The influence of emotional experience and place attachment on tourists’ revisit intention to UNESCO heritage sites

International tourism including the heritage segment has shown tremendous growth over the past three decades. Although various studies have examined tourists’ revisit intention in predicting actual behaviour, intense competition and variety-seeking nature have impeded tourists from returning to the same destination. As emotion represents one of the essential elements in tourist decision making, this study examines the role of destination-specific emotions in predicting tourists’ revisit intention within the light of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. First, this study investigates the emotion of joy, love, and positive surprise to quantify the predictive strength on place attachment and revisit intention along with subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Secondly, the mediating effect of place attachment between emotional experience and tourists’ revisit intention were examined. Data were collected via self-administered questionnaires from 468 international tourists who visited World Heritage Sites in Melaka and George Town and analysed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS 3.2.7. The finding comprised nine primary outcomes, wherein tourists’ emotional experience (joy, love, surprise) significantly influence place attachment; subjective norm and perceived behavioural control appreciably influence revisit intention; place attachment has a significant effect on revisit intention; place attachment has a meaningful mediating effect between emotional experience and revisit intention. This study makes a theoretical contribution to the existing literature on tourists’ revisit intention by shaping new thinking to increase tourists visit. It further contributes to understanding the missing link between emotional experience and revisit intention through the mediating effect of place attachment. Discussion of academic contributions, practical implications and direction of future research for promoting heritage tourism concludes the study.