Co-Creating Tourism Experiences Through Digital Storytelling for Local Cultural Heritage Promotion

This study conceptualizes and empirically validates a structural framework examining how tourism experience co-creation via Digital Storytelling (DST) enhances perceived experiential value, community engagement, and tourists' intentions to preserve local cultural heritage. Grounded in Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) and narrative transportation theory, a convergent mixed-methods research design was deployed. The quantitative phase surveyed 420 domestic and international cultural tourists visiting community-based heritage destinations who interacted with narrative-driven digital platforms. The structural model was estimated using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), supported by qualitative thematic analysis of 15 semi-structured interviews with local heritage custodians, artisans, and destination managers. The empirical findings reveal that DST-mediated co-creation exerts a strong, positive direct effect on tourists' perceived experiential value (β=0.482,p<0.001) and community engagement (β=0.214,p<0.001). Perceived value directly enhances preservation intentions (β=0.284,p<0.001) and acts as an antecedent to community engagement (β=0.456,p<0.001). Furthermore, community engagement significantly drives local heritage preservation intentions (β=0.468,p<0.001). Mediation analysis confirms that perceived value and community engagement function as complementary serial mediators between DST co-creation and cultural heritage preservation intentions (β=0.103,p<0.001). In total, the structural model accounts for 58.4% of the variance in preservation intentions (R^(2)=0.584). Qualitative evidence corroborates that authentic digital narratives shift tourists from detached spectators to responsible heritage stewards. These findings provide strategic implications for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) seeking to balance technological innovation with sustainable cultural stewardship.