Tourist trust toward a tourism destination: scale development and validation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Trust plays an important role in tourists’ behavior, but the existing literatures lack a measurement model of tourist trust from the perspective of interests. Based on the hypothesis of rational economic man, the current study divides the trust of tourists into self-interest trust, altruistic trust and mutual-benefit trust, and develops a scale of trust of tourists by mixed method. The process of scale development included three studies: Study 1 generated the initial pool of the scale through literature review, semi-structured interviews and pilot test; Study 2 tested, purified and simplified the initial items by means of exploratory factor analysis (n = 217); and Study 3 tested the structure and dimensions of the scale by means of confirmatory factor analysis (n = 553). It is found that tourist trust is a first-order four-factor model consisting of 4 dimensions: trust in experience, trust in security and safety, trust in friendship, and trust in destination benefits. The questionnaire of tourist trust is composed of 17 items. The scale developed in this paper fills in the blank of measuring tourist trust from the perspective of interest, and provides support for the recognition, construction and management of tourist trust.