Managing tourist motivations, attribute valuation and satisfaction in world heritage cities Open Access

Cultural tourism represents an important segment of the global tourism industry. This type of tourism is characterized by the interest of travelers in the knowledge, use and preservation of cultural and historical heritage. It has special relevance in sites that have been declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. These sites, which are recognized for their extraordinary universal value, constitute an unrepeatable human heritage, as well as a cultural heritage for local communities, as there is a link between the territory and its cultural heritage with respect to the creation of tourism initiatives (Camagni et al., 2020). Timothy (2018) offers a clear definition of this: “Heritage tourism is based on the use of historical resources and forms the backbone of the tourism economies of many destinations.”

This research analyzes tourist motivations and their evaluation of the main tourist attributes of the city of Naples (Italy), which has been declared a World Heritage City by UNESCO; its historic center has been included among the protected elements of the Cultural Heritage list since 1995. It also has been honored by a declaration of Intangible World Heritage of Humanity for the art of pizza making, since 2017. These designations imply the site’s important attraction for tourists (Adie, 2017). Although the literature on heritage tourism is flourishing, studies with a focus on cities recognized by UNESCO require further development, and Naples is one such example. This study might contribute to further stimulate the interest on studies in this area. The city of Naples also belongs to a limited group of cities with more than one reason for being under the patronage of UNESCO; this group includes Córdoba (Spain) and Beijing (China) among others. Naples is a city of great antiquity with a historical trajectory that has seen it exposed to a wide range of cultural influences, all of which have left their mark on the city’s urban fabric and architecture. This is one of the main reasons for its inclusion within the group of World Heritage cities, as well as for its importance as a tourist attraction.

This research adds depth to the existing academic literature on tourist experiences in a city with World Heritage status. Its main objective is examining the motivations of visitors for selecting Naples as a destination, tourists’ assessment of the main attributes of the city (i.e. their cognitive image of the city), and how both aspects influence the final satisfaction of tourists with their visit to the city and their predisposition to visit again. A questionnaire was therefore designed for a representative sample of visitors to the city of Naples, referring to their motivations, their perception of the historical heritage sites visited, their level of satisfaction with the visit and their level of loyalty to the destination. The remainder of this paper starts with a literature review focused on the key drivers in the tourist experience (i.e. identity, authenticity and motivations), then on additional drivers that can shape this experience, and finally on the solutions both scholars and practitioners have offered to date. The methodology is then presented, which is followed by the insights from our analysis of what tourists claimed through their answers. Implications for tourism scholars and for managers, both at the country level and firm level, are then presented, showing how multiple elements of tourism experience should be considered as a whole in driving insightful value offerings. The subject addressed here has been studied in other tourist cities with significant cultural, historical and heritage attractions, but it has not been addressed in the city of Naples, which is the main novelty of and gap filled by this research.

This research is situated in the field of cultural heritage and focuses on tourists’ assessment and lived experience of places with cultural heritage. Throughout history, visiting cultural heritage sites has always been a challenge, as public decision makers and curators have struggled to balance the tension between heritage use and conservation (Sadowski, 2017). The implementation of tourism-based activities at cultural heritage sites may jeopardize the conservation of key features due to the impact of human activities. Studies have therefore flourished that seek to shape culture-based value propositions also referred to as value offerings that boost heritage value without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to experience it (Lee et al., 2019). Much attention has been paid to what makes value propositions more suitable and attractive for tourists in tourism management studies, but it remains quite fragmented. Destination managers, as well as hospitality managers and policymakers, can therefore only partially address the need of tourists. A wider view on how multiple elements of the experience affect tourists from the offering to the experience itself could favor higher levels of awareness on how to set value propositions at the firm level and policies at the country level. Indeed, this approach might lead to a more enjoyable tourist experience, as well as to advantages for both private companies and public institutions in search of market legitimacy (Zhu et al., 2024) and competitiveness (Arici and Köseoglu, 2025), even in light of the rise of new competitors in the tourism market. When investigating the behavior of tourists from the stage of destination selection to the experience itself, as well as its memorability – several drivers have been identified. Over time, most scholars have highlighted authenticity, identity and motivations related to heritage tourism (Waller and Lea, 1999; Bond and Falk, 2013; Steriopoulos et al., 2024) as the key drivers affecting tourists.

