Culture, Carrying Capacity And Perceived Value On Tourists’ Satisfaction And Revisit Intention

Theory of Planned Behavior and Revisit Intention

Theory of Planned Behavior is a prevalent conceptual framework in the study of behaviors among human (Ajzen, 2002). TPB can also be applied to activities which are leisure-related (Ajzen & Driver, 1992) and has been adopted by many scholars in predicting and understanding intentions of individuals’ in various contexts which are leisure-related, including travel behavior (Chen et al., 2014; Han, 2015), gambling (Oh & Hsu, 2001; Flack & Morris, 2017), exercising behavior (Downs & Hausenblas, 2005; Gucciardi & Jackson, 2015), physical activity during spare time (Chatzisarantis et al., 2015), and outdoor recreation (Vagias et al., 2014; Shrestha & Burns, 2016). Moreover, TPB is also applied in other studies in explaining and forecasting intentions to take part outdoor recreationists and the results revealed that mindsets, subjective norms, and perceptions of behavioral control stimulate their intents to hunt (Hrubes et al., 2001). Subsequently, these findings suggested TPB can effectively forecast certain behaviors, intents and the basis of mindsets, subjective norms, and perceptions of behavioral control. Individuals who have positive mindsets and subjective norms with respect to a conduct, indicating better perceived behavioral control, leading to a strong intention of that individual to act under contemplation (Ajzen, 1991). Hence, this study seeks to investigate whether the TPB model can be utilized as a predictor to explain tourists’ intentions to revisit a tourism attraction which is governed by TPB.

Revisit Intention

Revisit intention is defined when a tourist visits a destination repeatedly (Oliver, 1997) while this particular tourist has a tendency to share constructive word-of-mouth with the others, eventually, turning it into a free marketing tool (Som & Badarneh, 2011). As tourism marketing is becoming more competitive, marketers in destinations have been emphasizing on generating the revisit intentions to tourism destinations (Choo et al., 2016; Tubey & Tubey, 2014). Moreover, the essential roles of revisit intention to destination are revealed in the past studies that they intend to create more notable and energetic trip experiences for tourists (Choo & Petrick, 2014; Ranjbarian & Pool, 2015). Several studies have also demonstrated the strong relationship between visitors’ satisfaction and intentions to revisit (Hutchinson et al., 2009; Orel & Kara, 2014).

Satisfaction

Tourist satisfaction was originated from the research of product and service quality in manufacturing (Lian & Wang, 2004). Oliver (1980) proposed a definition for satisfaction and it is defined as the comparison of expectations between before and after visiting a destination (Ramseook-Munhurrun et al., 2016). Tourists’ satisfaction is stated as the pleasure generated from the experience of dealing and involving in tourism activities (Carù & Cova, 2003). Subsequently, the tourism-related experience that the tourists gained is vital in differentiating between a destination and its competitors (Walls et al., 2011). Tourists satisfaction is also identified as one of the important factors to influence tourists’ forthcoming acquisition and intents to revisit (Choo et al., 2016) as tourists’ dissatisfaction may lead to unfavorable future behavioral intentions (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2000). Tourist satisfaction can also be defined as post-purchase which related to emotions about consumptions (Khuong & Duyen, 2017).

Culture

From cultural perspective, uniqueness of tourism from aboriginal tourism is a considerable as an element for branding (Ryan, 2005). Culture is a structure of emotions and concepts, an encounter, and invention by human beings in their societal lives, which is often acquired through realization (Koentjaraningrat, 1992). Additionally, cultural element covers uniqueness, authenticity, variety, and originality to help define a good tourism attraction as every culture is unique and is defined as the combination of elements that possessed by a particular destination (Damanik & Weber, 2006). Moreover, they also suggested that authenticity and originality are different in such a way authenticity correlates with antiquity and exoticism of an attraction where it combines characteristics which are natural, exoticism and earthy.

Carrying Capacity

Carrying capacity referred to the ultimate number of individuals that could visit a tourism destination without causing degradation to socio-cultural environment, physical, economic, and visitors’ satisfaction (World Tourism Organization, 1994). Tourism environmental carrying capacity was first presented by LaPage (1963) for the purpose of describing maximum capacity or carrying capacity (Wan, 2004). Consequently, degradation may happen to part of natural resources due to the increasing number of tourists in that particular tourism destination (Chin et al., 2016). Moreover, the minimum of resource space carrying capacity, tourism economic development carrying capacity, social carrying capacity and ecological environmental capacity help to define the amount of tourism activities of a destination (Du & Pu, 2013). Moreover, Wang and Xu (2015) demonstrated that the index system of tourism environmental carrying capacity can be established through different aspects of environment, namely, tourism resources environment, psychological environment, tourism social economic environment and ecological environment. Based on these ideas, further studies of carrying capacity was emphasized on the quantitative research of tourism environmental carrying capacity (Li, 2016).

