Although tourism studies have shown that improved service quality will contribute to increased visitor satisfaction, and both of them influence visitors’ future behavioral intentions, there is still a lack of guidance in the tourism marketing literature in understanding the interrelationships among service quality, visitor satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Findings on the mediating role of visitor satisfaction in the relationship between service quality and behavioral intentions are mixed, and thus it needs further investigation. This study adopted Cole and Scott’s1 touristexperience model, which portrays a sequential pattern among performance quality/attribute-level service quality, experience quality/transactionlevel satisfaction, overall satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. The model was tested using data collected from 413 visitors to a rural heritage festival. Structural equation modeling analysis procedures were applied and the mediating role of transaction-level satisfaction and global-level satisfaction was confirmed. In addition, experience quality was found to have a direct impact on visitors’ future behavioral intentions. The practical implications for festival organizers and limitations of the study were discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of a downtown festival’s attributes (programs, amenities and entertainment quality) on visitors’ overall experience, their levels of satisfaction and intentions to return. A theoretical model depicting the relationships among festival attributes, experience quality, overall satisfaction and revisit intention was examined using path analysis. The fi nal model suggests entertainment quality of the festival had the strongest impact on visitors’ overall experience at the festival, their satisfaction and intentions to return. All three festival attribute categories studied had direct impacts on visitors’ overall experience, but only entertainment quality directly contributed to visitor satisfaction and re-visit intention. Implications and limitations of the study were also discussed.

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This project examined the Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS), which measures residents’ attitudes toward sustainable tourism. This study has two major purposes: (1) to reassess reliability and construct validity of the 44-item SUS-TAS using confirmatory factor analysis and (2) to identify a shorter version of the SUS-TAS that would not compromise the scale’s psychometric properties. To accomplish these purposes, an empirical study was conducted in rural Orange County, Indiana. Findings support a seven-dimension SUS-TAS model using 27 items that maintained construct validity and internal consistency.

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Abstract:Local residents play an important role in the process of sustainable development in tourism. Resident support for tourism development contributes to the health of tourism industry and successful community development. Therefore, it is in the best interest of local residents, the tourism industry, and tourists, that residents have a positive outlook on and positive experiences with tourism development. In order to understand resident support for tourism development from tourism impacts and community quality of life perspective within the rural communities of Orange County, Indiana, USA, this study has examined a proposed structural model which incorporates eight latent variables: (a) six types of positive and negative tourism impacts serve as exogenous latent variables; (b) tourism-related community quality of life (TCQOL) is proposed as the mediating variable; and (c) resident support for tourism development is the ultimate dependent variable. The results show that both sociocultural and environmental benefits contribute to the host community's living experience. Economic and sociocultural benefits, negative sociocultural and environmental impacts, and TCQOL influence resident support for tourism development. This study identified specific tourism impacts that affect TCQOL and resident support for local tourism development. This study affirms that community quality of life (QOL) serves an effective predictor of support for tourism development.

Findings from existing research that compares Web-based survey and traditional survey methods have been inconclusive. This study compares responses from a Web-based survey and those from a paper-and-pencil survey in terms of response rates, data quality, demographic profiles of respondents, internal consistency of scales, and responses to items among American Society of Travel Agents members. Two samples from the same population were randomly assigned to receive the questionnaire either by e-mail notices or by postal mail. Several differences were found between the Web-based survey and the paper-and-pencil survey. The response rate to the Web-based survey was lower than that to the mail survey. The Web-based survey had more missing data fields than the mail survey. The two groups differed in 15.3% of the total items in the data set. Web respondents’ mean scores to the five scales were consistently lower than those of mail respondents.

This article was conducted to clarify differences between online travel product shoppers and nonshoppers using the Engel, Black, and Miniard (EBM) consumer decision process model as the theoretical framework. Using 6 store characteristics and 10 personal characteristics, findings suggested that shoppers and nonshoppers were similar in how they viewed differences between Internet shopping and shopping at traditional stores (store characteristics). However, shoppers and nonshoppers differed on personal characteristics. Findings provided evidence for the usefulness of the EBM model when determining personal characteristic differences between shoppers and nonshoppers but not for store characteristics.