Sustaining Cultural Memory: The Role of Family Historical Communication in the Sustainable Development of Heritage Tourism

The socio-cultural sustainability of heritage tourism depends in part on how historical memories and cultural meanings are communicated, interpreted, and passed on over time. However, the family’s role as a key socialization agent in shaping tourists’ interpretations of nationally significant heritage remains underexplored. This study examines the relationships among family historical communication (FHC), tourists’ subjective interpretation of heritage, and behavioral intentions. Using the case of sustainable heritage tourism in Dandong, China, the study conceptualizes tourists’ subjective heritage interpretation in terms of three dimensions: educational experience (cognitive), historical identity (affective), and inheritance value (evaluative). The study contributes by treating family historical communication as a pre-trip interpretive context that shapes heritage meaning-making and by proposing a multidimensional framework linking prior social experiences, subjective interpretation, and behavioral intentions. Survey data from 611 heritage tourists were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships and age-cohort moderation effects. The results show that FHC is positively associated with all three meaning-making dimensions as well as with behavioral intentions. The mediation analysis further indicates that the indirect effects of FHC on behavioral intentions are stronger through historical identity and inheritance value than through educational experience. In addition, significant age-cohort moderation is found only in the relationship between FHC and educational experience. By highlighting the family as an important bridge between national narratives and personal meaning, this study offers implications for the tourism-supportive and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainable heritage management and inclusive destination governance.