Perceived Value

Perceived value is theorized as the understanding of consumer behavior with considerations on consumers’ attitudes and their feelings to comprehend the tendency of them being involved in the purchasing of specific products in a context which is competitive (Jamal et al., 2011). Conventionally, perceived value occurred to be a purpose of prices only, however, “value for money” was observed to be the main measure in its place (Gallarza & Saura, 2006). Then, the concept of perceived value is involved in tourism studies literature after applied at long last in the literature of marketing (Sanchez et al., 2006). Several research in the past have studied on the influences of perceived value on dissimilar features of tourists’ conducts, which include behavior related to post-purchase (Moliner et al., 2007; Petrick, 2004), satisfaction (Bajs, 2015; Lee et al., 2007; Ryu et al., 2008), behavioral intention (Bajs, 2015; Ryu et al., 2012), and loyalty (Gallarza & Saura, 2006). In a study by Jamal et al. (2011), the perceived value among tourists utilizing homestays in tourist destination was examined using multi-dimensional measure. Subsequently, these dimensions were further examined and integrated formatively, with these dimensions included functional (e.g., price, product/service, personnel, and establishment), communal and emotive value (Sanchez et. al., 2006). The consumers' overall assessment of a product or service is a trade-off between the costs and benefits realized (Bajs, 2015; Chen & Hu, 2010; Lee et al., 2007).

Hypotheses Development

Past studies (e.g., Boit & Doh, 2014; Kirom et al., 2018) revealed that culture has positive and significant impact towards tourists’ satisfaction. Subsequently, the attribute regarding a cultural destination demonstrated positive impression on the satisfaction of tourists visiting that specific destination (Putri, 2017). A well-preserved and promoted cultural destination does improve its tourists’ satisfaction. Previous studies concluded that the evaluation of carrying capacity of a tourism destination is related to tourism experience, namely, expectation and satisfaction (Mohamad et al., 2014; Shahrivar, 2012). At the level of a destination, a sustainable level of tourism must be accessed with the consideration of both quality of experience (QOE) among occupants and their quality of life (QOL) (Dioko & So, 2017) as well as their personal satisfaction (Andereck et al., 2007). Most studies suggested that perceived value results in satisfaction (Cronin et al., , 2000; Tam, 2000) in forecasting of behavioral intents. Moreover, the multi-dimensional scales developed for perceived value including function, communal and emotive value positively impacted tourists’ satisfaction (Bajs, 2015; Lee et al., 2007; Ryu et al., 2008), thus perceived value has a positive influence on satisfaction. Based on the existing research discussed above, the following hypotheses are formulated:

H1: Culture is positively related to tourists’ satisfaction.

H2: Carrying capacity is positively related to tourists’ satisfaction.

H3: Perceived values are positively related to tourists’ satisfaction.

Past studies emphasized the encouraging relationship between customers’ satisfaction and revisit intention (Canny & Hidayat, 2012; Thiumsak & Ruangkanjanases, 2016). It has indicated that tourists’ dissatisfaction will result in unfavourable future behavioral intentions (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2000). There have been several studies investigating the intentions to revisit among tourists and the findings are consistent with results from consumer behaviour investigation (Cheliah et al., 2019; Kim & Shim, 2019; Seetanah et al., 2018). The importance of travellers’ involvement was highlighted in defining their intents to revisit (Zhang et al., 2018). Likewise, countless pragmatic studies in the past have established that involvement and satisfaction among tourists at a destination significantly determines their intents to revisit (Choo & Petrick, 2014; Ranjbarian & Pool, 2015; Um et al., 2006). Based on the existing research discussed above, the following hypothesis is formulated:

H4: Tourists’ satisfaction is positively related to revisit intention .

Culture, Perceived Values, and Carrying Capacity on Tourists’ Satisfaction

How would culture, perceived values, and carrying capacity influence the level satisfaction among tourists visiting SCV?

Tourists’ Satisfaction on Revisit Intention

How does tourists’ level of satisfaction affect their intentions to revisit to SCV?

Culture, Perceived Values, and Carrying Capacity towards Tourists’ Satisfaction and Revisit Intention

The purposes of this study are as follows:

• To investigate the influence of culture, perceived values, and carrying capacity towards the satisfaction level from the standpoints of both domestic and international tourists in Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV), Malaysia.

• This study intends to examine the impact of tourists’ satisfaction towards their intentions to revisit to SCV, Malaysia.

Assessment of the Measurement Model

Convergent validity, discriminant validity and reliability were conducted to measurement model according to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)approach. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), average variance extracted (AVE) values have to meet the minimum criteria of 0.50. Whereas, the composite reliability (CR) values to be refrained at minimum cut off point of 0.7 to be considered valid, as reference made to Chin (2010). With reference made to Bagozzi et al. (1991), the loadings have to be maintained at a minimum cut off point of not less than 0.5 to meet internal consistency, as shown on Table 02 . In order to show reliability and internal consistency of items (instrument), Cronbach’s alpha values were used for the test (Cronbach, 1951). Reference made to the outcome of the test; Cronbach alpha values were acceptable. The indications of the values are 0.60 interpreted as poorly indicated, 0.61 – 0.79 interpreted as acceptable, and above 0.80 is interpreted as good quoted by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994).

