Exotic or Home? Tourists’ Perception of Guest Houses, Guest Houses Loyalty, and Destination Loyalty in Remote Tourist Destinations

Shi Shi,He He,Li Li

doi:10.3390/su11143835

Abstract

Guest houses offer an environmentally sustainable way to travel. The guest house serves not only to accommodate but also attract tourists to experience local culture when they visit remote destinations. This study was designed to explore how tourists’ multiple perceptions of guest houses in remote destinations affect their behavioral intention toward guest houses and destinations. Results demonstrated that both tourists’ perception of exotic local culture and sense of home had a significant positive effect on tourists’ loyalty to guest houses in remote destinations. In addition, tourists with high cultural distance staying in guest houses perceived a higher level of exotic local culture but lower level of sense of home compared with those with lower cultural distance. Managerial implications, limitations, and recommendations for future studies are also provided

Highlights

The binary structure of “home” and “away” has a long history in tourism research [1]
For high cultural distance tourists, 68.1% stayed less than one night or for a one night stay, and 19.6% of them stayed for two night stays
Tourists’ complicated demands for both exotic culture and sense of home in tourist destinations have been reported by prior research, there is limited research on tourists’ perception of exotic local culture and sense of home in guest houses

Summary

Introduction

The binary structure of “home” and “away” has a long history in tourism research [1]. Guest houses in remote destinations (GHRDs) around the world are a typical space to fulfill tourists’ ambivalent pursuits of both exotic local culture and a home-like shelter similar to home when they visit remote places [6]. Staying in guest houses provides tourists a chance to experience the exotic culture and seek a place of comfort, privacy, and homeliness. To sustain the success of GHRDs, it is important to assess how tourists’ perceptions of the exotic local culture and sense of home influence their visitor loyalty. The first objective of this study was to investigate how tourists’ perceptions of two vital and ambivalent dimensions (local culture and sense of home) of the guest house affect their loyalty to guest houses in remote tourist destinations

Objectives

Results

Conclusion