Beyond performance: ritualized host–guest interaction drives value co-creation in heritage sites

As heritage tourism expands and shifts toward experience-oriented models, understanding how ritualized host–guest interaction generates meaning and contributes to value co-creation has become crucial. This study explores the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which ritualized host–guest interaction influences value co-creation behavior. Based on three scenario-based experiments and a field quasi-experiment at a heritage destination, it proposes and empirically tests a pathway linking interaction, cognition, trust, and value co-creation. The results show that heritage cognition and host–guest trust serve as dual mediators, illustrating the intertwined process of cognitive meaning-making and social relationship formation embedded in ritualized encounters. Furthermore, cultural salience shows a directional tendency to attenuate the cognitive pathway linking ritualized interaction to heritage cognition, while place attachment strengthens the trust-based pathway leading to value co-creation. The field quasi-experiment further supports the ecological validity of the proposed model. This study expands the social-psychological understanding of ritual in tourism and advances theoretical insights into how cultural experiences are transformed into value co-creation behavior. The findings offer practical implications for heritage destination management by emphasizing ritual-based design, cognitive engagement, and affective bonding as key drivers of heritage tourism development.