MEMORABLE TOURISM EXPERIENCES AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO BEHAVIOURAL INTENTION

 

Dr. R. Satheeshkumar ¹, Ajith Kumar S.J ²,  Keith Shirlvin Nigli ³,  Paritosh Dabral ⁴, Sushma Rawath ⁵

 

¹ Professor, Department of M.B.A, Surana College, Kengeri Campus, KST, Bangalore, Karnataka-560060, India

² Assistant Professor, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

³ Associate Professor, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

⁴ Assistant Professor, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

⁵ Assistant Professor, Department of MBA, Surana College, Kengeri, KST, Bangalore, India

 

1. INTRODUCTION

Foreign countries are increasingly visited by Indians every year in a large number. Over the last 50 years, tourism has expanded dramatically and has become a global industry. It includes diverse number of activities. People travel mainly to feel pleasure and get memorable experience and that joyful experiences that they do get from a particular place which makes them to travel to a place again and again.

Basic Concepts and Factors of Memorable Tourism Experience

The key factors were hedonic, novelty, local culture, refreshing, meaningfulness, involvement, knowledge, adverse feeling, and behaviour intention.

Key Factors of Memorable Tourism Experience

Novelty is the quality of being new or following from that of being striking, original or unusual. Novelty may be the shared experience of a new cultural phenomenon or the subjective perception of an individual.

Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that pleasure and happiness are the primary or most important intrinsic goods and the proper aim of human life. A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain), but when finally gained of that pleasure either through intrinsic or extrinsic/goods, happiness remains stationery.

Local Culture is commonly used to characterize the experience of everyday life in specific, identifiable localities.it reflects ordinary people’s feelings of appropriateness, comfort, and correctness-attributes that define personal preferences and changing tastes.

Refreshing serving to refresh or reinvigorate someone.

Involvement-the fact or condition of being involved with or participating in something.

Knowledge-is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such a facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning.

Adverse Effect-unfavourable or antagonistic in purpose or effect; opposing one’s interests or desire, being or acting, in a contrary direction, opposed or opposing, opposite; confronting.

Behavioural intention is defined as a person’s perceived likelihood or subjective probability that he or she will engage in a given behaviour.

 

1.1. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will focus more on how a traveller’s memorable experience about a particular destination has the effect on his/her behaviour intention in choosing a particular tourism destination and what is the relationship between them. Memorable experience can be termed as a certain type of experience which will make a person to choose the same type of destination over and over again.

 

1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1)     To identify the factors of memorable tourism experiences of travellers

2)     To find out the relationship between factors of memorable tourism experiences and behaviour intention.

 

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Zatori (2013) found that tourism is a leisure activity, and it is a source of memorable experiences from the consumer’s standpoint. The experience at the destination explains most definitions related to tourism experiences

Tussyadiah (2014) found that quality tourism experiences has become the essence of tourism. Specifically in services research, experience design is gaining momentum in business literature. There is a desire among tourism researchers and businesses to treat tourism as an experience production system, as tourism is often considered the biggest producer of experiences.

Fesenmaier (2017) discovered that tourism experience results from dreaming and collecting information for a future trip and from reflecting back and talking about a previous trip and not just based upon on-site activities. People can express their thoughts or feelings simply by updating their status or changing their wall photo, which in turn, leads to a more dramatic outcome whereby friends actually share experiences and other researchers suggest that certain features of social media force individuals to change the way they share experiences. To shape the direction and degree of the economic, socio, and environmental impacts of tourism development depends on the extent to which members of a community have input, feel ownership, and participate in the planning and development of their own tourism industry. By considering the nature of the interaction between media and people, which has been studied in the fields of psychology, sociology and communication and building upon this literature, it is argued that the impact of social media on the tourism experience can be best understood.

Lund (2013) said that the concept of wilderness has been embraced in the context of landscape conservation in the case of Iceland. Between nature and culture and human and non-human forces, the idea of wilderness has always implied blurred boundaries. How the landscape is in a constant flux of becoming depends upon the sense of atmosphere.

Chui et al. (2010) said that to understand the overall experience, theoretically and practically, creating pleasant services cape in the minds of customers is necessary. In destination marketing strategies, experiences cape and services cape go hand in hand in ensuring success.

Mance (2014) discovered a successfully sold experience is a good business opportunity because it is well-designed, managed, organized and marketed. The way company involves and engages consumers then experience emerges.

Jong-Hyeong (2009) Expectations play a prominent role in a variety of consumer experiences, including leisure and tourism experiences have been recognized by a number a researcher studying the function of expectations. The influence of personal attachment to customer experience has been supported in a number of empirical studies in the literature of marketing.

Yadav and Krishnan (2017) found that Tourism is a major driven subject when it comes for promotion of a place and also it is one of the drivers for Indian economy because it helps in providing employment to a large number of masses. Tourism processes involve both emotional as well as cognitive behaviour.

