Examining The Relationships Among Tourist Characteristics,Satisfaction And Loyalty In Island Tourism

The exploitation of ocean and islands is a growing trend around the world.Along with the worldwide popularity of island tourism and the rapid development of island tourism in China,more and more Chinese researchers have investigated into the topic of island tourism.However,most existing literature concentrated on a macro perspective,while very few researchers have studied from the perspective of tourists.Since an island is far away from the inland and relatively isolated,island tourism relies much on the external market and the radius of the market outreach is also very limited.Therefore,enhancing tourist experience and cultivating tourist loyalty through accurate market positioning and better use of tourism resources may be an efficient way to improve the attraction,reputation and tourism revenue of an island,for loyal tourists represent not only a continuous source of income,but also reduce marketing costs by acting as channels of information to other potential travellers.Hence,it is of critical importance to learn about tourist loyalty in the context of island tourism.It is widely accepted that tourist satisfaction is a major antecedent of tourist loyalty.However,most researches concentrated on the relationship between tourist satisfaction and loyalty have treated satisfaction as a global concept,namely,overall satisfaction,while little attention was paid to the relationship between attribute satisfaction and tourist loyalty.Besides,a lot of researchers have attempted to identify the distinctive characteristics of loyal tourists,while very few studies have investigated whether tourists' characteristics have direct impact on their loyalty.Therefore,taking the Weizhou Island in Guangxi as a pilot study area,this research applied a combination of SEM and Probit model method to investigate into the relationships among tourist characteristics,overall satisfaction,attribute satisfaction and loyalty.The results show that:(1)Overall satisfaction has a significant and positive impact on tourist loyalty;(2)Attribute satisfaction has no direct impact on tourist loyalty;(3)The influence of overall satisfaction on recommendation intention was higher than that of revisit intention,with overall satisfaction increases to one higher level,the likelihood for a tourist to choose being willing to recommend increases by 21.7%,while the likelihood for a tourist to choose being willing to revisit rises by 16.4%;(4)As to the satisfaction towards island attributes,both the satisfaction on the environment and the satisfaction towards service display a significant and direct effect on overall satisfaction,whereas the satisfaction on the infrastructure does not impose any direct effect on overall satisfaction;(5)Satisfaction on the site congestion has the most significant effect on tourist overall satisfaction;(6)Travelling with families or friends both exhibit a significant and positive effect on tourist loyalty;(7)The more attractions a tourist visits on a destination,the less likely she or he will revisit the destination,with the number of toured attractions increases by one more,the likelihood for a tourist to choose to revisit falls by 6.5%;(8)The longer a tourist stays on a destination,the more likely she or he will recommend the destination to others,with the length of stay increases by one more day,the likelihood for a tourist to choose to recommend the destination increases by 5.50%;(9)Tourists with the experience of travelling outbound will be less likely to revisit and recommend;(10)Tourists with higher education levels are more satisfied,while gender,age,income,travel distance,travel cost and the number of recreational activities participated have no impact on tourist satisfaction and loyalty.Finally,based on the findings,this study provides the local managers with some practical advices on better allocating resources to enhance the experience of tourists and ultimately lead to tourist loyalty.Management suggestions and political implications are also given for the sustainable development of island tourism in China.