The lengthy academic debate about the drivers of value offerings in tourism has led to consider several contributions that support the emergence of solutions attempting to combine use and conservation (e.g. Koboldt, 1997). Recently, new digital solutions have offered novel opportunities to achieve both goals by taking advantage of the possibility of placing the tourist experience in virtual contexts (Hutson, 2024), while also stressing the need to facilitate both an awareness of the heritage – and its meanings – and the value of the visit itself (Roodposhti and Esmaeelbeigi, 2024). New ways of experiencing cultural heritage may involve risks of different kinds (notably in terms of authenticity), because the modification of characteristics such as the context of the experience, the limitations of human interaction and the mediating effects of new technologies may transform the visit into something removed from reality for multiple reasons, including the lack of proper skills in frontline employees (Singh and Singh, 2025).

Because of these risks, scholars have highlighted studies on authenticity as a key component of value propositions in cultural heritage. Indeed, even before the introduction of new digital solutions, authenticity was emphasized as a quality attributed to an artifact or place with both social and cultural value in a given setting (Saidi, 2013). In the same vein, scholars have recently stressed the role of authenticity even in relation to artifacts and in contrast with comfortable experience (He and Timothy, 2024), while other studies (e.g. Shrestha et al., 2025) have expanded the debate and offered insights into how social representation can affect authenticity. The roots of the debate on authenticity in cultural heritage are long and well-established; in fact, studies considering authenticity as the result of a visitor’s feelings during the experience and as a result of knowledge are ongoing. These views are not mutually exclusive; they can be combined with each other and also have a common influence on the resulting subjective experience (Selwyn, 1996). Although most scholars acknowledge this view, the debate has offered different opinions on the impact of authenticity on visitors; indeed, some scholars have emphasized the importance of authenticity as a real experience in a place, at a time and immersed in a culture (Kolar and Zabkar, 2010; Zhang et al., 2024), while others consider authenticity to be the result of knowledge itself, thus relying mainly on a visitor’s personal feelings, emotions and cognitive sphere (Tiberghien et al., 2017). From a management perspective, authenticity plays a key role in the design of the tourism experience. Indeed, Fu (2019) observed the interplay between authenticity and loyalty, thus highlighting the practical aspect of infusing authenticity and preserving it in the cultural heritage experience. This work benefited from previous studies on loyalty as articulated in cognitive, affective and conative spheres, thus highlighting the role played by tourists’ evaluation of an experience, their positive affect towards a destination brand and the behavior derived from the experience in terms of intention to revisit that place, respectively.

Contexts have also stimulated another crucial element in the debate among cultural heritage scholars – namely identity, understood as the social construction that arises from and emerges in a context (Palmer, 2005) due to the multiple interactions between actors centered on the tourism experience. Heritage is not limited to the physical artifacts experienced by tourists – as well as local residents – but is also a social practice that uses the past as a mechanism for creating meaning in the present (Smith, 2009). These considerations sparked have new debates and also addressed an additional challenge for cultural heritage managers – namely, how to preserve identity. The effect of identity on the tourism experience has been researched and used to describe different forms of tourism; indeed, specific forms of tourism, such as war tourism (Gieling and Ong, 2016), promote the experience of a part of cultural heritage by stimulating a way to discover one’s identity in an identity context. As in the case of authenticity, personal knowledge and feelings can foster the emergence of an identity, although some scholars consider that some feelings and knowledge are too complicated to be understood in contemporary contexts (Dunkley et al., 2011).

