Make It Memorable: Tourism Experience, Fun, Recommendation and Revisit Intentions of Chinese Outbound Tourists

Xin Chen,Gyu-Bae Kim,Zhen-Feng Cheng

doi:10.3390/su12051904

Abstract

Due to the fact that Chinese tourists are becoming the main players in the international tourism market, with large growth potential, this research empirically identifies the psychological factors that affect Chinese outbound tourists’ memorable tourism experiences (MTEs), and investigates the relationships among MTEs, the “fun” emotion, and their recommendation and revisit intentions based on the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model. In addition, the moderating role of perceived risk between the causal relationships among the “fun” emotion and recommendation and revisit intentions is identified. A total of 560 survey participants who had experienced overseas tourism in the last two years were selected as the target population, and the data from 413 valid surveys were empirically analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM). Chinese outbound tourists’ MTEs, such as hedonism, novelty, meaningfulness, and social interaction, are found to positively influence their experience of the “fun” emotion, such as emotional spark and flow. Additionally, it is found that when Chinese outbound tourists have achieved a high level of the “fun” emotion, their intentions to recommend and revisit their destination will be stronger. In addition, perceived risk is found to have a negative moderating role in the causal relationships among emotional spark and recommendation and revisit intentions, and also has negative moderating effects on the causal relationship between flow and recommendation intentions. This study provides important practical insights for how international tourist destination marketers and managers provide Chinese tourists with MTEs, and how to elicit the “fun” emotion and loyalty behaviors from Chinese tourists via the investigation of the mechanism of MTEs, fun, and recommendation and revisit intentions. It is also found that it is beneficial for international tourist destination managers to lower the level of tourists’ perceived risk to improve tourists’ recommendation and revisit intentions. These findings can aid in the development of more effective strategies to increase the market share and the international competitiveness of destinations.

Highlights

With continued technological innovation and economic development, global society has been integrated politically, economically, and culturally
In response to the call for tourism-related research [4,8] on the development of integrated models, the primary goal of this study was to establish a causal relationship model among the memorable experiential elements of Chinese outbound tourists, positive emotional responses, and behavioral intentions based on the S-O-R model
The proposed model was used in this research to examine the relationships between (a) memorable experiential elements, such as hedonism, novelty, meaningfulness, social interaction, and perceived positive emotions such as fun, (b) the “fun” emotion and recommendation intention, (c) the “fun” emotion and revisit intention, and (d) the “fun” emotion, perceived risk, and recommendation and revisit intentions

Summary

Introduction

With continued technological innovation and economic development, global society has been integrated politically, economically, and culturally. Along with this trend, international travel has become an imperative driving force of tourism development [1]. The investigation of Chinese tourists’ preferences and behavioral intentions is critical for international tourist destination marketers to sustain the fast-growing tourism economy [7,8,9,10]. A critical question must first be asked: When Chinese tourists become the main players in the international tourism market, will destination marketing strategies based on fundamental utilitarian needs continue to be effective?

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