How Visitors Perceive Heritage Value—A Quantitative Study on Visitors’ Perceived Value and Satisfaction of Architectural Heritage through SEM
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article submitted for review addresses the important topic of perceiving architectural heritage as a tourist attraction. This topic is relevant for cultural heritage management and for tour operators at the destination. My recommendations for improving the article concern several issues.
1. In the introduction, the research site should be described, the author uses the official name Guangzhou, but it should be added that in many languages, including English, the name Canton is used. It is advisable to add a map locating the research site and describe the profile of tourists, e.g. in 2019, i.e. before the covid-19 pandemic (number of visitors, including tourists, foreign tourists).
2. The surveyed population is dominated by young people up to 24 years of age (57%), mainly residents of Guangzhou and its county (79%), no foreign tourists. Such a profile of respondents probably does not correspond to the profile of visitors to Guangzhou. Therefore, it is important to include information about visitors to Guangzhou.
3. In connection with such a sample of respondents, a section Limitations of research and directions of research in the future should be added. The results achieved apply only to young people from Guangzhou and the surrounding area. Part of the information about restrictions contained in the Conclusion section should be moved to the Limitation section.
4. The Conclusion section should contain the most important research results and their significance for the theory and practice of cultural heritage management.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your suggestions for the revision! Please find the attached response file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The research on heritage tourism is expanding more or less in direct proportion to the visitor participating in this type of tourism and its economic and preservation contributions to society. This research makes new and important contributions to this field of study. The findings dispute some long-held assumptions about heritage tourism, especially the value to the visitor of the scientific value of the heritage resources.
One key finding is that visitors respond to heritage resources in terms of a variable (if this is such) of over all feelings about the place and its components. Artistic value and cultural value are more important than science and history values. The latter are most commonly the reason for the heritage nominations of such places throughout the wold.
Important manuscript that should be published. It should have some maps and images to situate the reader.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thanks for your approval and suggestions for improvement.
A map indicating the location of the research site Guangzhou and a profile of the tourists have been included in section “3.4 Data collection”.
Reviewer 3 Report
Please see attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Very minor proof reading required, English quality is fine.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the suggestions for improvement.
Please check the response file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper deals with a very interesting topic concerning the perceived value of cultural property. The analysis, performed using SEM methodology, highlights a number of interesting insights into the behavior of tourists and their opinions regarding sites of interest. The topic is highly debated to date, thanks to the growing interest in the tourism sector and the provision of increasingly customized services.
I suggest minor changes to enrich it:
1) modify the introduction: it is necessary to make the reading of this section more appealing, including providing a managerial slant to pique interest. Better emphasize why this kind of analysis is essential and what is the new element compared to similar papers.
2) Include a few more references in the methodology section: why was SEM analysis chosen? Has it been applied in the past in similar contexts? What features does it have?
A few references for similar cases of SEM application in varied contexts could be, but are not limited to:
- Chin-Hsi Lin, Yining Zhang, Binbin Zheng,The roles of learning strategies and motivation in online language learning: A structural equation modeling analysis, Computers & Education, Volume 113, 2017, Pages 75-85, ISSN 0360-1315, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.05.014.
- Xu Liu, Jing Zheng, Ke Liu, Judith Gedney Baggs, Jiali Liu, Yan Wu, Liming You, Hospital nursing organizational factors, nursing care left undone, and nurse burnout as predictors of patient safety: A structural equation modeling analysis, International Journal of Nursing Studies, Volume 86, 2018, Pages 82-89, ISSN 0020-7489, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.05.005.
- (2009) 12 Structural Equation Modeling in Management Research: A Guide for Improved Analysis, The Academy of Management Annals, 3:1, 543-604, DOI: 10.1080/19416520903065683
- A structural equation model for analysing the determinants of crowdshipping adoption in the last-mile delivery within university cities. Giglio, C. and De Maio, A.. International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences 2022 15:2, 117-142
Careful re-reading of the work is recommended to streamline some sentences and correct typos.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the suggestions for improvement.
Please check the response file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
A very nice piece of work. I enjoyed reading it.
