DEVELOPING A TOURISM EXPERIENCE MODEL BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF NATIONAL HERITAGE ASSETS AND CULTURAL EVENTS: COMPONENT BALANCE THRESHOLDS, AGGREGATION FORM, AND ATTENTION MEDIATION IN THE HE-TEM FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Uzbekistan's hotel industry has expanded rapidly since the opening of Destination models in the heritage and event literatures are typically comprehensive checklists that are never estimated. This article proposes a deliberately small alternative, the Heritage and Event Tourism Experience Model (HE-TEM), specifies it so that it can be falsified, and then reports the result of trying. HE-TEM has three components: heritage asset base, event activation, and interpretive mediation. Each is scaled to a common range and the three are combined into a single composite. The model makes two claims. The measurement claim is that the composite behaves as a coherent aggregate; the functional form claim is that the components complement rather than substitute, so that the weakest binds. On a panel of the fourteen regions of Uzbekistan the measurement claim holds and the functional form claim does not. The composite carries an elasticity of 1.099 on international attention with a t statistic of 6.62 and an R² of 0.785, and the three estimated component exponents sum to 1.039, which is constant returns to the composite. The strict limiting form is rejected, losing 0.126 in R² against the additive form. The additive and multiplicative forms cannot be told apart at all, differing by 0.011 in R² with component intercorrelations running from 0.798 to 0.905. Mediation is complete: HE-TEM carries 0.265 on foreign visits alongside accommodation capacity, and minus 0.027 with a t statistic of minus 0.60 once attention is in the equation. The model is therefore established as an index of attention potential and not as a theory of complementarity, and the article states what would be required to settle the second question.