The effects of motivation, past experience, perceived constraint, and attitude on tourist revisit intention

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding tourist revisit behavior in the context of mainland Chinese travelers to Hong Kong as the destination. The study investigated the effects of motivation, past experience, perceived constraint, and attitude on revisit intention by employing structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis on data collected from mainland Chinese who had visited Hong Kong in the past. In the proposed model, tourist motivation, past travel experience, and perceived constraint were designated exogenous variables, while attitude and revisit intention were endogenous variables. Past travel experience was operationalized to include 2 constructs: overall satisfaction based on past travel experience, and past visitation measured by the number of past visits.; Data were collected through telephone interviews (n=501) and analyzed using SPSS and LISREL. Travel motivation was found to have 4 underlying factors: Novelty, Knowledge, Relaxation, and Shopping. Perceived constraint was found to have 3 underlying factors: Structural, Interpersonal, and Disinterest Constraints. The structural relations can be described as the following: (1) novelty had a positive effect on attitude, but its effect on revisit intention was insignificant; (2) knowledge did not have an influence on either attitude or revisit intention; (3) relaxation had a positive effect on attitude, but its effect on revisit intention was insignificant; (4) although shopping did not significantly affect attitude, it did have a positive effect on revisit intention; (5) past visitation, as measured by the number of past visits, did not influence attitude, but its effect on revisit intention was significant; (6) satisfaction had a positive effect on both attitude and revisit intention, with the effect on attitude being much stronger than that on revisit intention; (7) neither the structural nor the interpersonal constraints dimension had a significant effect on revisit intention; (8) disinterest had a very strong negative effect on revisit intention; and (9) attitude was found to have a positive effect on revisit intention, thereby playing mediating roles among motivation, past travel experience, and revisit intention.