Authentic experiences and visitor stickiness: When landscapes are restored at a world natural heritage site

The reconstruction of natural heritage landscapes has aroused concern. This paper uses inductive topic analysis to extract authentic experiences and visitor stickiness. Then, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is used to explore the causal relationships between them. It is found that: (1) the restoration of natural heritage landscapes provided high-quality experiences for visitors to some extent, and visitors also supported the restoration of the natural heritage site to some extent; (2) visitors' authentic experiences of restored natural heritage sites embrace environmental authenticity, brand authenticity, self-authenticity, and customized authenticity; (3) environmental authenticity and self-authenticity are important dimensions that affect visitor stickiness; and (4) visitor stickiness and lack of stickiness are formed by multiple factors, and their formation paths are not completely opposite to each other. This study expands research on authentic experiences and visitor stickiness at natural heritage sites and provides suggestions for the restoration of such sites.