Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions for Rural Tourism in Sichuan Province
Abstract
Abstract
Rural tourism is of great significance to China’s rural revitalization strategy. The purposes of this article are to (1) identify the current factors that influence consumers’ behavioral intentions for rural tourism; (2) explore the interaction mechanism between each factor and consumers’ behavioral intentions; and (3) provide suggestions to relevant managers and practitioners of rural tourism to promote China’s rapid recovery and development of rural tourism. Random sampling was adopted, and an online questionnaire was constructed using Questionnaire Star software. Sichuan rural tourism consumers responded with 401 valid responses. The obtained data were analyzed for descriptive statistics, reliability test, validity test, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model analysis. The results revealed that (1) Rural tourism behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, policy systems, tourism resources, new media information, and epidemic risk are all factors that affect consumers' behavioral intentions for rural tourism in Sichuan; (2) Rural tourism behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, policy systems, and tourism resources can directly affect rural tourism behavioral intentions; policy systems, tourism resources, epidemic risk, and new media information can affect rural tourism behavioral intentions by affecting behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; (3) Sichuan rural tourism managers and related practitioners should strengthen the policy systems, stimulate investment to create unique tourism resources, avoid homogeneity, and improve adaptive epidemic response policies. They can encourage people’s participation in Sichuan rural tourism by using new media to strengthen publicity, increase exposure and positive reviews, improve consumer awareness, and arouse tourists' interest and trust. This could lead to the future research scope on rural tourism in other regions in China.
Keywords: Sichuan, rural tourism, tourist behavioral intention, S-O-R model
Rural tourism is of great significance to China’s rural revitalization strategy. The purpose of this article is to (1) identify the current factors that influence consumers’ behavioral intentions for rural tourism; (2) explore the interaction mechanism between each factor and consumers’ behavioral intentions; and (3) Provide suggestions to relevant managers and practitioners of rural tourism to promote China’s rapid recovery and development of rural tourism. Random sampling was adopted, and an online questionnaire was constructed using Questionnaire Star software. Sichuan rural tourism consumers responded with 401 valid responses. The obtained data were analyzed for descriptive statistics, reliability test, validity test, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model analysis. The results revealed that (1) rural tourism behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, policies and systems, tourism resources, new media information, and epidemic risks are all factors that affect consumers' behavioral intentions for rural tourism in Sichuan; (2) Rural tourism behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, policy systems, and tourism resources can directly affect rural tourism behavioral intentions; policy systems, tourism resources, epidemic risks, and new media information can affect rural tourism behavioral intentions by affecting behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; (3) Sichuan rural tourism managers and related practitioners should strengthen the policies and systems, stimulate investment to create unique tourism resources, avoid homogeneity, and improve adaptive epidemic response policies. They can encourage people’s participation in Sichuan rural tourism by using new media to strengthen publicity, increase exposure and positive reviews, improve consumer awareness, and arouse tourists' interest and trust. This could lead to the future research scope on rural tourism in other regions in China.
Keywords: Sichuan, rural tourism, tourist behavioral intention, S-O-R model
