Perceived Tourism Ritualization:Theoretical Connotation,Scale Development,and Its Impact On Tourists’ Experience

The term "sense of ritual" often appears on the Internet and in the circle of friends."Life needs a sense of ritual" and "the single should also have a sense of ritual" have become popular slogans.The Baidu search index also shows that,since2016,the focus on the sense of ritual has exceeded the focus on the sense of happiness,and the attention has continued to rise.The ritual sense expresses consumers’ unremitting pursuit of beauty and fun.China’s economy has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality development,and consumer demand has shifted to a well-off and enjoyable type.Consumers not only value the results,but also pay more attention to the experience of consumption and the resulting subjective feelings,and pay more attention to the pursuit of "beauty" and "fun." In the context of the current economic development,the sense of ritual fits the above-mentioned needs of consumers and has become more and more valued by marketers.The call for the sense of ritual is particularly prominent in the field of tourism consumption.Tourists have a sense of ritual because they regard tourism as a special ceremony.People give special meaning to travel and seek the sense of ritual of life through travel.There are various rituals in tourism,which involve all aspects of life in the destination.As a well-being industry that meets the people’s needs for a better life,the consumption upgrade of the tourism industry has become unstoppable.Tourists’ pursuit of tourism experience has become more and more personalized,diversified,qualified,and experiential.Tourists are more concerned about “rituals”.The demand for “sense” is becoming stronger.As a unique experiential consumption,tourism is obviously different from the consumption of other physical products.As a unique experiential commodity,tourism and ritual have a good combination.However,there is still a big theoretical gap in the current research on the sense of ritual in tourism: more and more tourists are expressing their demand for the sense of ritual in tourism,and they put forward new requirements for the supply of tourist destinations.The sense of ritual has become an independent dimension in the tourism experience,even separated from the tourism experience,and mentioned separately by tourists and destinations.However,the current research on tourism experience does not separate the sense of tourism rituals from others.Researchers in tourism marketing use the tourism experience to refer to the sense of tourism rituals,and they have not separated it from the tourism experience.Even though a few studies mention the sense of tourism rituals,the sense of consumption rituals is directly applied to the consumption process of tourism products,and insufficient attention has been paid to the uniqueness of tourism.In general,the current theoretical research on the sense of tourism rituals has lagged far behind tourism product development and marketing practices.It is imperative to separate the sense of tourism ritual from the tourism experience and discuss the unique sense of consumption ritual in combination with the particularity of tourism products,that is,to systematically construct a theoretical system of the sense of tourism ritual.In view of this,this article uses a combination of theoretical research and empirical research to systematically study perceived tourism ritualization.The oretical research is mainly used for the construction of the theoretical framew ork.On the basis of literature research(Chapter 2),inductive and deductive d eduction are used to discuss the related issues of perceived tourism ritualizatio n,and the concept of perceived tourism ritualization is derived through theoret ical deduction(Chapter 3).And the research comprehensively use the methods of network text analysis,open interviews、 semi-structured interviews、focus group interviews and use grounded theory as a qualitative research method to carry out three-level coding,and respectively extract the attributes of perceived tourism ritualization and the influencing factors of tourism ritual sense.In all dimensions,a model of perceived tourism ritualizationis constructed(Chapter4).The empirical research part first illustrates the scale development of percei ved tourism ritualization(Chapter 5),and then conducts experiments in two ty pes of scenarios: folk tourism(Chapter 6)and Red tourism(Chapter 7).The r esearch tests the universality of the perceived tourism ritualization scale in the context of folk tourism and constructs a relationship network including: perce ived tourism ritualization,the validity of perceived tourism ritualization scale a nd rules,the effectiveness of influencing factors in stimulating perceived touris m ritualization.It also aims to verify the influence of the perceived tourism ri tualization on tourism experience in Red tourism,exploring whether it suit the young people online.The research of this article has drawn five main conclusions.First,perceived tourism ritualization includes the inner perceived tourism ritualization and the outer one.The inner can strengthen and support the outer,and the outer perceived tourism ritualization can also awaken and represent the inner.The perceived tourism ritualization refers to a psychological state formed by individuals who give personal meaning to tourism or participate in ritual events related to tourism experience and integrate into ritual situations related to tourism experience.This mental state has a double-layered structure inside and outside.The inner one refers to the ritualization generated by tourists giving the travel itself a unique meaning,and the outer one refers to the ritualzizaiton formed by tourists due to ritual events in traveling.The two interact with each other.Second,the pre-influencing factors of perceived tourism ritualization have seven categories: travel characterization,specific formulas,common norms,symbol construction,scene representation,investment