Research On The Impact Mechanism Of Resident-tourist Interaction On Ancient City Tourists’ Value Co-creation Behavior

China’s tourism industry has gradually entered a new development stage.Tourists no longer only focus on the functional value of tourism products,but also expect to showcase their inner psychological feelings during the tourism process,and obtaining higher emotional and experiential value.Some tourists are even no longer satisfied with passively accepting tourism products,and hope to participate in the development and creation process of products and experiences.Value co-creation plays an important role in the management of tourist destinations.The ancient city with a long history and culture is an important carrier for displaying local culture,a major component,and a representative of cultural tourism.The study of ancient city tourism has practical significance.As an indispensable stakeholder in tourism development,residents are gradually regarded as the core of tourism products.The process of tourists interacting with them is essentially a process of contacting the destination culture.However,most of the value co-creation theory research about tourism focuses on the direction of online tourism.The value co-creation behavior of offline tourism destinations has not received widespread attention.Few studies have explored the impact mechanism of resident-tourist interaction on the two dimensions of value co-creation behavior in the context of offline ancient city tourism.Based on the value co-creation theory and social exchange theory,this study introduces two mediator variables,authenticity experience and flow experience,and takes the Kashgar ancient city as a research site to construct a structural equation model to explore the impact mechanism of resident-tourist interaction on tourists’ value co-creation behavior.This study draws five conclusions.Firstly,resident-tourist interaction in ancient city tourism significantly and positively affects the value co-creation behavior of tourists through authenticity experience and flow experience.Secondly,authenticity experience and flow experience have different degrees of impact on tourists’ value co-creation behavior.Thirdly,tourists’ citizen behavior is more influenced by authenticity experience and flow experience than by participant behavior.Fourthly,there are differences in the main mediator variables that influence the two dimensions of value co-creation behavior through resident-tourist interaction.Lastly,authenticity experience and flow experience play an orderly chain-mediated effect between resident-tourist interaction and value co-creation behavior.This study enriches the application of social exchange theory in the field of tourism.It is the expansion and application of value co-creation theory in the context of ancient city tourism,providing new ideas for the study of the impact of authenticity experience on flow experience.Based on theoretical research,management suggestions on promoting value co-creation behavior among tourists are provided for tourism destinations.