Memory tourism is another example of this type of experience, as it shows the configuration of a tourism experience rooted in the memory of a community, although it may put the identity itself at risk, as the meanings become something to be sold for economic reasons rather than simply communicated (Marschall, 2012). The focus on time as an element that harbors experience, either stimulating or compromising authenticity and identity, has pushed scholars to frame heritage tourism as a representation of the past in the present, where tourists shape their personal heritage (Poria and Ashworth, 2009), while businesses operating in the field create and market tourism experiences in time and place through commodification (Ioannides and Debbage, 1997).

For its part, the study of tourist behavior and the process of choosing a destination have benefited greatly from a theme deeply rooted in tourism studies, including research on cultural heritage tourism – namely, motivations (Zhou et al., 2025). Motivations encompass many, diverse elements that influence how tourists decide to travel and how they decide to experience a particular place. Some of these motivations have been highlighted by Gous and Roberts (2010), who underline the role of breaking with routine, seeking learning objectives, experiencing history and seeking self-satisfaction, to name only the most common. In cultural heritage tourism, this vision had already offered the configuration of tourism as focused on what we inherit from the past, in terms of both historical and natural sites and artifacts (Yale, 1991). However, the most comprehensive way to discuss motivation in tourism is to categorize factors as push and pull (Dann, 1977; Crompton, 1979). Several scholars have relied on these factors to analyze how tourists choose a destination and engage in certain activities when they are there, because there are destination elements that inspire visitors. These elements can channel the choice of a certain destination from within – as with desires – or from outside a visitor. Push and pull factors have recently been combined with heritage and the novelty created by destination managers in shaping tourism value propositions (Dandotiya et al., 2024), including a relevant tie with both motivation and loyalty. This suggests that attention to push and pull factors is of more than historical interest in tourism studies.

To sum up, while previous studies have contributed to the evolution of the debate on tourism and cultural heritage by examining aspects such as authenticity, identity, digital mediation and destination image, important gaps in studies on the topic persist. First, much of the literature continues to address these dimensions separately. For example, research on digital technologies (e.g. augmented and virtual reality) emphasizes the potential of these tools to enhance learning and involvement, enhancing the overall experience (Roodposhti and Esmaeelbeigi, 2024; Zhang et al., 2024), while studies on authenticity focus on the impact of perceived authenticity on the tourist experience (He and Timothy, 2024) or on the ties among authenticity, involvement and experience (Zhao et al., 2024). While these studies offer interesting and useful insights for identifying further lines of research, they rarely integrate these concepts by placing them within a single framework. Furthermore, although recent research has explored the effects of motivation on tourist experience and behavior (Zhou et al., 2025), it has not thoroughly examined how these relationships develop within UNESCO World Heritage sites or how satisfaction translates into broader market outcomes, such as destination positioning or online reputation.

Another gap concerns the debate on authenticity in technology-mediated experiences. Although technologies such as virtual reality – used to shape cultural contexts and the related service experience – are often considered tools for enhancing the tourist experience, existing studies rarely address how such mediation compromises authenticity and affects satisfaction and loyalty (Roodposhti and Esmaeelbeigi, 2024; Zhang et al., 2024). Parallel to this, motivation is often combined with loyalty (e.g. Dandotiya et al., 2024), while a wider view embedding other key factors would be helpful to gain more meaning from tourists’ behavior. Finally, the impact of UNESCO initiatives has not been fully observed. Initiatives such as the platform “Dive into Heritage” demonstrate UNESCO’s commitment to digital innovation and sustainability, but academic research has not yet fully explored the proposed strategic directions through integrated empirical studies.

This research sought to fill these gaps by contextualizing the analysis in UNESCO World Heritage destinations and combining the study of tourist motivations with the role of authenticity and identity in digital mediation. It also explored how satisfaction not only affects tourist loyalty but also influences market dynamics, including destination competitiveness. The focus on motivations also led to a reconsideration of identity, as Stokburger-Sauer (2011) has shown how tourists identify with a destination and how the identity of a destination can favor the emergence of positive feelings and contribute to destination promotion based on its characteristics. The latter are also embedded in cultural heritage, thus paving the way for further studies on how cultural heritage contributes to shaping the image of a destination and the intention to visit it (Zhao et al., 2024). Similarly, Chou et al. (2025) stressed the relationship between tourist experience and the propensity to revisit and recommend a destination. This analysis led to the first two research hypotheses:

Previous studies have shown that tourists visit cultural heritage sites for many reasons, such as learning, identity, leisure and social interaction (Gous and Roberts, 2010; Zhou et al., 2025). Given this, it is expected that motivations among tourists at UNESCO World Heritage destinations are not homogeneous.

