An integrated model of festival revisit intentions: Theory of planned behavior and festival quality/satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the determinants of current visitors’ festival revisit intentions. The concepts of festival quality and satisfaction were adapted and integrated with the theory of planned behavior (TPB) from social psychology to theorize a model of festival revisit intentions. In addition, given the importance of social characteristics in festival visiting behavior, the relative impacts of three modes of social influences (i.e. subjective norms, group norms and social identity) were investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

Statistical analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized relationships with the data collected onsite during the Nonsan Strawberry Festival, held in Nonsan, South Korea. The eleven constructs were incorporated into the structural model to examine the hypothesized relationships among the latent factors.

Findings

Results of the analyses indicated that the proposed model had an acceptable fit to the empirical data. The overall explanatory power of the model had an R² of 84 per cent for revisit intention and an R² of 60 per cent for satisfaction. Satisfaction was found to be the strongest predictor of visitors’ revisit intensions, followed by social identity, subjective norms and group norms.

Research limitations/implications

This study developed an integrated model to explain festival visitors’ revisit intentions by adopting not only visitors’ personal evaluation of the festival experience and but also a series of social influences.

Practical implications

Based on the results, festival managers should allocate their marketing resources for the festival program, environment and souvenirs to increase the visitors’ perception of quality. Particular attention should also be given to visitor groups and their travel companions’ influences on their intentions to revisit the festival.

Originality/value

The incorporation of festival quality and satisfaction and TPB extended with additional social influence variables provided a model with a theoretical basis to explain festival revisit intentions. This approach may provide an initial blueprint for further investigation of other theoretical revisit models.

Citation

Choo, H., Ahn, K. and F. Petrick, J. (2016), "An integrated model of festival revisit intentions: Theory of planned behavior and festival quality/satisfaction", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 818-838. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-09-2014-0448