A model of destination consumption, attitude, religious involvement, satisfaction, and revisit intention

Abstract

This study aimed to develop the destination consumption-customer attitude model to explain tourist travel satisfaction and revisit intention with the moderating effect of religious involvement. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire. Respondents of 392 tourists who visited four major Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan have been analysed, and research hypotheses were assessed by employing partial linear square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that destination consumption has positive and significant effects on rational attitude and emotional attitude toward revisiting a destination, which further facilitates travel satisfaction and revisit intention. Furthermore, this study supported the moderating role of religious involvement on the influence of national and emotional attitude and travel satisfaction on revisit intention. The results emphasized that symbolic experiential and functional consumption of a certain religious destination will significantly influence the rational and emotional attitudes toward revisiting the same destination. These results suggested that destination marketer should design a tourist’s destination consumption based on not only functional factors but also symbolic factors (such as self-concept, lifestyle, and destination) and experiential factors (such as entertainment, joy, pleasure, escape). Since the issues of destination consumption were still subject to further validation, this study provided an important reference for destination marketing to develop marketing strategies. The results were also valuable to provide as a theoretical base for further empirical validation.