Examining Vietnamese hard-adventure tourists' visit intention using an extended model of goal-directed behavior

Abstract

Although adventure tourism is divided into two subgroups based on the level of risk, most previous research has not made a distinction in their research. However, due to the high risk, skills, experience, and physical condition required of participants, hard adventure tourism should be studied separately from soft tourism activities. Thus, this study investigates the antecedents influencing hard adventure tourists' visit intention by adopting the model of goal-directed behavior. Furthermore, two new variables, social media consumption and hardy tourism knowledge, were added to improve the model's predictive ability. Using 441 Vietnamese hard adventure tourists as research samples, the results have shown the conceptual model to be robust and effective in explaining behavioral intention. Generally, the results were consistent with previous research. However, subjective norms, negative anticipated emotion, and frequency of past behavior produced unexpected results.