Prayag et al. (2013) from the research it is evident that emotion has received good recognition in tourism. Positive emotions of the people are captured by destinations. Satisfactions and behaviour intentions along with its relationship are focused well in tourism literatures. When a consumption experience is appraised, satisfaction is a positive reaction resulting out of it. In marketing and tourism research, modelling behaviour intentions remain an important topic.

 

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Researcher has adopted the descriptive research for the study purpose. The responses has been collected using the structured questionnaire from the respondent and some the related information has been collected from secondary data. The key factors were hedonic, novelty, local culture, refreshing, meaningfulness, involvement, knowledge, adverse feeling, and behaviour intention. The proposed model was that these seven factors has some relationship with the memorable tourism experience and behavioural intention.

 

3.1. POPULATION OF THE STUDY

The research questionnaire was prepared, and it was forwarded to travel groups who has account in social media like Facebook and Instagram.

 

3.2. SELECTION OF RESPONDENTS

The respondents were mainly people from travellers who have made travel groups in social media and travelled to various countries across the world.

 

3.3. INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION

The goggle form-based questionnaire has been circulated to the travel group in the social media and responses has been collected from the members of travel group. Total number of responses collected from the travel group are 200 and it took almost a time span of 3 months to get the responses from the respondent.

 

3.4. ADMINISTRATION OF QUESTIONNAIRE

The questionnaire comprise of nine factors. Each factor has its own set of questions relating to the tourism experience and destination revisit intention.7 point likert scale has been used to measure the travellers’ opinions regarding their tourism experiences and their behavioural intention. Demographic variables like gender, age, purpose of visit, type of accommodation, travel cost, travel companion, mode of transportation and nationality of the respondents also have been collected. Majority of the responses were from India, USA, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, and France and followed by European countries. Countries were coded into continents for process simplification.

Table 1

Table 1 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy
KMO Value	Degree of Reliability
0.9 to 1.00	Marvellous
0.80 to 0.89	Meritorious
0.70 to 0.79	Middling
0.60 to 0.69	Mediocre
0.50 to 0.59	Miserable
0.00 to 0.49	Unacceptable
Source Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy, 1970 & 1974

 

Table 2

Table 2
KMO Test	0.862
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi square	4.973
Df	378
significance	.000
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is observed from the above table that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy has KMO value of .862 which fall between the ranges of 0.80 to 0.89 which indicates the meritorious degree of reliability as per the KMO and Bartlett's test.

 

3.5. STATISTICS TOOLS APPLIED FOR STUDY

The SPSS and AMOS software have been applied and results were obtained. Relevant tests were made, and solutions were obtained.

 

4. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Table 3

Table 3 Gender of the respondents
Sl. No	Gender of the Respondents	Frequency	Percent
1	Male	109	54.5
2	Female	91	45.5
	Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that 54.5 Percent of the respondents are male and rest 45.5 Percent of the respondents were female.

Table 4

Table 4 Age of the respondents
Sl. No	Type of respondents	Frequency	Percent
1	Youth	32	16
2	Adults	153	76.5
3	Senior citizens	15	7.5
	Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that 76.5% of the respondents are adults and followed by Youth with 16 % and a meagre amount of 7.5% were recorded from senior citizens.

Table 5

Table 5 Nationality of the respondents
Sl. No	Continent	Frequency	Percent
1	Asia	127	63.5
2	North America	25	12.5
3	Oceania	6	3
4	Europe	42	21
	Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that 63.5% of the respondents are from the continent of Asia, 21% of the respondents are from European continent, followed by North America with 12.5% and Oceania with a meagre 3 %.

Table 6

Table 6 Type of accommodation preferred by the travellers during travel
Type of accommodation during travel	No. of. Respondents	Percentage
1.Luxury hotels (5 star and above)	10	5
2.Hotels, OYO Room	7	3.5
3.Hotels, Motels, Cabins	5	2.5
4.Hotels, Motels	5	2.5
5.Hotels, Friends and relatives house, home stays	3	1.5
6.Hotels, Friends and relatives house, Cruise ship	2	1
7.Hotels, Friends, and relatives house	10	5
8. Hotels, Camping, Friends and relatives house, home stays, OYO Room	3	1.5
9. Hotels, Cabins	2	1
10.Hotels, Air B & B, OYO Room	1	0.5
11.Hotels	145	72.5
12.Home stays	2	1
13. Camping, Friends and relatives house, Hostels, Home stays, Air B & B	1	0.5
14. Cabins, Home stays, Air B & B	2	1
15.Cabins	2	1
Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that 72.5% of the travellers opt towards hotels for their accommodation than other forms of accommodation. 0.5 Percentage of the travellers said that Hotels, Air B & B, OYO Room are the least preferred type of accommodation by the travels during travel.

