A cognitive appraisal of the City Walk journey development, contemplating metropolis picture, customer engagement, place attachment, and behavioural intention

Conclusion

This examine affords a tutorial exploration of City Walk, an rising city tourism idea in Malaysia, by inspecting elements comparable to metropolis picture, customer engagement, place attachment, and behavioural intention by means of the lens of CAT. The analysis goals to grasp how this novel journey development attracts guests by contemplating each extrinsic and intrinsic value determinations and investigating the connection between these value determinations and their outcomes. By addressing each theoretical and sensible gaps, this examine offers a complete understanding of the roles performed by metropolis picture, customer engagement, and place attachment inside the context of metropolis walks, which exemplify a novel and evolving tourism development. The findings are important for vacation spot administration in Malaysia and will be utilized to different vacationer locations. These insights supply priceless steerage for places navigating the challenges and alternatives offered by rising journey tendencies.

This analysis suggests {that a} metropolis’s picture has a constructive and direct affect on place attachment, customer engagement, and behavioural intention inside the context of City Walk. These findings are according to prior analysis indicating that the notion of a vacation spot performs an important function in influencing behaviours comparable to vacation spot alternative, the need to revisit, satisfaction, and the formulation of promoting methods (Foster and Sidharta, 2019; Lv et al., 2024). The notion of a vacation spot impacts behavioural intention (Ahsanah and Artanti, 2021; Gosal et al., 2020; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2021), place attachment (Shen et al., 2019; Ujang and Muslim, 2015), and customer engagement (Jianfeng et al., 2020; Kheiri, 2023). For instance, earlier research on metropolis picture have proven that the picture of a metropolis considerably influences each place attachment and guests’ behavioural intention in settings like historic zones (Yu et al., 2021) and evening markets (Chiang, 2016). According to Ramkissoon et al. (2024), vacationers’ sensory experiences—encompassing visible, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory stimuli—exert a reasonable affect on fostering emotional bonds with city locations. Elements comparable to environmental cleanliness, city infrastructure, iconic points of interest, and the general city atmosphere play diversified roles in shaping vacationers’ place attachment. Meanwhile, Moliner-Tena et al. (2024) discovered that cognitive vacation spot picture is the primary antecedent of customer engagement, and affective picture additionally exerts a direct impact on customer engagement. Factors related to vacation spot model, together with perceived security, the presence of distinctive artwork galleries, participatory actions, cultural immersion, and aesthetically pleasing city settings, considerably contribute to enhancing customer engagement (Li et al., 2025; Setiawan et al., 2023).

However, some researchers have argued that there isn’t a direct hyperlink between vacation spot picture and behavioural intention. Instead, this connection might solely emerge by means of direct experiences (Rasoolimanesh et al., 2021). Heritage tourism, for example, might restrict guests’ capacity to totally grasp a vacation spot’s essence, which means that their engagement and behavioural intentions are formed extra by means of lived experiences. The distinction in findings might stem from variations in examine targets and analysis places. Walking as a analysis methodology offers an insightful lens into the evolution of metropolis areas (Svensson, 2021), and walkable locations improve the attractiveness and key options which will intensify place attachment (Ujang and Muslim, 2015) and supply alternatives for customer engagement. City picture, as an idea, refers to how the exterior surroundings is perceived and evaluated, which in flip influences intrinsic evaluations of place attachment and customer engagement. A constructive and compelling metropolis picture serves as an exterior driver that shapes guests’ perceptions in a beneficial gentle. A well-crafted metropolis picture can enhance place attachment and information future behaviours. As city environments proceed to form human experiences, understanding how these environments affect behaviour and the way people understand town turns into more and more essential (Paus et al., 2024).

Secondly, each place attachment and customer engagement considerably and positively affect guests’ behavioural intentions, aligning with prior research that spotlight the direct results of those elements on behavioural intention (Mohamed et al., 2022; Tao et al., 2022; Wong et al., 2021). Mohamed et al. (2022) recognized a powerful hyperlink between place attachment and revisit intention, significantly in vacation spot eating places, the place greater ranges of place attachment notably affect decision-making and behavioural intention. Similarly, Lee et al. (2020) emphasised that elevated engagement correlates with a heightened degree of behavioural intention towards the vacation spot. However, some research have reported contrasting outcomes. For occasion, analysis performed in Yogyakarta City discovered that customer engagement didn’t considerably have an effect on revisit intention (Ahsanah and Artanti, 2021). These discrepancies recommend that intrinsic evaluations might result in various outcomes. The distinction might stem from the varied functions of tourism, which provoke totally different cognitive value determinations and, consequently, a variety of outcomes. As such, a nuanced understanding of how intrinsic value determinations relate to guests’ outcomes at a person degree is essential for successfully influencing their behavioural intentions. Cities, as human-created environments, exert appreciable affect on human behaviour (Paus and Kum, 2024). The presence of sturdy place attachment and customer engagement nurtures constructive intrinsic value determinations, which, in flip, favourably affect behavioural intentions. This perception underscores the significance of fostering emotional and cognitive connections with city areas to affect guests’ future behaviours successfully.

