Fostering Bonds with Residents and Destination through Language Barriers: The Pivoting Role of Dialect Appreciation

While tourist-resident interactions have received extensive research attention, contextual factors like destination dialects in domestic tourism are rarely considered. While dialect-related language barriers may negatively affect tourist-resident interactions, efforts to remove such language barriers to accommodate tourists can jeopardize dialects and indigenous languages worldwide. Drawing upon the cognitive-relational theory, emotional solidarity literature, and social identity theory, this study proposes that tourists’ positive appraisals of local dialects (i.e., dialect appreciation) can reframe perceived such language barriers as opportunities to deepen their connections with residents and the destination, thereby supporting the preservation of dialects and indigenous languages central to destination identity. This study also demonstrates the moderating role of tourist-resident interaction depth in these relationships and suggests that connections with residents and destinations may require different levels of interactions. Through a tourist sample from a Chinese destination where variations of the Wuyu dialect are spoken, the findings offer nuanced insights into mitigating challenges posed by destination dialects in domestic tourism worldwide.