From Guide to Co-traveler: An Attachment Perspective on Memorable Tourism Experiences of Visually Impaired Travelers With Guide Dog

Guide dogs, as working animals assisting individuals with visual impairments, significantly enhance their travel experiences. However, the dimensions and influencing factors of memorable travel experiences when traveling with guide dogs remain underexplored. This study, grounded in attachment theory, analyzed 200 videos of interactions between individuals with visual impairments and guide dogs, 20 semi-structured interviews, and 124 survey questionnaires (including 56 pre-survey and 68 formal survey responses). The findings reveal that memorable travel experiences for guide dog users are composed of three-party social experiences, emotional experiences with the guide dog, environmental perception experiences, and therapeutic experiences. Influencing factors include human-dog compensatory factors, destination contextual factors, and cognitive factors. Using fsQCA, two effective conditional configurations were identified, confirming that no single factor alone can lead to memorable travel experiences. The study provides practical insights for improving travel environments for guide dog users, including public education on guide dogs, enhancing destination inclusivity.