Studying the Effect of Tourism Destinations Attachment on the Satisfaction and Loyalty of Tourists (Case Study: Domestic Tourists who Visited Isfahan)

Abstract
The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of tourism destination attachment on the tourist satisfaction and loyalty. The statistical population of this study includes (consists of) the inbound tourists who have traveled to Isfahan in November of 2013. A sample of 200 tourists has been selected from this population. The sampling method was simple random sampling method. A self-administrated questionnaire has been used for collecting the research data. This questionnaire that has been developed based on literature review includes 34 questions for measuring research variables and demographic ones. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire have been examined and confirmed in this study. In order to analyze the research data and test the research hypotheses, both descriptive and inferential statistics have been used in the SPSS and Lisrel. The results of this study revealed that tourism destination attachment influences the tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty significantly. In addition, the results showed that the tourists’ satisfaction also significantly influences their loyalty to tourism destination. Finally, the results indicated that cognitive loyalty influences both affective and conative loyalty and also affective loyalty influences conative loyalty significantly.
Introduction
Tourism and its related activities have been developed considerably during the last decades (Zargham and Atrsaei, 2009: 2). Indeed, tourism is a beneficial industry which should be considered by tourism planners and marketers. There are several effective factors in the tourism destination success such as tourism destination attachment (Gu and Ryan, 2008). Also, tourism destination attachment is an important factor which affects the tourist behaviors and attitudes such as tourist satisfaction and loyalty (Lee et al., 2007). This is the reason why the present study aimed to investigate the effect of tourism destinations attachment on the tourist satisfaction and loyalty. For this purpose, the inbound tourists who visited Isfahan have been selected as statistical population.
Materials and Methods
The present study is a descriptive-survey research. The statistical population of this study includes all of the inbound tourists who visited Isfahan in the third season of 2013. A sample of 200 tourists was selected from this population randomly. In order to collect the research data, a self-administrated questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consists of 25 items. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were measured and confirmed. The SPSS and Lisrel are the main statistical software whichwas used for analyzing the research data and testing the hypotheses. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is the main statistical method which was used for testing the hypotheses.
Discussion and Results
The findings revealed that tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly (p≤0.05). Also, the findings showed that tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly (p≤0.05). In addition, the results showed that tourist satisfaction influences their loyalty to tourism destination significantly tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly (p≤0.05). Finally, the results indicated that cognitive loyalty influences both affective and conative loyalty and also affective loyalty influences conative loyalty significantly.
Conclusions
This study was aimed to investigate the effect of tourism destination attachment on the tourist satisfaction and loyalty. For this purpose, a survey has been conducted among the inbound tourists who visited Isfahan in the third season of 2013. The findings revealed that tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly. Also, the findings showed that tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly. In addition, the results showed that tourist satisfaction influences their loyalty to tourism destination significantly tourism destination attachment influences tourist satisfaction significantly. Finally, the results indicated that cognitive loyalty influences both affective and conative loyalty and also affective loyalty influences conative loyalty significantly. It is suggested that tourism marketing professionals and planners should consider tourism destination attachment in their efforts to improve raise satisfaction and loyalty among tourists. Finally, it should be noted that this study has been done in the city of Isfahan and its results might not be generalizable to be generalized to other tourism destinations.