Furthermore, this examine reveals that place attachment and customer engagement act as constructive mediators between metropolis picture and behavioural intention. This discovering aligns with earlier analysis, which suggests {that a} beneficial metropolis picture fosters constructive impressions, thereby enhancing people’ attachment to and engagement with town, which in flip influences their behavioural intentions. Cognitive vacation spot picture is the primary antecedent of customer engagement; managers ought to attempt to evoke tourism vacation spot attributes comparable to consciousness and picture (Moliner-Tena et al., 2024), whereas they’ve been discovered to considerably affect engagement and behavioural intentions (Rasul et al., 2024). Rasul et al. (2024) indicated that digital actuality experiences might enhance potential customer engagement and have an effect on intention to go to in pure world heritage websites. The interplay of bodily and constructed environments in city areas underscores the complexity of city areas and their affect on people’ perceptions, extending past purely aesthetic or subjective consolation standards (Paus and Kum, 2024). A constructive relationship between residents’ place picture and place attachment can considerably affect pro-tourism behavioural intentions (Shen et al., 2019). Additionally, the notion of a location performs an important function in shaping the extent of engagement from guests, bridging the hole between a vacation spot’s picture or high quality and vacationer loyalty and behaviours (Putri et al., 2022).

Thus, selling and enhancing guests’ place attachment and customer engagement can strengthen the connection between metropolis picture and behavioural intention. Place attachment and customer engagement function key intrinsic value determinations, reworking the method of extrinsic appraisal into tangible outcomes. City Walk, emphasising particular person views and cognition, combines components of tourism and leisure, providing a multi-dimensional expertise. In gentle of this rising journey development, it’s useful to replace conventional tourism applications and enhance consciousness of on a regular basis leisure actions to develop appropriate vacationer choices. By mixing leisure with tourism, locations can optimally tackle the evolving nature of journey tendencies.

This analysis seeks to reinforce our understanding of the cognitive processes that form a person’s transformation and interplay between metropolis picture, place attachment, customer engagement, and behavioural intention, by means of the lens of CAT. This theoretical framework emphasises the importance of each extrinsic and intrinsic value determinations in shaping perceptions and responses to rising journey tendencies. The metropolis’s picture serves as a basic driver of city tourism, whereas place attachment and customer engagement act as key connectors, bridging the metropolitan surroundings and its guests. By cultivating a constructive city popularity, fostering significant interactions, and nurturing a powerful emotional connection to town, vacationers are prone to type deep attachments to the city surroundings. Such connections not solely improve vacationers’ experiences but in addition contribute to the sustainability of the vacation spot, positioning town to guide and adapt to evolving tourism tendencies sooner or later.

Theoretical contribution

This examine contributes to the sphere of city tourism by introducing new views and specializing in rising journey tendencies that might doubtlessly function new drivers for city tourism growth. To our data, there’s restricted analysis that has totally examined this evolving journey behaviour. By addressing a major hole within the present literature, this examine offers important empirical insights for future educational analysis on shifting vacationer patterns. Through a novel theoretical framework, this examine incorporates metropolis picture, place attachment, customer engagement, and behavioural intention inside the context of CAT, utilising the PLS-SEM mannequin to discover the interplay and interrelationship amongst these influencing elements. This complete understanding of the elements shaping guests’ behavioural intentions on this rising journey development affords priceless theoretical contributions that may information future analysis and concrete tourism growth.

Secondly, this examine expands the applying of CAT to city tourism, particularly specializing in the rising journey development of City Walk. While CAT has been extensively used to elucidate processes and influencing elements in varied educational disciplines, its utility within the context of city tourism, significantly with regard to new journey tendencies, stays restricted. In this examine, metropolis picture is taken into account an extrinsic appraisal of the surroundings, whereas place attachment and customer engagement function intrinsic value determinations of the person. Behavioural intention is examined as the result. The examine successfully investigates the interrelationships between these elements and compares the findings with prior analysis. The outcomes underscore the numerous function of place attachment and customer engagement in city tourism. Future analysis exploring methods to reinforce the depth of place attachment and customer engagement, particularly within the context of rising journey tendencies, can be a promising and impactful space for educational exploration.

