A MODELLING STUDY ON VISITOR USAGE INTENTIONS WITH AR TOUR-GUIDE APPS FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

Abstract

Employing the stimulus-organism-response model, this study investigated the development of users' behavioral intentions to visit cultural heritage sites when utilizing an AR tour-guide app. A structure model is introduced in this study to demonstrate the relationships between three attributes of Augmented Reality (AR) – interactivity, vividness, and novelty (stimulus) – and their impact on the experience of flow, subsequently influencing the intention to use an AR tour-guide app for visiting a cultural heritage site. To assess the model, a survey was conducted on young visitors in their 20s and 30s familiar with AR technology. The findings reveal that among the AR attributes, novelty had the highest impact on flow, followed by vividness, while interactivity showed no significance. Flow positively influenced all four experiences—education, entertainment, aesthetics, and escapism. Only the experiences of entertainment and education positively affected the intention to use AR-based cultural heritage sites. Consumer cultural innovativeness played a moderating role in the proposed structure model for visiting AR-based tourist sites. These insights provide valuable information for the development of AR apps in culturally rich tourist destinations and guide destination marketers to promote AR in tourism.