As city tourism has recently been evaluated as a major indicator of urban competitiveness, strengthening the role of cities as tourist destinations has received more attention. However, industrialization and urbanization of many cities lead to populat...
As city tourism has recently been evaluated as a major indicator of urban competitiveness, strengthening the role of cities as tourist destinations has received more attention. However, industrialization and urbanization of many cities lead to population decline, extinction of traditional industries, and deterioration of living environments, weakening urban functions and competitiveness. Thus, it is essential for declining cities to build a measure to restore urban competitiveness by enhancing urban functions. Accordingly, this study focused on socio-cultural urban regeneration by exploring physical spaces for tourism destinations in declining cities. Different from general tourist destinations, tourism destinations of urban regeneration have a temporal perspective covering the past, present, and future. How does the temporal perspective of urban regeneration tourist destinations affect tourists' satisfaction and behavioral intention? In order to address these questions, this study conducts an empirical analysis based on structural equation modeling (SEM) using the sample of tourists who have visited urban regeneration tourism destinations. With SEM, this paper investigates structural relationships across variables by testing the hypothesis established in the proposed research model. The results show that precious memories of the past are the most important factor for tourists to visit urban regeneration tourist destinations. The empirical findings of this study will contribute to the research areas of urban tourism, urban regeneration tourism, and urban regeneration tourism destinations. In addition, this study can provide practical implications to develop socio-cultural contents of urban regeneration areas as tourism resources to establish plans for urban regeneration projects and achieve sustainable development strategies.