation and destination identification between the social responsibility of cultural heritage destinations and the tourist citizenship behavior, destination managers should be aware of the importance of cultivating destination reputation and identification, and of improving them through the elaborate designs of relevant activities. Specifically, destination managers should strengthen the constructions, promote the training of staff, improve their service awareness and professional skills, and resolutely put an end to cheating, rifling, and other behaviors that damage the interests of tourists. Destination managers and staff should actively listen to the feedback of tourists, respond rapidly when faced with negative events, take the initiative to bear responsibility, conduct timely and effective service remediation, and rebuild the destination reputation. Through the joint efforts of employees and managers, a positive and proud destination reputation with a good image can be formed to guide and strengthen the identification of tourists with the destination. Moreover, this study can also inspire cultural heritage destination managers to strengthen the emotional management of tourists and develop and design experiential projects that can stimulate tourists to generate destination identification. When developing tourism projects, destination marketers should pay attention to both the psychological and behavioral expressions of tourists, as well as focus on creating a group of specific tourism projects that can stimulate their destination identification, such as the unforgettable memories through AR, VR, and holographic projection technologies and the improvement on interpretation systems. Meanwhile, tourists are encouraged to participate in the relevant activities held by the destination and strengthen the interaction with other tourists. In addition, the managers of cultural heritage destinations should highlight local cultural characteristics, enhance the authenticity of tourists’ historical and cultural experiences, and create a high-quality environment for cultural cognition; they ought to also improve the contents and methods of the tour guide’s introductions, simplify the historical stories already familiar to tourists, set up interactive channels to generate cultural resonances, and design diversified narrations to enhance tourists’ destination identification. The destination identification generated by tourists through experiential activities will further promote their citizenship behaviors to be conducive to the development of the destination, thus promoting the sustainable development of the destination.
Thirdly, the research results can guide the cultural heritage destination managers to change the traditional way of thinking. In the past, the sustainable development of cultural heritage destinations was mostly solved from the perspective of the supply side, such as relying on the government, tourism enterprises, and related departments of management. This study shifts the perspective to the demand side (tourists), providing a brand new idea and path choice for the development of cultural heritage sites. In other words, this study tries to explore how to achieve the high-quality development of cultural heritage tourism from the perspective of tourists. Specifically, cultural heritage destination managers should change the development philosophy, create a tourist participation model, develop and design tourism activities of strong interactions with tourists, and construct the mechanism between tourists and management subjects from concept design to practical implementation to effectively stimulate tourist citizenship behavior that is beneficial to the development of the destination and to finally achieve the sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism.

