Destination loyalty as explained through self-congruity, emotional solidarity, and travel satisfaction

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how tourists' self-congruity and emotional solidarity are related and how this thereby influences travel satisfaction and destination loyalty. Notably, the roles that the different dimensions (i.e., communality and fairness) of intragroup emotional solidarity played between the constructs were scrutinized for an enhanced understanding of the relationships. Addressing these research questions, this study collected survey data from South Korean tourists to Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)—a destination of symbolic and emotional significance to Koreans—and analyzed them via structural equation modelling. Results demonstrated positive relationships between self-congruity and all emotional solidarity dimensions. However, only fairness was a meaningful predictor of travel satisfaction which then translated into destination loyalty. The findings indicate that in an emotional destination like the DMZ, self-congruity with the destination can give rise to emotional solidarity toward others, but emotional solidarity dimensions may function differently in triggering further changes in travel satisfaction or destination loyalty. Implications for theory and practice are discussed within the close of the article.