As for the discriminant validity report on Table 03 , square root of AVE is used to show the inter-correlation of the construct with other constructs in the research model, the values carried must be greater than each of the constructs’ correlation, as suggested by Chin (2010) to Fornell and Larcker (1981) criterion. Besides, Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ration is also been reported in support to discriminant validity as shown in Table 04 . Reference made to Kline (2011) and Gold, Malhotra, and Segars (2001) respectively, ratio should not exceed the threshold of 0.90 for HTMT. In conclusion, measurement model fulfilled all the criteria and proved sufficient level of reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity. For satisfaction and revisit intention, the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.685 and 0.632 respectively. These have shown that 68.5% of the construct of satisfaction and 63.2% of the revisit intention were well explained by the independent variables. Referred to Cohen (1988)’s suggested moderate indication, the (R2) was slightly above the moderate model of R2_0.33. Figure 01 below demonstrates the research model with t-values.

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Assessment of the Structural Model

The results from hypotheses testing have been exhibited on Table 05 , with the ruling that on one-tailed hypotheses testing, the t value have to be more than 1.645 or 2.33. The results have shown that culture, perceived values and carrying capacity were all have positive and significant relationships to satisfaction. On top of that, from tourists’ perception, satisfaction has very much influence indicating positively related to revisit intention, it is significant. In addition, variation inflation factor (VIF) values indicated that it was below 10, therefore it is very certain that there is no multicollinearity among constructs (Bock et al., 2005). According to Hair et al. (2016) suggestion, blindfolding technique need to be executed to obtain the Q2 value of more than zero value to explain predictive relevance. Hence, Table 06 recorded the values obtained for revisit intention and satisfaction is 0.510 and 0.590 respectively.

Culture and Tourists’ Satisfaction

The findings revealed that culture has a positive impact to satisfaction or as stated in hypothesis, culture is positively related to tourists’ satisfaction in Sarawak Cultural Village, thus supporting H1. This indicates that cultural elements lead to satisfaction by tourists as tourists intended to come to visit a destination with a motive of explore the culture of Sarawak in this living museum called Sarawak Cultural Village. Damanik and Weber (2006) posit that uniqueness, authenticity, variety and originality are factors that define a good tourism attraction as a good tourism attraction will lead to tourists’ satisfaction, and this is how the relationships developed between these constructs. With comparisons of tourists’ expectations with their actual perception on the destination, the positive feelings represent satisfaction (Ramseook-Munhurrun et al., 2015).

Carrying Capacity and Tourists’ Satisfaction

The present study found that carrying capacity is positively related to tourists’ satisfaction in Sarawak Cultural Village or in another words carrying capacity as a one of the variables has shown that it is a factor or satisfaction to tourists for their visits to SCV, thus H2 is supported. The factor of this carrying capacity has played a role in determining the satisfaction of visitors. As quoted by scholars, tourism environmental carrying capacity means the amount of tourism activities can be accommodated by a destination where the quality of the product will not be compromised in the long run (Wagar, 1964). This has clearly shown that the carrying capacity of SCV has definitely achieved tourists’ expectations. It is undeniable that SCV has more to offer for a single visit as it is spacious, rich in resources, with friendly staff. The destination does not give any impression of congestion which provides a pleasant visiting experience and is very much appreciated by visitors.

Perceived Value and Tourists’ Satisfaction

Pertaining on H3, perceived value is positively associated to tourists’ satisfaction in Sarawak Cultural Village. This underlines that the expectations on values perceived by tourists after visit to a destination will lead to satisfaction. Previous research had investigated on the effects of perceived values on different dimensions of tourists’ behaviour, mostly an after-purchase behaviour (Moliner et al., 2007; Petrick, 2004) on satisfaction (Bajs, 2015; Lee et al., 2007; Ryu et al., 2008), behavioural intention (Bajs, 2015; Ryu et al., 2012), and loyalty (Gallarza & Saura, 2006). As stated, satisfaction is clearly an effect of the cause which is the perceived values. Additionally, past literature highlighted the relationships between perceived values and satisfaction thus the results of the present study support H3.

Culture, Carrying Capacity, Perceived Value and Tourists’ Satisfaction

Cultural factor, carrying capacity, and perceived values were discovered as the factors that affect satisfaction among tourists. The present study attempts to examine tourists’ satisfaction and revisit intention and the results supports this notion thus supporting H4. There are supporting literatures proving that strong relationship between visitors’ satisfaction and the intentions to return and revisit the destinations (Choo et al., 2016; Tubey & Tubey, 2014). Since the industry of tourism is getting more challenging and competitive, revisit intentions of tourists to tourism or rural destination have been greatly emphasized by marketers.