5.5. Limitations and Future Research Directions

Although this study provides a decision-making basis and practical guidance for cultural heritage destination managers to formulate relevant policies, it also has some limitations. First of all, in terms of research design, this study tries to select the world-famous cultural heritage destinations as research objects, with the sample size also meeting the statistical requirements; however, there may still be a certain problem of sampling bias. Future research should adopt samples with wider range, more coverage, and more diversity to conduct better empirical research, such that it improves the universal applicability of the research conclusions. Secondly, this study only considers the factors of destination social responsibility that influence the tourist citizenship behavior, though neglects the similarly important influences of tourism experience, destination image, and other factors. Future studies can incorporate these neglected influencing variables into the research framework to deepen the understanding of the mechanism of tourist citizenship behavior. Thirdly, the particularity of cultural heritage tourism was not considered in the scale design of this study, which might cause some deviations in the study results. In future research, more targeted scales should be designed to not only investigate cultural heritage tourists, but also to enrich and improve the theoretical system of cultural heritage tourism. Fourthly, although a questionnaire survey has been an important data collection method to empirically explore the relationship between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior at cultural heritage sites, it still faces some problems, such as its strong subjectivity. Future studies can adopt more diverse methods for data collection and take time changes into consideration to further improve both the scientificity and effectiveness of the measurement tools. Finally, this study only empirically tests the influencing mechanism of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior, and did not further explore the effects of boundary conditions of destination social responsibility on tourist citizenship behavior. Future studies can incorporate the perceived hypocrisy, destination social responsibility attribution, and other variables into the research framework, and further reveal the moderating effects of these variables between destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, H.Z.; Data curation, Z.C.; Formal analysis, H.Z.; Funding acquisition, Z.C.; Investigation, H.Z. and Z.C.; Methodology, X.C.; Project administration, Z.C. and X.C.; Resources, H.Z. and X.C.; Software, X.C.; Supervision, Z.C.; Validation, H.Z. and X.C.; Visualization, Z.C.; Writing—original draft, H.Z.; Writing—review & editing, X.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the following agencies: 2022 project of Guangzhou philosophy and Social Sciences Planning (grant number: 2022GZGJ80); Social Science Foundation of Hebei Province (grant number: HB21XW016); Advanced Talents Incubation Program of Hebei Agricultural University (grant number: YJ201903).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 14 06772 g001 550
Figure 1. Theoretical Model.
Figure 1. Theoretical Model.
Sustainability 14 06772 g001
Sustainability 14 06772 g002 550
Figure 2. Path analysis results. Note: unstandardized estimate (S.E.: standardized estimate); ***: p < 0.001.
Figure 2. Path analysis results. Note: unstandardized estimate (S.E.: standardized estimate); ***: p < 0.001.
Sustainability 14 06772 g002
Table
Table 1. Measurement Items and Reliability Analysis Results.
Table 1. Measurement Items and Reliability Analysis Results.
ConstructItemCronbach’s α
Destination Social ResponsibilityDSR1. I think this destination is dedicated to giving back to the local community.0.918
DSR2. I think this destination drives local economic development.
DSR3. I think this destination is committed to improving social well-being.
DSR4. I think this destination provides a good experience for visitors by establishing connections with the local people and culture.
DSR5. I think this destination is actively concerned about the environment.
DSR6. I think this destination is committed to preserving local cultural heritage resources.
Destination ReputationDR1. This destination is highly regarded.0.880
DR2. This destination is successful.
DR3. This destination is well established.
Destination IdentificationDI1. I am very interested in what others think about this destination.0.888
DI2. The success of this destination is my success.
DI3. When someone praises this destination, it feels like a personal compliment.
DI4. If someone criticized this destination, I would feel embarrassed.
Tourist Feedback BehaviorTFB1. When I have a useful idea on how to improve service, I will let the employee know.0.866
TFB2. When I receive good services from this destination service provider, I will comment on it.
TFB3. When I experience a problem, I will let the destination service provider know about it.
Tourist Advocacy BehaviorTAB1. I have said positive things about this destination to others.0.879
TAB2. I have recommended this destination to others.
TAB3. I have encouraged my relatives and friends to also visit this destination.
Table
Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results.
Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results.
ConstructItemSignificance of ParametersConvergent Validity
Unstd.S.E.z-ValuepStd.CRAVE
Destination Social ResponsibilityDSR11.000 0.8340.9200.660
DSR20.8670.03524.450***0.835
DSR30.9540.04222.811***0.801
DSR40.9790.03626.888***0.889
DSR50.7050.03222.031***0.708
DSR60.8380.03722.744***0.795
Destination ReputationDR11.000 0.8280.8810.711
DR21.0470.04423.590***0.883
DR30.9990.04621.897***0.817
Destination IdentificationDI11.000 0.8730.8920.676
DI21.0620.04026.776***0.859
DI31.0030.04025.092***0.830
DI40.7130.03619.843***0.716
Tourist Feedback BehaviorTFB11.000 0.8150.8680.686
TFB21.1380.05221.704***0.828
TFB31.0370.04722.146***0.842
Tourist Advocacy BehaviorTAB11.000 0.8390.8800.710
TAB20.9800.04223.381***0.842
TAB31.0710.04523.639***0.846
Note. Unstd.: unstandardized factor loading; Std.: standardized factor loading; ***: p < 0.001; CR: composite reliability; AVE: average variance extracted.
Table
Table 3. Discriminant Validity Analysis Results.
Table 3. Discriminant Validity Analysis Results.
DSRDRDITFBTAB
DSR0.812
DR0.2920.843
DI0.3780.3740.822
TFB0.5440.3160.5630.828
TAB0.5230.4630.5260.2260.843
Note. The on-diagonal items in bold are square roots of AVE; off-diagonal items represent correlation estimates; DSR: destination social responsibility; DR: destination reputation; DI: destination identification; TFB: tourist feedback behavior; TAB: tourist advocacy behavior.
Table
Table 4. Direct and Indirect Effects Analysis.
Table 4. Direct and Indirect Effects Analysis.
PathsEstimateProduct of CoefficientsBootstrapping
Bias-Corrected
95% CI		Percentile
95% CI
S.E.z-ValueLower LimitUpper LimitLower LimitUpper Limit
Direct Effects
DSR-->TFB0.3330.0379.0000.2610.4070.2590.406
DSR-->TAB0.3200.0398.2050.2480.4010.2450.398
Indirect Effects
DSR-->DR-->TFB0.0110.0111.000−0.0100.034−0.0100.034
DSR-->DR-->TAB0.0870.0184.8330.0560.1290.0540.126
DSR-->DI-->TFB0.1110.0205.5500.0750.1530.0730.151
DSR-->DI-->TAB0.0870.0175.1180.0570.1260.0540.123
DSR-->DR-->DI-->TFB0.0370.0084.6250.0240.0570.0230.055
DSR-->DR-->DI-->TAB0.0290.0083.6250.0160.0470.0160.046
Note: 5000 bootstrap samples; DSR: destination social responsibility; DR: destination reputation; DI: destination identification; TFB: tourist feedback behavior; TAB: tourist advocacy behavior.
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MDPI and ACS Style

Zhang, H.; Cheng, Z.; Chen, X. How Destination Social Responsibility Affects Tourist Citizenship Behavior at Cultural Heritage Sites? Mediating Roles of Destination Reputation and Destination Identification. Sustainability 2022, 14, 6772. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116772

AMA Style

Zhang H, Cheng Z, Chen X. How Destination Social Responsibility Affects Tourist Citizenship Behavior at Cultural Heritage Sites? Mediating Roles of Destination Reputation and Destination Identification. Sustainability. 2022; 14(11):6772. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116772

Chicago/Turabian Style

Zhang, Hongsheng, Zhenfeng Cheng, and Xin Chen. 2022. "How Destination Social Responsibility Affects Tourist Citizenship Behavior at Cultural Heritage Sites? Mediating Roles of Destination Reputation and Destination Identification" Sustainability 14, no. 11: 6772. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116772

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