Quality of visitor attractions, satisfaction, benefits and behavioural intentions of visitors: verification of a model

Abstract

Keywords: tourist attractions; quality; satisfaction; benefi ts; behavioural intentions; structural equation modelling. INTRODUCTIONI t is generally believed that a leading factor responsible for the success of visitor attractions is satisfaction of visitors (Prentice, 1993;Swarbrooke, 1995;Middleton, 1996). However, empirical studies do not support this thesis explicitly.One of the fi rst theories explaining the process of events taking place during leisure activities was Brown's (1984) Recreation Opportunity Spectrum. For the fi rst time, attention was paid to the process of mutually determined events taking place during leisure activity. Brown said that an activity undertaken in specifi c conditions evokes experiences as a result of which specifi c benefi ts are achieved. On the basis of Brown's model and Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats (SWOT) analysis, Prentice (1995) and Nowacki (2000) carried out studies of people who were visiting attractions. On the other hand, Moscardo (1996Moscardo ( , 1999 noted that the key factor for satisfaction of visitors is their state of mindfulness and knowledge acquired during the visit. It is caused by two groups of factors: exhibition factors (variety of exhibition, media, novelty, questions, multimedia and marking) and visitor factors (interest and fatigue). Both have a direct impact on mindfulness of visitors. Moreover, exhibition factors also have an infl uence on visitor factors, that is, interest and fatigue. Another factor that affects satisfaction is quality. However, as demonstrated by Jensen (2004) verifying Herzberg's theory (1996, in the conditions of visitor attractions, quality does not affect satisfaction directly but indirectly through perception of gained benefi ts.For managers of tourist attractions, visitors' future intentions towards the attraction, in particular the willingness to visit again, are more important than visitors' satisfaction. Baker and Crompton (2000), while studying the relations between quality, satisfaction and behavioural intentions, found that although quality affects satisfaction and satisfaction affects intentions, perception of quality (as they defi ned it -service provider's performance) has a much stronger total effect on behavioural intentions than satisfaction. Moreover, the authors assumed a unidirectional infl uence of quality on satisfaction. At Gotleib et al. (1994), suggested that this relation is two-way: positive mood infl uences good assessment of the quality of infrastructure. Tomas et al. (2002) proposed a model integrating the above variables: quality, satisfaction, benefi ts and behavioural intentions. The quality of product was made up of educational factors, exhibition of animals, general information, staff, comfort, detailed information and quality of infrastructure. Benefi ts included factors of introspection, knowledge, spending time with family, escape, watching animals and spending time with friends. The scholars demonstrated the relation between the quality of product and behavioural intentions, b...

Evaluating individual preferences for the British Museum

“…Thus, there are those studies that focus on visitor satisfaction (Leask 2010;Devesa et al 2010), the quality of the experience (Alcaraz et al 2009), or participation trends (Andersson and Getz 2009;der Ark and Richards 2006). In particular, the quality of the visitation experience has gained a lot of prominence in the relevant literature over the years (Nowacki 2009;Kapur and Weisbrod 2000;Richards 2000;Pearce et al 2000). The reason as to why the quality of the visitor experience has gained so much prominence rests on the fact that government decision-making in the area has focused on a more demand-driven approach for the development of cultural tourist attractions (Andersson and Getz 2009;Choi et al 2010;Chen and Chen 2010).…”

A Heritage Interpretation-Based Itinerary to Enhance Tourist Use of Traditional Rural Buildings

“…(4) In this study, the tourist profile was investigated before the trip (for planning the tourist itinerary), and it would be advisable to review it when tourists make their first evaluations (i.e., during the itinerary) as well as at the end of the tour when they make the final assessments and are better able to gauge their future preferences [43]. The final assessment of the HII may be carried out by means of questionnaires or interviews and investigate the socio-economic characteristics of the tourists, the value of the tourism service (benefits gained and costs), the quality of the tourist services (analysis of the characteristics of a service capable of meeting visitors' needs), the degree of tourist satisfaction (perceived performance compared to expectations) [43][44][45][46][47][48], the relationship between reasons for the visit and the degree of satisfaction [49], and the relationship between service quality and satisfaction [50]. (5) The promotion of the HII must be done through the cooperation between public and private partners and the direct involvement of the local community [1].…”

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“…An alternative approach to measuring overall satisfaction using multiple items is a semantic differential scale (Nowacki, 2009;Tian-Cole et al, 2002). For example, Nowacki (2009) asked visitors to four tourist attractions in Poland to identify if their experience was 'boring versus interesting', 'tiring versus relaxing', and 'irritating versus pleasant'. Satisfaction, measured as quality of experience (Table 1, concept 1b), is the most problematic of all the research concepts (ii).…”

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