Yifei Gao

Digital technologies are increasingly embedded in tourism performing arts, yet technology-intensive projects do not automatically generate profound cultural experiences. To explain this high-investment-but-low-experience dilemma, this study conceptualizes digital technology-enabled cultural experience as a configurational outcome of technological conditions and visitor-side psychological processing. Drawing primarily on the S-O-R framework and interpreted from a socio-technical systems perspective, digital technology interactivity and innovativeness are treated as stimulus conditions, while cognitive evaluation, scenario construction, and flow experience are treated as organism-level processing conditions. Psychological ownership theory is employed as a supplementary interpretive lens—rather than as a directly measured or tested mechanism—to explain why divergent configurational pathways may converge on high cultural experience through control, intimate understanding, and self-investment. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with 540 valid questionnaires from visitors to tourism performing arts, the study finds that no single condition is necessary for high cultural experience. Instead, five sufficient configurations are identified: interaction–cognitive compensation, interaction–cognitive–flow synergy, dual-technology traction, innovation–scenario–immersion drive, and innovation–cognitive–flow compensation. The pathway to non-high cultural experience is asymmetric and is mainly characterized by the concurrent absence of technological, cognitive, scenario, and flow conditions. The findings re-specify the application of S-O-R theory in a configurational analytical context and provide a cautious socio-technical explanation of how technological and psychological conditions jointly shape cultural experience.

Digital technology is profoundly transforming the experiential landscape of tourism. However, its application does not necessarily produce cultural experiences, creating a critical bottleneck that constrains the sustainable development of the cultural tourism industry and broader societal culture. To address this gap, this study introduces psychological ownership theory as an overarching explanatory framework. It constructs and validates an integrated model that examines how digital technology characteristics (interactivity and innovativeness) influence cultural experience through three parallel mediating pathways: cognitive evaluation (perceived usefulness and ease of use), scenario construction, and flow experience. Based on 540 visitor questionnaires, structural equation modeling validated the theoretical model. Findings reveal that the interactivity and innovation of digital technology jointly stimulate visitors’ psychological ownership through three parallel pathways. Specifically, technological innovativeness exhibited the strongest effect on perceived ease of use (β = 0.387, p < 0.001), while the indirect effect via the flow experience path was also significant (effect size = 0.036). This process stimulates visitors’ psychological ownership, ultimately leading to cultural experiences. The study systematically reveals the pathways through which digital technology empowers cultural experiences across three dimensions: as a rational tool, an emotional narrative medium, and an intrinsic psychological catalyst. It highlights that strategically allocating technological resources to cultivate visitors’ psychological ownership is crucial for driving high-quality industrial development. Furthermore, the research offers significant implications for cultural sustainability, suggesting that such internally motivated identification provides a more effective foundation for the living transmission of culture and socio-cultural sustainability than external regulations or imposed norms.