Thirdly, earlier research have explored the theoretical dimensions of metropolis walks and their evolving significance in modern city tourism. This physique of information offers a foundational understanding that may profit future analysis by providing a extra complete grasp of the topic. Additionally, the examine underscores the affect of metropolis picture on people’ behavioural intentions, which invitations a rethinking of city design and growth from a cross-disciplinary perspective. This strategy ought to centre on the core experiences of each residents and guests. As cities proceed to function the first human habitat globally, a development that’s anticipated to strengthen within the coming decade (Paus et al., 2024), metropolis constructions will more and more form resident interactions. Public areas—comparable to streets, squares, and parks—play a pivotal function in selling social integration and neighborhood life (Paus and Kum, 2024). Adopting a recent perspective in city tourism research wouldn’t solely contribute to simpler city design and growth but in addition foster a change within the city tourism trade.

Practical contribution

This analysis affords sensible implications and priceless insights for locations trying to appeal to or improve their attraction to guests eager about metropolis strolling excursions. The findings present a stable framework that may foster the expansion of city tourism and contribute to establishing lasting aggressive benefits. By emphasising the numerous affect of metropolis picture, place attachment, and customer engagement on behavioural intentions, the examine underscores that fashionable travellers are more and more looking for distinctive and unbiased experiences in cities which might be already fashionable vacationer locations. These insights can information efforts to enhance high quality requirements, boosting the competitiveness and attractiveness of the vacation spot in gentle of the rising City Walk development. This is especially useful for city tourism managers, practitioners, and policymakers, serving to them to align methods with evolving customer preferences.

Managers and practitioners should prioritise the promotion and preservation of a metropolis’s picture, as a powerful metropolis picture serves as a priceless model. By incorporating cultural, technical, trendy, and sustainable components, cities can affect how guests understand and behave in direction of them. This strategy helps create metropolis photographs that foster a deeper sense of place identification and place dependence, each mentally and bodily. Urban insurance policies, adopted by many cities, more and more prioritise human-centric approaches (Paus and Kum, 2024). For occasion, enhancing metropolis accessibility by means of modern design methods that prioritise walkability and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure can enhance the customer expertise. Furthermore, integrating numerous city actions, comparable to commerce and recreation, is crucial for accommodating and guiding the evolving wants of assorted demographics. By utilising a variety of instruments and applications, cities can successfully meet the calls for of rising tendencies and create a sustainable, dynamic city surroundings.

This analysis offers essential insights for policymakers to trace and information rising journey patterns with efficient methods. Good public insurance policies can play a significant function in enhancing the vacation spot picture, which in flip might affect vacation spot attributes (Rasul et al., 2024; Zhou et al., 2024). The examine not solely clarifies the mechanisms of City Walk and the interactions between metropolis picture, place attachment, customer engagement, and behavioural intention but in addition affords a person perspective. This perspective allows policymakers to raised perceive how the exterior city surroundings influences people’ journey behaviour and intentions. The analysis underscores the significance of a metropolis’s constructive popularity in enhancing city tourism competitiveness. Efforts to advertise and improve town’s picture can considerably affect attracting potential guests and boosting the city tourism sector. Furthermore, the examine highlights the worth of place attachment and customer engagement as important technique of connecting town with its guests. Policy measures that incentivise and facilitate the cultivation of place attachment and customer engagement may very well be extremely efficient methods for advancing city tourism in response to rising journey tendencies.

Limitations and future examine

The examine is topic to sure limitations that time to potential areas for additional investigation. Firstly, using a quantitative analysis strategy, counting on dimensions and gadgets derived from earlier research, might not totally seize the complexity of the difficulty. To improve the robustness of future analysis, a mixed-methods strategy may very well be employed, providing a extra complete and nuanced understanding of the subject. Additionally, whereas prior research have prompt that youthful age teams predominantly take part in City Walk actions, this examine discovered that contributors from a variety of age teams are participating on this rising journey development. As such, future analysis ought to contemplate controlling variables comparable to age, gender, and different demographic elements. Furthermore, within the context of city pedestrian research, a quickly rising journey development, future analysis ought to broaden its scope by incorporating a wider array of theories and fashions. For occasion, the combination of AI fashions, digital applied sciences, metropolis gene evaluation, and panorama info methods might supply a extra holistic understanding of city tourism growth, approached from an interdisciplinary perspective. Moreover, limitations comparable to stakeholder coordination challenges, uneven municipal assist, dangers of economic overdevelopment, and the complexities of technological implementation ought to be rigorously thought-about within the sensible utility of the proposed options.