From Digital Interaction to Visit Intention: The Mediating Role of Curiosity in Dark Tourism Museum Websites

The research investigates how perceived interactivity of websites influences the intention to visit dark tourism museums in Jakarta and how curiosity mediates this relationship. The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework is employed to theorize perceived website interactivity as a website stimulus that may affect curiosity and behavioural intention. The population of this quantitative research is internet users that visited museums’ websites in Jakarta. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was applied to measure the hypothesised relationships. The results suggest that perceived website interactivity positively affects curiosity and directly influences visit intention to dark tourism museums. In addition, curiosity positively influences visit intention and partially mediates between perceived website interactivity and behavioural intention to visit. These findings are useful as they provide insights into how interactive websites (stimulus) and psychological curiosity influence visit intention to museums.