방한 외국인 관광객 재방문 의도 결정 요인

Abstract

As the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea increases and competition from neighboring countries for their patronage intensifies, it is more important than ever to induce visitors to return again. Although previous studies have tried to identify the determinants behind foreign tourist repeat visits, most of them used a model that excluded important explanatory variables and that made estimates using data taken from a small sample. To resolve these problems, this study specifies a model to explain foreign tourist intentions to visit Korea again using more relevant explanatory variables, and estimates intentions using data collected from a sample of more than three thousand Chinese and Japanese tourists. The results show that overall satisfaction, the general image of Korea, and the number of previous visits all have a positive impact on the return intention. Tourist nationality (Japanese vs. Chinese) and tour type (free independent travelers, FITs vs. group tourists) are also identified as significant explanatory factors. Other variables being held constant, Japanese tourists and FITs have a stronger average return intention than their counterparts. Finally, it has been found that the effect of overall satisfaction on return intention is attenuated as the number of previous visits increases. These results suggest that omitting any of these explanatory variables from a model cause the OLS estimators to be biased. Furthermore, the results contribute to a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the relationship between foreign tourist return intention and its determinants.