The Antecedents of Golfers’ Satisfaction and Its Effect on Their Loyalties: A Structural Equation Model for Golf Tourism in Bali, Indonesia

Abstract

Bali as a world tourism destination, currently builds sport tourism. Golf is one of sport tourism that is increasingly attracting foreign visitors to Bali. Classified to a prestige sport, golf tourism may change the paradigm of Bali tourism from mass tourism towards quality tourism. This paper aims to elaborate on the antecedents of golfers" satisfaction and their loyalties to the destination. A hundred and thirteen foreign tourists who playing golf while their visit to Bali was surveyed and asked to fulfil the self-administered questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. The intrinsic as well extrinsic motivation was positioned as the exogenous constructs in a structural model with the satisfaction and tourists loyalties as the endogenous ones. In addition, their trust for the golf operators was placed as the mediator. Applying variance-based SEM, we found both motivations have a direct effect on their trust, but we did not find a significant effect of these motivations on their satisfaction. However, by the mediation of their trust towards the golf operator, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation showed their significant influences. In addition, their satisfaction in enjoying golf while traveling in Bali showed a significant effect on their loyalties to the destination.