In recent years, studies on intangible cultural heritage (ICH) have substantially increased as the subject has received extensive attention from scholars. This study collected all the papers (249) on ICH from the Web of Science (WoS) core database. CiteSpace analysis software was used for the bibliometric analysis of all papers, and the results of the analysis of literature clustering, scientific research collaboration, co-citations, and so on were visually displayed. The results show that there is not substantial collaboration among researchers, research institutions, or countries that conduct research on ICH. The relationship between high-yield and high-citation authorship is inconsistent and weak. High-yield countries are mainly concentrated in a small group that includes China, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The research has mainly focused on heritage protection, heritage space, heritage management, heritage policy, and the internationalization of heritage. In recent years, the focus of research has been on creative heritage tourism, community participation in heritage protection and development, and the authenticity of heritage.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is an important part of human civilization and a major tourism resource type. In the ICH tourism development process, many stakeholders are involved. Although inheritors have a core position in this group, there is not enough research investigating the sustainable development of ICH tourism from the perspective of inheritors. Since value cognition is the basis that guides people’s behaviors, the value cognition of the ICH inheritors might be the starting point to understanding their behaviors. Considering this context, the main aim of this research is to describe the development and validation of a scale to assess the cognition values by ICH inheritors. By generating items, purifying, examining the scale’s dimensionality, and evaluating reliability and validity, a 25-item instrument is developed. The article concludes with a discussion of potential applications of the scale.

Bonds between people and place are an important predictor of a tourist’s environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB). From a holistic perspective, the connection between people and place can be divided into bonds formed before the visit and those formed after the visit. However, insufficient research has been carried out on the bond formed between visitors and destination before the visit. This relationship between before visit and after visit people-place bonds, as well as how this relationship impacts visitor experience and environmentally responsible behaviour brings new understanding to the tourist experience. The origin site of the famous Chinese geographical indication (GI) product, Hangzhou Xihu Longjing Tea, is a place where such a people-place bond is formed before the visit and site involvement. Based on a sample of 371 questionnaires, it is verified that the people-place bond formed before the visit is worthy of attention. As when tourists form a strong connection between people and place through GI products before visiting the destination, they have better experience, stronger attachment to the place, and easier implementation of environmental protection behaviours. It also suggests that managers should make good use of GI resources to promote sustainable tourism and extend the scope of destination management to the stage before tourists visit.

This study introduces subjective vitality into intangible culture heritage (ICH) tourism, and proposes a theoretical model involving subjective vitality, authenticity experience, experience quality, perceived value and tourist behavior intention. An empirical research on visitors to Quanzhou puppet troupe theatre has been carried out. The significant impact of subjective vitality on the authenticity experience has been confirmed. It also shows that the authenticity experience plays a partial mediating effect between subjective vitality and experience quality, and experience quality plays a full mediating effect between authenticity experience and perceived value, while perceived value has no mediating effect between experience quality and behavior.

Emotion is an important motivation and experience for tourists, and awe is one of the most anticipated emotional experiences in the travel sector. Previous studies of awe have focused on the natural environment and cultural landscapes, but little research has been conducted on awe in relation to intangible cultural heritage. The current study constructs a research framework that explores the relationship between involvement, experience quality, and loyalty. We adopted a self-administered questionnaire to survey visitors who engaged with the beliefs and customs associated with the sea goddess Mazu on Meizhou Island, China. A total of 450 questionnaires were distributed, and 393 valid questionnaires were returned. Through analysis of the response data, we established that awe is an outcome variable of involvement and experience quality, as well as an antecedent variable of loyalty. Moreover, our findings verify the mediating role of awe between involvement and loyalty, and between experience quality and loyalty. In addition, through a multigroup analysis of male and female tourists, we found a significant difference in the influence of awe on loyalty between the genders. This study is the first to examine awe in relation to intangible cultural heritage, and its findings have valuable practical implications.