Negotiating Authorized Heritage Meanings in Sustainable Heritage Tourism: Visitor Heritage Identity and Spatialized Discursive Gaps at the Yungang Grottoes, China

Cultural sustainability at World Heritage Sites depends on whether heritage meanings remain publicly intelligible and experientially meaningful, not only on conservation outcomes or visitor management. Yet empirical evidence remains limited on how authorized heritage meanings are received, negotiated, and spatially anchored by visitors. This study examines the transformation of expert-informed authorized heritage meanings into visitor heritage identity at the Yungang Grottoes, China. Through thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured expert interviews, an expert-informed analytical framework was developed and consolidated into four case-specific identity dimensions: National, Ethnic, Cultural, and Place Identity. Based on 325 valid on-site questionnaires, the study combines Likert-scale measurement, open-ended response coding, and period-level cultural mapping. Results show that Cultural and National Identity were most strongly recognized, while Ethnic and Place Identity were more closely linked to interpretive mediation, prior knowledge, and embodied spatial experience. In cultural mapping responses, respondents most frequently anchored National Identity in Early Period caves, Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Middle Period caves, and Place Identity across more distributed landscape and atmospheric settings. Four Authorized Heritage Discourse–Visitor heritage identity relational patterns were identified: correspondence, partial alignment, negotiation, and divergence/extension. The findings offer a visitor-centered and spatially differentiated approach to evaluating sustainable heritage interpretation by extending conventional conservation-, management-, and satisfaction-oriented indicators toward visitor meaning-making, identity negotiation, and spatially situated interpretation.