The effect of prior destination experience on current trip behavior
Abstract
The international repeat travel market has become a very important and substantial area of interest for travel destinations both in terms of market size and economic impact. However, this market has been understudied. Using the Inflight Survey of International Travelers to the United States collected by the US Tourism Industries, this research applied consumer involvement theory to describe, interrelate and explain the repeat visitation phenomena and empirically tested the effect of past experience on travelers' current trip behavior. The research subjects were leisure travelers from the United Kingdom and Germany. This research makes several contributions. From a theoretical point of view, the research developed and tested a conceptual model based on Consumer Involvement Theory. It was a significant application of this theory in the field of tourism in explaining travel behavior. The result of the study suggested that destination involvement appeared to be a multi-dimensional phenomenon. The relationships of the different facets of destination involvement could be measured and represented by behavioral variables. The four dimensions of destination involvement, namely prior involvement, risk involvement, activity involvement and economic involvement were interrelated. From an empirical perspective, this research demonstrated that destination behavior did change with travelers' accumulated experiences. The findings show that prior destination experience influences current trip behavior in trip planning behavior as well as destination activity participation and that it does not influence expenditure level. It was noted that demographics and socio-economics of travelers exerted strong effects on travelers' expenditure pattern. The study also makes important contributions to the tourism industry in providing insights and implications for marketing and promotion, destination product planning and development. Knowledge about the use of destination products will reveal tourism resource use pattern, and planners will be able to understand what offerings are done right, what are not offered but wanted by the target market and what are totally mismatched with the targeted market needs. Limitation of the study and future research direction were also addressed.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
O'Leary, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Recreation
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