Existing festival tourism research has habitually treated attendance and non- attendance as opposite ends of a single continuum, while overlooking the behavioral mechanisms of aware non-participants—individuals who know of a festival yet choose not to attend—a critical gap that limits both theoretical understanding of pre-visit decision-making and the practical effectiveness of festival marketing strategies. This study aims to construct a dual-pathway framework of festival (non-)participation and examine the moderating role of social tie strength. Theoretically, the study integrates three core frameworks: Herzberg's (1959) Two-Factor Theory (extending the asymmetric logic of motivators and hygiene factor deficiency to pre-visit decision- making), Fodness's (1994) five-dimensional tourist motivation theory (self- enhancement, knowledge acquisition, leisure relaxation, self-esteem needs, and novelty seeking), and Granovetter's (1973) strong-weak tie theory (using family members and friends as moderating variables). These three frameworks are integrated to capture, respectively, the asymmetric decisional structure, the multidimensional content of motivation, and the social boundary conditions under which participation decisions are made.

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Keywords: Two-Factor Theory; Tourist Motivation; Non-Travel Intention; Tie Strength; Festival Tourism; Pre-Visit Decision-Making