We Cannot Give, What We Don’t Have: Tourist’s Satisfaction and Behavioral Intentions in Agri-Tourism Farm Site in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines

Abstract

The tourism and hospitality industry plays a crucial role in attracting tourists to destinations and bolstering the country’s economy. This study evaluated the tourist satisfaction at Lake Farm Dela Marre in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija. The assessment draws on the framework presented in Cariño et al.’s (2019) study, “Nature-Based Tourists’ Experience in Batangas Destinations,” focusing on responsiveness, tangibles, pricing, communication, assurance, empathy, and natural resources. Furthermore, the dimensions for assessing tourists’ behavioral intentions are adapted from Borbon et al.’s (2022) research, “Tourist Behavioral Intention in Visiting Tourist Attractions in Batangas Province,” which include willingness to pay more, revisit intention, intention to recommend, and loyalty. The research illuminates the connection between tourist satisfaction and behavioral intentions related to willingness to pay more, revisit intention, intention to recommend, and loyalty, contributing valuable insights to the Agri-tourism sector’s development in Nueva Ecija. The researchers employed Likert-scale questionnaires and conducted statistical analysis including frequency and percentage, weighted mean, t-tests, and Pearson-R correlation. The study adopted a quantitative descriptive research design. The findings of the study are crucial for shaping the framework of tourists’ behavioral intentions. The results indicate that tourists’ satisfaction with Lake Farm Dela Marre in terms of responsiveness, tangibles, price, communication, assurance, empathy, and natural resources was consistently rated as “Strongly Agree,” with a qualitative description of being highly satisfied. The study found no significant differences in satisfaction based on socio-demographic profiles such as sex and type of tourist. Similarly, there was no significant relationship between the number of visits and satisfaction across these dimensions at Lake Farm Dela Marre. Furthermore, the study concluded that there was no significant relationship between tourists’ behavioral intentions and their satisfaction at Lake Farm Dela Marre, leading to the acceptance of the null hypothesis. The study also provided an action plan aimed at enhancing tourists’ satisfaction for the management of Lake Farm Dela Marre in Nueva Ecija.