level,and participation structure.Based on “operability-expressiveness” and “subject-object”these two-element dimension,the research constructs the theoretical framework of the influencing factors of perceived tourism ritualization,placing the seven types of elements in four quadrants of unequal importance.Third,perceived tourism ritualization has six attribute dimensions,which are anti-structural,non-functional,distinguishable,local,separated,and symbolic,which can be measured by the scale of perceived ritualization in 22 items.Fourth,in folk tourism,the seven types of influencing factors of perceived tourism ritualization can stimulate the formation of ritualization.At the same time,perceived tourism ritualization will also have an impact on tourists’ perception of folk cultural values,local attachments,and behavior intentions for the protection of folk culture.The four combination forms a rule network.Fifth,in Red tourism,perceived tourism ritualization affects the online engagement level of young people.Adolescents’ perceived ritualization of Red tourism has a significant positive impact on their psychological state of identity integration and unforgettable tourism experience.Identity integration and unforgettable tourism experience have a significant and positive impact on fitting red cultural content and destination content.The value of this article lies in: First,it proposes a more comprehensive,accurate and coherent definition of perceived tourism ritualization,which makes up for the shortcomings of the omission,vagueness and limitation of the past,furthermore,change the research perspective and establish the tourism ritual sense.The conceptual system provides an important facilitating role.Earlier studies generally used the concept “ritual” and “perceived tourism ritualization”,while a ritual context that focused on subjective feelings was insufficiently explored.This study speculates on the theories of related ritual and ritual research,and reconceptualizes perceived tourism ritualization which divides it into an inner perceived tourism ritualization and an outer perceived tourism ritualization.This way not only temporarily unifies the differences in the concept,but also makes an wider interpretation.It also illustrates the whole picture ofperceived tourism ritualization more accurately,expanding and enriching the theoretical system of perceived tourism ritualization.Second,the scale of perceived tourism ritualization provides new measurement perspectives and tools for tourism experience,laying a foundation for further in-depth research on the use of ritual sense variables in the tourism field,and providing theoretical references and technical guarantees.This article follows the strict theoretical establishment process and scale development steps,and scale obtained is more effective and reliable,which can provide more reference and basis for the quantitative research of the result variables of this field in the future.Third,this research also explores the antecedents and after effects of perceived tourism ritualization,and establishes a complete antecedent introduction-after-effect output system of perceived tourism ritualization under different tourism backgrounds,taking into account the perspectives of tourists and tourism marketing,and promote the interaction and complementarity between the basic theory of perceived tourism ritualization and the research of tourism marketing practice.Through the establishment of a complete introduction-after-effect output system,and verification under different tourism backgrounds,a complete perceived tourism ritualization chain has been formed,making the “theoretical basis-measurement—tool-practical—application” system initially established,which lays the foundation for the in-depth study,better promoting the transformation of theoretical research results of perceived tourism ritualization into practical results.Through this research,first of all,it can guide destination managers and tourism suppliers to adapt to the new marketing environment,understanding the experience of tourists better,meeting the needs of tourists,promoting the improvement of marketing effects and operating performance,and the high-quality development of the tourism industry.The establishment of system,on the one hand,helps destination managers and tourism suppliers to understand the status quo of the industry,that is,the unstoppable trend of tourism products ritualization,prompts them to complete the transformation of marketing concepts and methods: the destination urgently needs to know the ritual experience of tourists to meet their needs.On the other hand,this research aims to help them recognize the deep-seated mechanism behind the phenomenon,and then establish a destination marketing strategy under the new situation,and take appropriate measures to stimulate tourists’ sense of travel rituals,thus enhance tourist satisfaction,loyalty,and destination operating performance,etc.,shifting tourism products to high-level,experimental and mental-beneficial,which can achieve high-quality development of the tourism industry.Secondly,it provides analysis tools for the marketing,planning and product development of tourist destinations to help managers and suppliers shape perceived tourism ritualization in a targeted manner.The scale of perceived ritualization in this article can provide managers and suppliers with a tool to accurately evaluate tourists’ ritualization experience.Based on the measurement results,managers and suppliers can refer to the influencing factors of tourism rituals to analyze the specific deficiencies of destinations in creating rituals.According to the theoretical framework of influencing factors of ritualization in this article,it can clarify the importance and sequence of each element for developing destination ritualization to help shape strategies and marketing promotion of tourist destinations,providing effective theoretical guidance for tourism suppliers and destination managers to meet the higher-level spiritual needs of tourists.