Factors influencing tourists' shared bicycle loyalty in Hangzhou, China

Bin Zhou; Qihao Xiong; Ping Li; Ling-En Wang; Hu Yu; Jianying Jin

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1023308

Factors influencing tourists' shared bicycle loyalty in Hangzhou, China

Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 24:13:1023308. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1023308. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Bin Zhou¹, Qihao Xiong¹, Ping Li², Ling-En Wang³, Hu Yu³, Jianying Jin⁴

Affiliations

¹ Marine Economic Research Center, Donghai Academy/Yangtze River Delta Ecological Civilization Research Center/Department of Tourism, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
² HNU-ASU Joint International Tourism College, Hainan University, Haikou, China.
³ Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China.
⁴ College of Tourism, Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB), Mallorca, Spain.

Abstract

Focusing on Hangzhou, a famous tourist city in China, in this study, four regression models were constructed through four items of tourist loyalty to investigate the influence of tourist perceptions and characteristics on male and female tourist loyalty to shared bicycles. A questionnaire survey and ordered logistic regression model techniques were used. Survey data from 467 tourists indicated that there were significant differences between male and female tourists. For male tourists, their willingness to reuse shared bicycles (Models 1 and 2) was positively correlated with ease of access to cycles, environmental awareness, psychological benefit, and management provision; however, their willingness to recommend shared bicycles (Models 3 and 4) was only affected by environmental awareness, psychological benefit, and management provision. Among female tourists, willingness to reuse shared bicycles (Models 1 and 2) was affected by ease of access to cycles, environmental awareness, and rule adherence, while their willingness to recommend shared bicycles (Models 3 and 4) was affected by ease of access to cycles, environmental awareness, psychological benefit, and managerial provision. In addition, female tourists' socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics had a significant impact on their loyalty, among which length of stay in Hangzhou and education were significant in the four regression models, and number of visits to Hangzhou had a positive impact on female tourists' willingness to reuse (Models 1 and 2). In addition, female tourists who used Hellobike had higher willingness to reuse and recommend than those who used Mobike. For male tourists, only length of stay in Hangzhou had a significant impact on their reuse intention (Model 2). The current study extends the theory of attribution to explore the factors which may affect tourist's loyalty to bicycle-sharing from the perspectives of tourists' perceptions. It will provide further support to decision makers in the development of new shared-bicycle systems at Chinese tourist destinations, with the aim of strengthening tourist loyalty to shared-bicycle programs.

Keywords: Hangzhou; shared bicycle; tourist loyalty; tourist perceptions; transport.