Make It Memorable: Tourism Experience, Fun, Recommendation and Revisit Intentions of Chinese Outbound Tourists

Xin Chen, Zhen-feng Cheng and Gyu-Bae Kim
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Xin Chen: College of Landscape Architecture and Tourism, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071000, China
Zhen-feng Cheng: Department of Economics and Trade, Guangzhou College of Technology and Business, Guangzhou 510850, China
Gyu-Bae Kim: Department of Business Administration, Daejeon University, Daejeon 34520, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: Due to the fact that Chinese tourists are becoming the main players in the international tourism market, with large growth potential, this research empirically identifies the psychological factors that affect Chinese outbound tourists’ memorable tourism experiences (MTEs), and investigates the relationships among MTEs, the “fun” emotion, and their recommendation and revisit intentions based on the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model. In addition, the moderating role of perceived risk between the causal relationships among the “fun” emotion and recommendation and revisit intentions is identified. A total of 560 survey participants who had experienced overseas tourism in the last two years were selected as the target population, and the data from 413 valid surveys were empirically analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM). Chinese outbound tourists’ MTEs, such as hedonism, novelty, meaningfulness, and social interaction, are found to positively influence their experience of the “fun” emotion, such as emotional spark and flow. Additionally, it is found that when Chinese outbound tourists have achieved a high level of the “fun” emotion, their intentions to recommend and revisit their destination will be stronger. In addition, perceived risk is found to have a negative moderating role in the causal relationships among emotional spark and recommendation and revisit intentions, and also has negative moderating effects on the causal relationship between flow and recommendation intentions. This study provides important practical insights for how international tourist destination marketers and managers provide Chinese tourists with MTEs, and how to elicit the “fun” emotion and loyalty behaviors from Chinese tourists via the investigation of the mechanism of MTEs, fun, and recommendation and revisit intentions. It is also found that it is beneficial for international tourist destination managers to lower the level of tourists’ perceived risk to improve tourists’ recommendation and revisit intentions. These findings can aid in the development of more effective strategies to increase the market share and the international competitiveness of destinations.

Keywords: MTEs; fun; recommendation intention; revisit intention; perceived risk; Chinese outbound tourists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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