Antecedents of Tourists Behavioural Intentions, Perspectives of Expectations Confirmation Model: A Study of Select Tourism Cites in South-East Nigeria

Abstract

Tourism has expanded dramatically in Nigeria over the last six decades, becoming one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the Nigerian like in the global economy. The World Travel and Tourism index ranked Nigeria 129th out of 140 countries and Nigeria’s ranking is well below average rankings for sub-Saharan Africa. This study was motivated by the need to explore the antecedents of tourists’ behavioural intentions from the perspectives of the expectations confirmation model. The study extended the model by adding perceived trust to original components. Several studies have been conducted from the perspective of this model in tourism in many countries but none in Nigeria. The study was based on a sample 400 tourists selected from the five states in the South East geopolitical zone of Nigeria out of which 317 respondents returned valid questionnaire. The study population was infinite hence respondents were those seen at the various tourist sites and who agreed to fill the questionnaire. The analysis utilized partial least squares structural equations modelling (PLS-SEM) with the aid of WarpPLS version 7.0. All the hypothesised relationships are statistically significant (Table 6). The 95% confidence intervals straddle no zero in-between for all the hypotheses. The Effect sizes in our analysis range from as high as 0.409 for Confirmation which is the highest to 0.209 for PP and 0.149 for CE. Conf. and PT have 0.094 and 0.084 respectively hence all the IVs in our analysis fall within acceptable range from medium to high effect sizes and are all considered relevant in our model. Implications of the study were also discussed and recommendations for further study were also made.