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.

Few prior studies have investigated place image from the residents’ perspective, how this and residents’ place attachment influence attitude to tourism, and consequent reactions. Accordingly, this study aims to develop a model for local residents’ pro-tourism behavioral intention and to discover the relationships between constructs. Analysis was based on a sample of 370 residents in Huangshan City, China. Results indicate that residents’ attitude to tourism positively affects their pro-tourism behavioral intention. Residents’ place image is found to positively relate to place attachment and attitude to tourism, while place attachment is also related to attitude and pro-tourism behavioral intention. In addition, attitude to tourism mediates place image’s and place attachment’s respective relationships with pro-tourism behavioral intention. Lastly, place image indirectly impacts residents’ attitude to tourism and pro-tourism behavioral intention through place attachment. However, the positive relationship between place image and pro-tourism behavioral intention is not supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Cultural heritage is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth left by a nation in the past. Because of its precious and fragile characteristics, cultural heritage protection and tourism development have received extensive global academic attention. However, application visualization software is still underused, and studies are needed that provide a comprehensive overview of cultural heritage tourism and prospects for future research. Therefore, this research employs the bibliometric method with CiteSpace 5.8. R2 software to visualize and analyze 805 literature items retrieved from the SSCI database between 2002 and 2022. Results show, first, scholars from China, Spain, Italy have published the most articles, and Italian scholars have had the most influence. Second, Hong Kong Polytech University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinan University have had significant influence on cultural heritage tourism research. Third, Annals of Tourism Research is the most cited journal in the field. Influenced by politics, culture, and technology, sustainable development and consumer behavior have become key topics in this field over the past 21 years. Fourth, tourist satisfaction, rural development, cultural heritage management are the key research frontiers. Fifth, in future, cultural heritage tourism should pay more attention to micro-level research, using quantitative methods to integrate museums, technology, and cultural heritage into consumer research. The results offer a deeper understanding of the development and evolution of the global cultural heritage tourism field from 2002 to 2022. At the same time, our findings have provided a new perspective and direction for future research on global cultural heritage tourism among scholars.

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.