Authenticity and Locality in Heritage Tourism Planning: A Comparative Multi-Stakeholder Study across Rural, Urban, and Natural Heritage Sites

Authenticity and Locality in Heritage Tourism Planning: A Comparative Multi-Stakeholder Study across Rural, Urban, and Natural Heritage Sites | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Authenticity and Locality in Heritage Tourism Planning: A Comparative Multi-Stakeholder Study across Rural, Urban, and Natural Heritage Sites Jiajun Xu, Ziqi Wang, Jun Wang, Xianyao Ding, Sirui Zhang This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9122510/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 11 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Authenticity and locality are central evaluative objects in heritage tourism planning, yet current practice often assumes that they can be adequately represented by expert indicators such as integrity, coherence, order, and manageability. This study reconceptualizes authenticity and locality as judgments formed through multiple sources of evidence and examines how planners/managers, residents/community operators, and visitors construct such judgments across three types of heritage tourism settings in China. It further asks what kinds of evidence underlie these judgments and whether a hybrid model incorporating experience-oriented evidence explains public acceptance of and support for planning schemes more effectively than a model relying on expert indicators alone. The study combines semi-structured interviews, questionnaire analysis, multi-group comparison, and structural equation modeling. The results show that authenticity and locality are shaped more strongly by experience-oriented evidence, including continuity of everyday life, local atmosphere, cultural perceptibility, and participatory engagement, than by expert-oriented evidence alone. Perceived authenticity/locality further exerts significant effects on planning legitimacy/acceptance and support intention and functions as a key mediator between evidential structure and downstream responses. The mechanism is also role-sensitive and heritage-type-sensitive. The findings suggest that an evaluation framework dominated by expert indicators alone is epistemically insufficient and that heritage tourism planning requires a dual-channel framework in which expert-oriented and experience-oriented evidence are both taken seriously. Humanities/Cultural and media studies Social science/Cultural and media studies Social science/Development studies Social science/Environmental studies Scientific community and society/Geography Social science/Geography Social science/Social policy Social science/Sociology Authenticity Locality Heritage tourism Heritage planning Multi-stakeholder evaluation Experience-oriented evidence Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Supplementarymaterial.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviews received at journal 17 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 12 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 25 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 22 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 14 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 09 Apr, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 08 Apr, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 31 Mar, 2026 Editor invited by journal 27 Mar, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 26 Mar, 2026 First submitted to journal 26 Mar, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9122510","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":623223607,"identity":"c1b0a1fe-74fe-47eb-9d96-215959c1c206","order_by":0,"name":"Jiajun Xu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Jilin International Studies University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jiajun","middleName":"","lastName":"Xu","suffix":""},{"id":623223608,"identity":"481a9c1c-b2c5-46e5-89f9-dc39c411311e","order_by":1,"name":"Ziqi 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