Understanding sustainable homestay tourism as a driving factor of tourist's satisfaction through structural equation modelling: A case of Darjeeling Himalayan region, India

Abstract

It is impossible to maintain sustainable homestay tourism unless tourist are satisfied. In order to address this, the present research sought to look into the connection between sustainable Homestay tourism and tourist's satisfaction in Darjeeling Himalaya. The total number of participants undertaken for this research was 254 domestic and foreign tourists. Once data were obtained, this study evaluated three hypotheses using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results of the study contradict a commonly-held assumption that tourists are insensitive to sustainability. Results have shown that sustainable homestay tourism development is closely related to tourist satisfaction in three ways viz. socio-cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. According to this research, the prevalence of socio-cultural sustainability proved to be a significant predictor of visitor's satisfaction in the area studied (Hypothesis H1 was accepted). This research focused on two aspects of sustainable homestay tourism and tourists' satisfaction in a Darjeeling Himalayan region. This research has shown that both economic sustainability and tourist pleasure are strongly correlated. Hence, with the acceptance of Hypothesis H2, it was proved that the economic sustainability directly impacts the overall satisfaction of the tourists. However, the environmental component indirectly affects visitor satisfaction (Hypothesis H3 was rejected) and hence it may be partly due to the fact that the majority of the respondents were from different cultural backgrounds. Finally, this study includes a meaningful conclusion, theoretical and managerial consequences, and future research directions.