Motivations influence not only the choice of destination but also satisfaction with the experience (Dann, 1977; Crompton, 1979). Tourists with stronger cultural heritage motivations are thus expected to feel more satisfied when visiting World Heritage destinations.

Research interest in the soft elements that make up a cultural experience has also led to a broadening of the discussion to include a twofold effect – namely, the consequence on what a tourist would take home and his or her memory resulting the visit, as well as the impact on the construction and modification of a destination’s image. Both areas are also interrelated, as the image of a destination is also the result of what visitors experience and share with their acquaintances. To begin to delve deeper into this combination of elements, it is worth recalling Baloglu and McCleary (1999), who state that the integration of emotions, attitudes and perceptions related to a tourism destination shape a tourist’s assessment of that destination and contribute to the creation of a destination image. Other studies have highlighted the importance of the interaction between tourist perceptions and destination image (Chen and Tsai, 2007; Wei and Chen, 2025), as a virtuous – or vicious – circle can emerge in which a good destination image favors a positive experience, which then contributes to improving the destination image and stimulating new visits from both existing (revisiting) and new tourists. Recent studies have stressed the relevance of this trend and highlighted the effect of multiple issues on the destination image of World Heritage Sites, including emotions – such as nostalgia – leading to consequences on tourists’ behavior, as well as word-of-mouth intention (Nguyen and Duong, 2025). The focus in such studies has mostly centered on pre-visit feelings, so a further understanding of the factors affecting the tourist experience might contribute to the debate on tourism in World Heritage Sites. This leads to the following research hypothesis:

The attention paid to the image of the destination as something constructed, existing and changing has also benefited from marketing studies on word of mouth as a lever that represents the driving force in shaping the destination image. Several scholars have focused on the role of word of mouth in this area and considered the reliability of visitors in evaluating a destination (Mayzlin, 2006) and on the role of social networks, as they represent new ways of sharing experiences and building the destination image (Liu, 2006). More recently, scholars have highlighted the growing relevance of electronic word of mouth in digital tourism markets and shown that it plays an important role in shaping destination image and influencing tourist satisfaction (Azzahra et al., 2025). In fact, new contexts for sharing experiences are intended to affect the behavior of visitors when choosing the next destination they plan visit (Zhou et al., 2025). This leads to the following hypothesis:

In summary, when scanning the literature contributions, there still appears to be no integrated analysis of destination image, tourist satisfaction and ranking within the context of cultural heritage tourism (Aarabe et al., 2025). Recent studies have underlined the importance of a holistic approach to destination studies in cultural heritage tourism, as there are a multitude of elements and many changes in the way a destination is experienced. Such changes can be reflected in new accommodation trends, in new technologies that shape the experience, as well as in new designs for the visitor experience. Scholars have therefore called for more research in this area (Amani, 2024; Stepchenkova et al., 2024), and, in the next phase of this study, a holistic approach has been adopted, in an effort to combine key themes in research conducted in a context where cultural heritage elements – recognized by UNESCO – fuel a tourism trend.

The main objective of this research was to analyze the motivations of tourists in relation to the heritage of the city of Naples (Italy), as well as to assess the main tourist attributes of the city and their relationship with tourist satisfaction and loyalty to the city. The study of heritage tourism involves the analysis of visitor behavior and their motivations. Following this perspective, all aspects can differ, depending on the origin of the tourist, so this study has the comparison between domestic and foreign tourists in the city of Naples as its central empirical objective.

