Cultural tourism and young people: insights and policies in a new era

One of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 health emergency has been tourism and culture. The aim of the present work is to answer the research question of if and how the pandemic crisis has affected the expectations of young cultural tourists, impacting on the behavior of choice of cultural destination, will be exposed and analyzed the variables that influenced and that will influence the archaeological belief and the choice of cultural destination of young visitors. This qualitative-quantitative study, starting from the Theory of Planned Behaviour, TPB, integrated with context variables, focuses on the identification of the tourist with the place of visit and results in the intention of visiting at the base of the processes of choice of the cultural destination. In this way, new segments that are more attractive and of interest are determined. For the analysis and validation of the conceptual model, structural equations (SEM) were used with AMOS, on a sample of 998 young people (i.e. Millennials and Generation Z) passionate about cultural tourism, with a control sample composed of 40 experts in the field. The study has important theoretical and managerial implications. The limits of the study are outlined and the directions for future research have been considered