Table 7

Table 7 Purpose of travel
Purpose of travel	No. of. Respondents	Percentage
1.Pleasure	85	42.5
2.Pleasure, Relaxing	9	4.5
3.Pleasure, Relaxing, Business	1	0.5
4.Pleasure, Relaxing, Volunteer	3	1.5
5.Pleasure, Visiting Friends, and relatives	73	36.5
6.Pleasure, Visiting Friends and relatives, Business	1	0.5
7.Pleasure, Visiting Friends, and relatives, Relaxing	13	6.5
8.Pleasure, Visiting Friends, and relatives, Relaxing, Business	1	0.5
9.Pleasure, Visiting Friends, and relatives, Relaxing, Volunteer	1	0.5
10.Relaxing	4	2
11.Relaxing, Business	1	0.5
12. Relaxing, Explore new places	1	0.5
13. Relaxing, to get lifetime experience and to know people and culture	1	0.5
14. Relaxing, Volunteer	2	1
15.Visiting Friends and relatives	4	2
Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that purpose of travellers’ visit amongst major group of travellers are pleasure with 42.50 % and followed by 36.5 % of the travellers’ are travelling for pleasure as well as visiting friends and relatives. The study shows that 46.5% travellers go to travel with their family members and friends compared to their peers. Pleasure, Visiting Friends, and relatives, Relaxing, Business, Relaxing, to get lifetime experience and to know people and culture are the least purpose of travel by the travellers (0.5%).

Table 8

Table 8 Mode of transportation preferred by the travellers during travel
Transportation	No. of. Responde nts	Percentage
1. Rental Vehicle, Public transport	1	0.5
2. Public transport	5	2.5
3. Own vehicle, Rental Vehicle, Public transport	2	1
4. Own vehicle, public transport	3	1.5
5. Own vehicle	14	7
6. Airplane, Rental Vehicle, Public transport	1	0.5
7. Airplane, Rental Vehicle	3	1.5
8. Airplane, Public transport	2	1
9. Airplane, Own vehicle, Rental Vehicle, Public transport	4	2
10. Airplane, Own vehicle, Rental Vehicle	4	2
11. Airplane, Own vehicle, public transport	3	1.5
12. Airplane, Own vehicle	55	27.5
13. Airplane	103	51.5
Total	200	100
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

 

 

Interpretation

It is inferred from the study that 51.5% of the travellers prefers airplane as the mode of their transportation followed by airplane and their own vehicle 27.5% are the next mode of transportation preferred by the travellers during travel. Airplane, Rental Vehicle, Public transport is the least preferred mode of transportation by the travellers (0.5%) during travel.

Table 9

Table 9 Descriptive Statistics on various factors of memorable tourism experiences Objective: To identify the factors of memorable tourism experiences
Factors of memorable tourism experiences	Mean	Standard deviation	N
Hedonic Factor	3.0062	1.6305	200
Novelty Factor	3.3487	1.8868	200
Local Culture Factor	3.37	1.8097	200
Refreshing Factor	3.0375	1.7415	200
Involvement Factor	3.105	1.685	200
Knowledge Factor	3.1883	1.742	200
Adverse Effect Factor	3.4988	1.7465	200
Behaviour Intention	3.1817	1.7713	200
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

It is observed from the above table that adverse effect factor has the highest mean value of 3.4988 and hedonic factor has the least mean value of 3.0062 amongst the different factors of memorable tourism experiences. It is also observed from the above table that novelty factor has the highest standard deviation of 1.8868 and hedonic factor has the least standard deviation of 1.6305 amongst the different factors of memorable tourism experiences. It is inferred that hedonic factor has the least mean value of 3.0062 and novelty factor has the highest standard deviation of 1.8868 which does not result in memorable tourism experience.

Table 10

Table 10 Correlation Analysis
	Hedonic Factor	Novelty Factor	Local Culture Factor	Refreshing Factor	Involveme nt Factor	Knowledg e Factor	Adverse Effect Factor	Behaviour Intention
Hedonic	1	.258**	.128	.238**	.252**	.363**	.197**	.277**
Factor		.000	.070	.001	.000	.000	.005	.000
	200	200	200	200	200	200	200	200
Novelty	.258	1	.615	.483	.244	.193	.212	.174
Factor	.000	200	.000	.000	.000	.006	.003	.000
	200		200	200	200	200	200	200
Local	.128	.615	1	.601	.388	.309	.244	.202
Culture	.07	.000	200	.000	.000	.000	.000	.004
Factor	200	200		200	200	200	200	200
Refreshing	.238	.483	.601	1	.517	.427	.281	.242
Factor	.001	.000	.000	200	.000	.000	.000	.002
	200	200	200		200	200	200	200
Involvement	.252	.244	.388	.517	1	.605	.311	.284
Factor	.000	.000	.000	.000	200	.000	.000	.000
	200	200	200	200		200	200	200
Knowledge	.363	.193	.309	.427	.605	1	.431	.419
Factor	.000	.006	.000	.000	.000	200	.000	.000
	200	200	200	200	200		200	200
Adverse	.197	.212	.244	.281	.311	.431	1	.440
Effect	.005	.003	.000	.000	.000	.000	200	.000
Factor	200	200	200	200	200	200		200
Behaviour	.277	174	.202	.242	.284	.419	.440	1
Intention	.000	.000	.004	.002	.000	.000	.000	200
	200	200	200	200	200	200	200
Source of Data: Primary Data