The methodology used here focused on conducting fieldwork to identify a sample of tourists representative of those who visit the city of Naples. In this way, we sought to analyze the opinions of tourists about the culture and cultural heritage of the city, the motivations that led to the trip, and the satisfaction and loyalty derived from the trip to this destination. From an initial questionnaire, and through subsequent refinements, which included a pretest of 50 tourists to avoid possible problems with understanding of the items, as well as their correct interpretation, the final version was reached based on comments from the pilot survey. The final version of the questionnaire was intended to have the clearest possible question wording and the best possible refinement of the answers to achieve the identified objectives based on the scientific literature. We also sought to avoid making the data collection process too long.

The questionnaire developed for this research is based on items developed in previous research, which were modified to suit the context of tourism in Naples (McKercher, 2002; McKercher and du Cros, 2003; Correia et al., 2013; Gallarza et al., 2013; Remoaldo et al., 2014; López-Guzmán et al., 2019; Pérez-Gálvez et al., 2021). These questionnaires, written in Italian, English and Spanish, were applied in different tourist spots in the city of Naples; respondents were chosen on the basis of their already having some tourist experience of the city. The participants completed the questionnaire independently, although assistance was available at all times from the research staff.

Data collection took place in September and November 2022, on different days and at different times, to obtain a wide range of people and conditions. A non-probabilistic technical sampling with a convenience sample was used, as is common in this type of research, in which respondents are available to provide answers to a questionnaire in a given place and time (Finn et al., 2000).

A total of 810 questionnaires were collected. Incomplete questionnaires were discarded, which reduced the number of valid questionnaires to 622. A subsequent filtering on outliers further reduced the valid questionnaires to 563. For the total population studied, we considered the total number of tourists staying in hotel establishments in the city of Naples in the year 2022 (1,072,749, according to the Italian Institute of Statistics. ISTAT (2022), the year in which data collection was carried out. Because a non-probabilistic convenience sample was used, it is not possible to speak of sampling errors. However, as a guideline, and considering the valid sample and the number of tourists arriving in the city of Naples in the year 2022, if the sample were simple random, the sampling error would be 4.13% with a confidence level of 95%.

The introduction, selection and analysis of the data from the questionnaires were processed with the statistical software SPSS v. 25. This computer program allows the application of different statistics, such as Cronbach’s alpha to assess the reliability and validity of the questionnaire data. Various non-parametric techniques or statistics, such as the Mann–Whitney U test and correlation analysis, were also used to assess whether there were any significant differences between domestic and foreign tourists arriving in the city of Naples. These statistical techniques are commonly used in studies on this research topic (Gallarza et al., 2013; López-Guzmán et al., 2019; Pérez-Gálvez et al., 2021), thus corroborating their reliability and enabling effective comparison of the results obtained.

Of the total number of valid questionnaires in this study, 269 (47.78%) were completed by domestic tourists, with 52.22% of study participants being international tourists. From the descriptive study of the tourist profile, we can highlight the presence of tourists who are female (58.6% of respondents were women), young (56.8% were under 30 years old), highly educated (more than 55% of respondents had a university education), with an average or above-average income (around 45% of respondents claimed a monthly income of between €1,500 and €3,500), and low or below-average daily expenditure in the city. One of the fundamental objectives of this study was to examine tourists’ motivations for visiting a World Heritage city such as Naples. A total of 12 items were used (Table 1), which were measured on a five-point Likert scale (from 1, not very important, to 5, very important) to assess the most determining factors for choosing Naples as a destination. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the final scale was 0.640, which indicates a high level of internal consistency among the items of the scale. The level of significance (p), associated with Friedman’s χ² statistic (1,948.741), was less than 0.001, so it can be stated that the means of the items were not equal.

The motives for travel were grouped into four dimensions: cultural, hedonic, circumstantial and convenience. The results highlight that the most important motivations for tourists’ choice of Naples were hedonic (to taste its gastronomy, followed by the desire to see new places). Foreign tourists showed the highest scores for this type of motivation, with significant differences compared to the values recorded by domestic tourists.

