Motivation to Visit Ethnic Restaurants and its Relationship with Travel Intention

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to explore 1) what motivates people to visit ethnic restaurants, 2) to explore if there is any direct link between those motivations and travel intention to visit the origiin country of the restaurants and 3)if there is any influence of ethnic restaurant experience on the link between them. Design, data, and methodology -Target population was those who had eaten in at least one of ethnic restaurants in Korea. The data was obtained through online survey and a total of 428 valid cases were obtained. Motivations to visit ethnic restaurant were measured by items adopted from previous studies, and factor analysis was performed. Stepwise regress ion analyses were performed to explore relationships between motivations and intention, and the influence of ethnic resturant experience. Result - General restaurant attributes were found to be a critical factor that motivates people to visit the ethnic restaurants and that has influence on customers’ intention to visit the origin country along with cultural elements. Conclusions - The results offer some insights to owners of ethnic restaurants and marketer s in tourism indutry who hire food as their marketing tool. Theoretically, this study provides motivational factors that attract people to visit ethnic restaurants. This study attempted empi rical test to see if there is any direct link between motivational factors to visit ethnic restaur ants and travel intention.