How is Intangible Cultural Heritage Valued in the Eyes of Inheritors? Scale Development and Validation

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is an important part of human civilization and a major tourism resource type. In the ICH tourism development process, many stakeholders are involved. Although inheritors have a core position in this group, there is not enough research investigating the sustainable development of ICH tourism from the perspective of inheritors. Since value cognition is the basis that guides people’s behaviors, the value cognition of the ICH inheritors might be the starting point to understanding their behaviors. Considering this context, the main aim of this research is to describe the development and validation of a scale to assess the cognition values by ICH inheritors. By generating items, purifying, examining the scale’s dimensionality, and evaluating reliability and validity, a 25-item instrument is developed. The article concludes with a discussion of potential applications of the scale.