As can be seen in Table 1, cultural motivations also stand out, with Italian tourists showing the highest scores and significant differences with respect to the values registered by foreign tourists. Proof of the greater cultural motivation of Italian tourists is the greater average number of monuments visited. Domestic tourists visited an average of 9.7 monuments during their trip to Naples, compared to the 6.56 visited by foreign tourists. It should also be noted that there is a positive correlation between the cultural motivations of the tourist and the number of monuments visited (0.361; p = 0.000). These results from the study of motivations allow us to accept H1 that the motivations for arriving at a UNESCO-designated cultural heritage destination are heterogeneous.

Another objective of the study was analyzing the cognitive image of the destination based on how the visitors evaluated the tourist attributes of the city. This image is fundamental to the tourist’s experience of the destination (Kim, 2014). In total, 16 items were used to assess the destination image (Table 2); these were measured on a five-point Likert scale (from 1, not very important, to 5, very important). These attributes were grouped, following Gallarza et al. (2013) into three dimensions: aesthetics, efficiency and quality of services. As can be seen in Table 2, the cognitive image of the destination is higher for Italian tourists than for foreign tourists. The aesthetic dimension is the most relevant factor, with statistically significant differences between domestic and foreign tourists. The beauty of the city is positioned as the main factor of appreciation of the aesthetic dimension for domestic tourists, with a statistically significant difference between domestic and foreign tourists.

Although service quality was not the most relevant dimension, and the differences were not statistically significant in general, it is important to highlight that “variety and quality of local gastronomy” and “hospitality of residents” stand out among the motivations for both types of tourists, with greater relevance for Italian tourists and with statistically significant differences with respect to foreign tourists.

To assess tourist satisfaction with their visit to the city of Naples, the mean of two items, measured on a five-point Likert scale, was used (Table 3). The average level of satisfaction was high for both groups of tourists. However, the highest level of satisfaction was found for domestic tourists, with a statistically significant difference from foreign tourists.

Table 4 shows that there is a direct and positive correlation between all the motivational dimensions and tourist satisfaction, particularly for cultural and hedonic motivations. It can thus be affirmed that tourist satisfaction is higher when these motivations are high, which leads us to accept hypothesis H2 that motivation affects satisfaction with the tourist experience, with the highest level of satisfaction appearing among tourists with the highest cultural heritage motivation to visit a World Heritage destination.

As can be seen in Table 5, satisfaction is also directly and positively related to the tourist’s cognitive image of the city, with particular reference to the aesthetic dimension. These results allow us to accept H3 that the combination of tourist attributes contributes to the World Heritage destination experience.

Finally, tourist loyalty (measured as the mean of two items), as shown in Table 6, can be rated as high; again, the ratings were higher among domestic tourists. It is also worth noting the significant differences between the two groups.

Spearman’s correlation analysis indicated a high correlation between tourist satisfaction and loyalty to the city (0.790; p = 0.000). This result allows the acceptance of H4 that tourist satisfaction in a cultural heritage destination is a prerequisite for a good ranking in the tourist destination market.

The present study investigated the cultural heritage tourism experience, with a particular focus on the motivations of tourists visiting Naples in terms of main drivers such as authenticity and identity, as well as other key features. The analysis revealed a clear distinction between domestic and international tourists in terms of motivations, perceptions, satisfaction and loyalty to the destination. In terms of motivations, the main motives driving tourists to select Naples as a destination can be divided into push (personal factors, such as personal desires) and pull factors (destination factors, such as destination attractiveness). A significant correlation was found between cultural motivations, behaviors and perceptions, thus demonstrating that loyalty to the destination is influenced by aspects such as the image of a specific place that is considered part of the tourist’s personal heritage (Zhou et al., 2025). This result is aligned with the findings of previous studies, but it remains novel because it is linked, here, to World Heritage sites. This also suggests that destination managers need to better understand the motivations of tourists when selecting a destination. This would allow managers to adjust their communication efforts to address the value offering.

