다크투어리즘 스토리텔링이 몰입경험과 재방문의도에 미치는 영향

Abstract

Dark tourism, as the action of travel to sites associated with death, disaster, suffering, violence and terror, can provide tourists with a variety of dark tourism experiences. Storytelling plays a momentous role in tourism that is constantly used to deliver, explain and appraise tourism experiences. Flow experience in tourism is an important indicator to measure the quality of tourists’ experiences, which represents the optimal experience for tourists. This means that the flow experience generated through storytelling in dark tourism can provide the best dark experience for tourists and influence the behavioral changes of tourists. In the context of dark tourism, this study aims to examine the structural relationships among storytelling, flow experience and revisit intention. Data was collected by questionnaire in this study. The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, China was selected as the study site and Chinese tourists who visited here were selected as the survey objects. 254 valid questionnaires were empirically analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 23.0 in this study. Firstly, descriptive analysis was employed to explain the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Secondly, for purpose of verifying the reliability and validity of the measurement scales, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed. Thirdly, relationships among variables were confirmed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). This study presented the fundamental conceptual framework for dark tourism storytelling, consisting of four crucial attributes: emotionality, uniqueness, descriptiveness, and educability. Based on these four attributes, this study further confirmed the significant positive impact of dark tourism storytelling on flow experience and the significant positive impact of flow experience on revisit intention. The findings of this study will significantly contribute to the advancement of theoretical research on dark tourism and storytelling. It also provided a significant practical reference on how to shape positive dark tourism experiences and promoted tourists’ revisit intentions in dark tourism destinations.