Love me,love my field? The bidirectional affective flow of tourists in intangible cultural heritage festivals involving popular culture

Abstract

Integrating popular culture into intangible cultural heritage festivals (ICHFs) has become a vital marketing strategy and a reinvigoration practice. Based on affect transfer theory, this study examines tourists’ bidirectional affective flow: how the halo effect of popular culture spreads love to festivals and host venues, and whether festivals’ situational cognition shapes love for popular culture. We examined three ICHFs (Qinhuai Lantern Fair, Luoyang Peony Flower Fair, and Fire God Palace Temple Fair) that involve popular culture (N = 569), with participants segmented by length of stay and age. We found that enduring pop culture involvement promotes place attachment through situational involvement, and that the two forms of involvement are bidirectionally related. Additionally, longer stays, especially overnight, are associated with place attachment being more strongly driven by situational pop culture involvement. Tourists over 25 are not affected by enduring pop culture involvement; instead, place attachment is more strongly driven by situational involvement as age increases. These findings provide a novel theoretical framework for understanding tourists’ affective flow in hybrid cultural settings and offer crucial managerial insights for targeted marketing and for sustaining the vitality of ICHFs.