THE IMPACT OF TRAVEL EXPERIENCE, TRAVEL MOTIVATION, AND DESTINATION IMAGE ON TOURISTS’ REVISIT INTENTION TO ECOTOURISM

Abstract

Although there are great body of studies examining relationships among factors and revisit intention in mass tourism, investigation of the association among tourist attitude, destination image, and revisit intention on ecotourism have received less attention. Therefore, this research examined the impact of travel experience, travel motivation, destination image on revisit intention to ecotourism. The research was operationalized using empirical data collected from 423 domestic tourists visiting eco-sites in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the causal relationships. The findings show that tourist travel motivation and experience positively influence revisit intention transferred through their attitude toward ecotourism, and that eco-destination image play a critical role in strengthening the effect of travel motivation and past experience on revisit intention. This paper contributes by investigating a tourist’s emotion-behavior model to ecotourism literature and both sides (supply and demand) in managerial implications. Ecotourism managers may increase tourist revisit intention through building positive eco-destination image and evaluating tourist attitude for market segments.