Staging the Genuine: How Dramaturgical Authenticity Drives Immersion, Transformation, Loyalty, and Advocacy in Living Heritage Tourism

This study explores how the perceived authenticity of staged cultural performances, or dramaturgical authenticity, stimulates destination loyalty and advocacy following an ordered sequence of experiences. Drawing on Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective, we investigate whether tourist immersion and transformative experiences serve as serial mediators linking perceptions of authenticity to post-visit behavioral intentions in cultural heritage contexts. We implemented a two-wave, time-lagged field design at Zhaoxing Dong Village (China), a living cultural heritage site. Immediately after evening cultural activities, Wave 1 (N = 402) measured dramaturgical authenticity. Two to three weeks later, Wave 2 assessed immersion, transformative experience, emotional destination loyalty, and advocacy intentions, yielding a matched panel of 346 respondents (86% retention). Hypotheses were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), with bias-corrected bootstrapping used to test direct effects, simple mediation, and serial mediation pathways. Findings support the proposed process model. Dramaturgical authenticity positively predicted immersion, and immersion, in turn, was associated with a transformative experience. Most prespecified direct paths were statistically supported under the bootstrapped confidence-interval criterion; the direct effect of tourist immersion on advocacy intentions was positive but unsupported at the 95% confidence level. The single-step and serial indirect effects were also supported, with the exception of the indirect effect of dramaturgical authenticity on advocacy intentions via tourist immersion, which was likewise positive but unsupported at the 95% confidence level. The immersion → transformation sequence emerged as the primary mechanism linking authenticity to downstream loyalty and advocacy, and the model accounted for substantial variance in both outcomes, indicating strong predictive performance. Theoretically, the study advances authenticity research by conceptualizing dramaturgical authenticity as a performative, co-constructed construct rather than a fixed staged-versus-real dichotomy, and by demonstrating empirically that immersion and transformation unfold sequentially rather than in parallel within the experiential trajectory. The time-lagged design and serial mediation tests offer a more nuanced view of experiential evolution than cross-sectional designs can, methodologically speaking. In managerial terms, the findings suggest that designing for immersion (through sensory richness, narrative structure, and participatory elements) creates the most conducive conditions for transformation, which in turn generates enduring emotional loyalty and word-of-mouth advocacy for heritage sites. Future research may explore boundary conditions, including performance genre, visitor expertise, and cultural distance, across non-Western destinations.