As is further evident when considering cultural motivations in particular, tourist behavior appears to be linked to multiple motivations. Indeed, cultural motivations, including historical and monumental heritage, willingness to explore cultural heritage and participation in cultural events, were statistically more significant among domestic tourists. Italian tourists were thus more likely to adopt forms of tourism through which they could learn more about their own culture, while foreigners appeared to be driven mainly by the desire to explore and discover new realities. In fact, foreign tourists were generally more attracted to the experiences offered by Naples as a culturally rich and lively city. It should be stressed, however, that significant statistical significance was also found for circumstantial motivations and motivations of convenience. These considerations on cultural value stress the tie between culture and the social setting (Saidi, 2013) through the interpretation of the destination; indeed, the different results based on the tourists’ nationality shed light on previous cultural knowledge as a reason for assigning value to cultural artifacts and meanings in a tourism destination.

Another element that emerged is that Italian tourists visited an average of 9.70 monuments compared to 6.56 for foreign visitors, which confirms their greater attention to historical heritage. However, hedonistic motivations (e.g. those related to the gastronomic experience and the desire to escape from routine) were more relevant among international tourists, thus demonstrating their interest in experiential forms of tourism rather than cultural ones. Some of the key drivers of an experience – especially authenticity and identity – thus play a crucial role in addressing the value offering of a cultural heritage site to tourists looking for cultural value. While this confirms the findings of previous studies (e.g. Bond and Falk, 2013; Steriopoulos et al., 2024), it also sheds new light on the concurrent effect of hedonistic motivations and cultural features. This effect requires customized strategies to shape value offerings emphasizing some features over other ones depending on the background of the tourists and their inner motivations.

To sum up, while Roodposhti and Esmaeelbeigi (2024) stressed the need to facilitate awareness of the heritage and the value of the visit, the present findings reveal that the value of the visit may depend on the emergence of multiple factors, thus confirming the need to adopt a wider view on how multiple elements of the experience affect tourists – from the offering to the experience itself. This is relevant for World Heritage Sites due to their specific features, as has been highlighted in previous studies (Nguyen and Duong, 2025). This study also advances our knowledge of what affects tourists’ perceptions of World Heritage Sites, because the historical heritage plays a crucial role in driving the tourist experience. This study thus expands previous understandings of tourists’ perceptions, which generally focused on pre-visit emotions due to the focus on on-site effects linked to the perceptions generated by historical elements.

From a practical perspective, a systemic effort is required for managers – from both the public and private spheres – to develop more insightful value propositions that would consider authenticity and identity as key pillars and also embed elements that would favor the emergence of satisfaction due to hedonism. This also means that a one-size-fits-all strategy would only yield partial outcomes, given the differences that emerged when comparing domestic and foreign tourists. On-site observations would help managers remain aware of what tourists want in a cultural heritage site.

The perception of authenticity and the quality of the visit also play a fundamental role in tourist satisfaction. It emerged that the city’s monuments and places of interest, as well as the monumental heritage, received high ratings from both Italian and foreign tourists (4.24 vs. 4.07), but the conservation and preservation of the cultural heritage were considered less satisfactory, with a very similar perception among both local and foreign tourists (3.53 vs. 3.50). The most critical aspects identified by tourists were related to the cleanliness (2.40 for Italians, 2.15 for foreigners) and safety (2.91 for Italians and 3.00 for foreigners) of the city. The analysis indicated an overall high level of satisfaction for both groups, with an average score of 4.28 for domestic tourists and 4.08 for international tourists. These results help to address a gap that emerged in previous studies – namely, the way(s) motivations, behaviors and experiences shape market outcomes. This finding is consistent with recent studies that call for a holistic and integrated approach to customer experience management in tourism destinations (Aarabe et al., 2025). This is, however, a novel result with reference to World Heritage cities, thus widening the recent consideration on the tourist experience offered by Zhou et al. (2025). These results also suggest policy implications and recommendations for professionals to improve the attractiveness of the city to tourists by leveraging their different motivations when shaping value offerings, given the key effects motivations have on both behavior and experience.