 

Interpretation

Objective: To find out the relationship between factors of memorable tourism experiences and behaviour intention.

Hypothesis:

H0: Factors of memorable tourism experiences are not positively correlated with the behaviour intention.

H1: Factors of memorable tourism experiences are positively correlated with the behaviour intention.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Hedonic Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.277, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Novelty Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.174, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Local Culture Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.202, p =0.004<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Refreshing Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.242, p =0.002<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Involvement Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.284, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Knowledge Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.419, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Behaviour intention is positively correlated with the Adverse Effect of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.440, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level.

Hence H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted, and it is proven that Factors of memorable tourism experiences are positively correlated with the behaviour intention. Adverse Effect of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.440, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level and Knowledge Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.419, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level are highly correlated with Behaviour Intention.

 

5. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1. FINDINGS

54.5 Percent of the respondents are male and rest 45.5 Percent of the respondents were female. 76.5% of the respondents are adults and followed by Youth with 16 % and a meagre amount of 7.5% were recorded from senior citizens.

63.5% of the respondents are from the continent of Asia, 21% of the respondents are from European continent, followed by North America with 12.5% and Oceania with a meagre 3 %.

72.5% of the travellers opt towards hotels for their accommodation than other forms of accommodation. 0.5 Percentage of the travellers said that Hotels, Air B & B, OYO Room are the least preferred type of accommodation preferred by the travels during travel.

Purpose of travellers’ visit amongst major group of travellers are pleasure with 42.50 % and followed by 36.5 % of the travellers are travelling for pleasure as well as visiting friends and relatives. The study shows that 46.5% travellers go to travel with their family members and friends compared to their peers. Pleasure, visiting Friends and relatives, Relaxing, Business, Relaxing, to get lifetime experience and to know people and culture are the least purpose of travel by the travellers (0.5%).

51.5% of the travellers prefers airplane as the mode of their transportation followed by airplane and their own vehicle 27.5% are the next mode of transportation preferred by the travellers during travel. Airplane, Rental Vehicle, Public transport is the least preferred mode of transportation by the travellers (0.5%) during travel.

Hedonic factor has the least mean value of 3.0062 and novelty factor has the highest standard deviation of 1.8868 which does not result in memorable tourism experience.

Adverse Effect of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.440, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level and Knowledge Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.419, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level are highly correlated with Behaviour Intention.

 

5.2. SUGGESTION

0.5 Percentage of the travellers said that Hotels, Air B & B, OYO Room are the least preferred type of accommodation by the travellers during travel. Hotel, Air B&B, OYO Room has to make effective communication and promotion of their service in order to make themselves to be most preferred type of accommodation by the travellers during travel.

Airplane, Rental Vehicle, Public transport is the least preferred mode of transportation by the travellers (0.5%) during travel. Airplane, Rental Vehicle Service Providers and Public Transport Corporations has to make their services more affordable and accessible in order to make themselves to be most preferred mode of transportation by the travellers. Factors like Adverse Effect and Knowledge factors could be main focus area in the present scenario and alongside Hedonic, Novelty, Local Culture, and Involvement factors can be the focus area for the Hotel, Travel and Tourism service providers to create a strong memorable tourism experience amongst the travellers.

 

5.3. CONCLUSION

This research study was conducted to identify the factors of memorable tourism experience of travellers and its relationship with behavioural intention. The present study has thrown the light on know how people choose the particular destination based on their experiences and what is their behaviour towards the experience recorded. The key factors were hedonic, novelty, local culture, refreshing, meaningfulness, involvement, knowledge, adverse feeling, and behaviour intention. Adverse Effect of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.440, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level and Knowledge Factor of memorable tourism experiences (r =0.419, p =0.000<0.05) at 0.05 significance level are highly correlated with Behaviour Intention.

 

6. SCOPE OF FURTHER STUDY

More research work can be carried out by the researcher to identify what extend memorable tourism experience has the relationship behaviour intention and to revisit behaviour intention. Also, different other factors can be taken in consideration and tests can be made on how these factors has its relationship with memorable tourism experiences.

 

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

None. 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None.

 

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