Place identity as a mediator between motivation and tourist loyalty in 'red tourism'

Qiwen Dai; Shan Peng; Zijing Guo; Chunyu Zhang; Yanhong Dai; Wenjie Hao; Yanqiao Zheng; Wei Xu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0284574

Place identity as a mediator between motivation and tourist loyalty in 'red tourism'

PLoS One. 2023 Oct 27;18(10):e0284574. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284574. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Qiwen Dai^{1

2}, Shan Peng¹, Zijing Guo¹, Chunyu Zhang¹, Yanhong Dai¹, Wenjie Hao³, Yanqiao Zheng⁴, Wei Xu⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Management, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, Guangxi, China.
² Pearl River-Xijiang River Economic Belt Development Institute, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, Guangxi, China.
³ School of Economics, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China.
⁴ School of Finance, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
⁵ School of Culture and Communication, Guilin Tourism University, Guilin, Guangxi, China.

Abstract

This paper constructs a theoretical analysis model based on the theories of planned behaviour, consumer emotion and identity by surveying tourists in Zunyi city, China and employing structural equation modelling to explore the influence mechanisms of tourist motivation, satisfaction and place identity on the loyalty of 'red tourism'. The research results demonstrated a relationship between tourist motivation, satisfaction, place identity and tourist loyalty and thus confirmed the theoretical model. Tourist satisfaction and place identity are important means by which tourist motivation affects the loyalty of red tourism. However, tourist motivation cannot directly affect red tourism loyalty, though it can indirectly affect it via satisfaction and place identity. Tourist motivation not only directly influences the satisfaction of red tourism but also indirectly influences it through place identity. Furthermore, tourist motivation affects place identity. The mere recognition of place identity does not automatically attract tourists' loyalty but can, through their experiencing satisfaction, indirectly inspire it. Nevertheless, place identity can only directly affect tourist satisfaction, and tourist satisfaction can only directly affect red tourism loyalty.

Copyright: © 2023 Dai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Emotions
Latent Class Analysis
Motivation*
Tourism*

Grants and funding

This work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42061027); the Innovation-driven Development Foundation of Guangxi (Guike AA20302011); the Science and Technology Plan Foundation of Guangxi (Guike AD20159071); the Philosophy and Social Science Planning Foundation of Guangxi (20CJY004); the Thousands of Young and Middle-aged Backbone Teachers Training Foundation of Guangxi Universities (2022QGRW002); and the Graduate Innovation Project of School of Economics and Management, Guangxi Normal University (JG2022027). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.