Social Media Experience as a Behavioral Driver in Culture-Based Music Tourism: A Comparative Study of Two Heritage Festivals in Indonesia
- AIOR Admin
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Peny Meliaty Hutabarat, Effy Z. Rusfian, Ixora Lundia Suwaryono, Sofian Lusa
Universitas Indonesia, Trisakti Institute of Tourism
This study advances Pine and Gilmore's (1999) experience economy framework by empirically testing a 4E+1E model in the under-researched context of culture-based music tourism in Southeast Asia. While the classical 4E framework (entertainment, education, escapism, esthetics) has been widely validated, the rise of digital-social platforms has fundamentally transformed how festival experiences are constructed, sustained, and converted into behavior—a phenomenon insufficiently theorized in existing models. We address three interrelated gaps: (1) the absence of social media as a structural dimension within experience economy, (2) the limited empirical evidence on heritage-based music festivals in emerging Asian markets, and (3) the lack of comparative studies examining how heritage type (tangible vs. intangible) shapes experiential configurations. Using Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) on data from 366 visitors to Prambanan Jazz Festival (PJF; UNESCO tangible heritage site) and 98 visitors to Ngayogjazz (community-based intangible heritage festival), both held in Yogyakarta in 2025, we test ten hypotheses linking five experience economy dimensions to revisit intention and word of mouth. Three findings stand out. First, a dominant bifurcation pattern emerges: Entertainment and Extended Experience through Social Media (EESCM) consistently and significantly predict behavioral outcomes across both festivals (H1, H2, H9, H10 supported in both), while Education, Escapism, and Esthetics do not drive revisit intention in either context and show no consistent effect on word of mouth (one context-specific exception: H4 in PJF, β=0.115, p=0.009, f²=0.023, does not replicate in Ngayogjazz). Second, EESCM emerges as the dominant predictor in both contexts, with f² values up to 0.251 for word of mouth in Ngayogjazz, surpassing the classical entertainment effect. Third, while the structural pattern is consistent, the underlying mechanisms differ: tangible heritage amplifies an emotional-digital pathway, whereas intangible heritage amplifies a relational-tradition pathway. We contribute (a) empirical validation of EESCM as a fifth, behaviorally-dominant experience dimension, (b) a refined theorization separating behavioral triggers from meaning-making layers within the experience economy, and (c) heritage type as a configuration moderator. Implications for festival design, destination branding, and digital-cultural strategy are discussed.
Comments