The correlation between satisfaction and loyalty to the destination is also significant, which indicates that a positive experience while visiting the city increases the probability of tourists recommending Naples to others or revisiting the city themselves. This result aligns with recent evidence showing that tourist satisfaction strengthens destination image and stimulates electronic word of mouth, thus increasing interest in both visiting and recommending the destination (Azzahra et al., 2025). The aesthetic dimension had the highest correlation with satisfaction, followed by service quality, which indicates that visual and experiential factors are crucial in the perception of the city. This evidence expands our understanding of cultural heritage affects both satisfaction and loyalty. Fu (2019) had highlighted such effects with reference to destinations generally speaking, while this research makes evident this effect for cultural heritage sites in particular, thus shedding light on the role played by cultural artifacts and meanings for tourists’ perceptions. Policymakers should therefore focus even more on promoting the cultural experience of a city and leverage the patronage of UNESCO to emphasize the relevance of the artifacts to the tourist experience, thus addressing aspects that allow tourists to experience higher levels of satisfaction. This is particularly true for the historical features of the city’s cultural heritage, given the effects they generated, particularly among domestic tourists. Communication efforts should therefore also address tourists attracted by motivations linked to the city being part of the World Heritage List. The historical features could thus be considered a lever to increase the attractiveness of the other elements of the offering. Finally, loyalty to the destination was higher for Italian tourists. This indicates that domestic visitors, having a greater sense of cultural belonging, are more likely to recommend Naples as a tourist destination. However, foreign tourists particularly appreciated the authenticity of the site and the sensory experience, which can also be seen in the recognition of the city as world gastronomic capital by the British magazine Time Out in 2024.

In summary, the results highlight the need to plan and implement differentiated promotional strategies because, while Italian tourists may be attracted by an offer that emphasizes the historical and cultural identity of the city, foreign tourists seem to be more sensitive to immersive experiences that combine gastronomy, entertainment and local authenticity. The role played by gastronomy is particularly relevant here, but it does not hinder the opportunity to experience heritage related to the historical artifacts and places, as well as to experience authenticity in multiple ways. This consideration could also contribute to studies on social representations, as in Shrestha et al. (2025). Indeed, because the city of Naples is famous for “pizza and mandolins,” it might have jeopardized the chance to shape more insightful value offerings; the results contrast this risk by offering an image of the city based on multiple items. This is relevant for scholars, but it also offers support for practitioners representing the joint efforts of multiple companies, including local public agencies, in shaping value propositions. While gastronomy mirrors the interest of tourists, it should be used together with other elements of both tangible and intangible heritage linked to the site to capture the interest of tourists.

In conclusion, studies in the tourism domain could benefit from combining multiple dimensions when addressing the relevance of a tourism destination, so the focus on the value offering cannot be limited to single reasons, as such reasons may be context-specific and cultural oriented. From a practical perspective, local institutions and actors should pay greater attention to heritage conservation and preservation, as well as improving urban infrastructures to further increase visitor satisfaction and consolidate Naples’ reputation as an international tourist destination. This would be the main practical contribution of this research, as it addresses the key features of cultural heritage sites.

The main limitation of this study was the limited time period for data collection, given that it would be necessary to extend the fieldwork for an entire whole year to extract more general conclusions. It would also be interesting for future research to focus on or deepen the exploration of gastronomy in the city of Naples as an important source of tourist attraction to further investigate the role of context and how food can be experienced as a cultural feature, particularly in light of what UNESCO embraces under its patronage. The relevance of results based on tourists’ background also paves the way for further analyses to investigate whether different nationalities and backgrounds lead to different motivations, behaviors and experiences. This perspective can further advance our knowledge of what drives tourists’ selection of a destination, as well as the decisions made during the experience. This focus would also suggest the need to adapt efforts to communicate the value offering in line with the differing expectations of tourists from different countries. Finally, the observation of the research context and the general trends on tourism also suggest the need for future research to consider new features of the tourism experience – including overtourism, which affects many destinations, including Naples; the call for more immersive experiences, as well as how to realize them in open-air contexts such as cities; and the seamless journey – as this would limit the understanding of tourists’ behavior as well as how they interact in ways that can enrich the experience.