The magic of audio-visual integration in simulated crowding images of culture-oriented tourism destinations: an eye-tracking analysis on tourists’ visual attention and behavioural intentions

Despite tourists' multi-sensory experience has received increasing attention, research on the collective effects of auditory stimuli and visual attention in cultural-oriented tourism destination remains scant. This study explores how environmental stimuli and tourists' visual attention affect tourists' willingness to stay under high-crowding and low-crowding scenarios in cultural-oriented destinations. Employing eye-tracking experiments and self-report survey methods, this study demonstrates that light sound has positive effects on tourists' willingness to stay. Furthermore, the effects of light music and human-noise on behavioural intention in indoor scenarios are mediated by visual attention. This study makes several significant contributions. First, it deepens the understanding of multi-sensory tourism experiences within culture-oriented tourism contexts by examining how tourists respond to crowding scenarios through both visual and auditory stimuli, an aspect often overlooked in visitor use management studies. Second, it extends the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model by integrating the combined effects of visual and auditory cues, offering a more comprehensive perspective on tourists' sensory experiences. Third, it provides practical implications for mitigating perceived crowding by integrating audio stimuli to culture-oriented destination pictures. These findings provide valuable insights for visitor use management framework in cultural tourism destinations, particularly from the perspective of multi-sensory experiences.