The Role of English as a Medium for Cultural Interpretation in Penglipuran Tourism Village: A Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) Analysis

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_14How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cultural Interpretation; Cultural Tourism Experiences; Cultural Understanding of Tourists; English; Penglipuran Tourism Village

Abstract

In cultural tourism destinations, language functions not only as a means of conveying practical information but also as a vehicle for making the underlying meanings of objects and rituals accessible to foreign tourists. This study examines the impact of English usage on the cultural tourism experience in Penglipuran Tourism Village, Bangli, Bali, with particular emphasis on the mediating roles of cultural interpretation quality and tourists’ cultural understanding. Data were collected from 150 foreign tourists using a Likert-scale questionnaire (1–5) through purposive sampling and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS). The use of English significantly influences the quality of cultural interpretation (β = 0.514); interpretation quality subsequently affects tourists’ cultural understanding (β = 0.541); and cultural understanding is identified as the strongest determinant of the cultural tourism experience (β = 0.562). The effect of language on experience is indirect and is sequentially mediated by these two pathways (β = 0.156; p < 0.001). These findings indicate that English language proficiency in cultural destinations should be conceptualized as a capacity for cultural interpretation rather than merely as a service skill, in order to sustain the quality and longevity of cultural tourism.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Vitalia Hanako Murni Simanjuntak
AU  - Made Sudiarta
AU  - Luh Linna Sagitarini
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/24
TI  - The Role of English as a Medium for Cultural Interpretation in Penglipuran Tourism Village: A Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) Analysis
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Green Tourism Applied Science - Social Applied Science 2026 (ICoSTAS-SAS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 135
EP  - 144
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_14
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_14
ID  - Simanjuntak2026
ER  -