A causal relationship model of factors affecting tourist loyalty to sports tourism in Thailand

Abstract

Touristy loyalty is one of various aspects of tourism. However, for Thailand, the number of research reports on this aspect is still limited. The research aims to develop and validate a causal relationship model of factors related to sports tourist loyalty in Songkhla Province and its empirical data, and to analyse direct and indirect effects of variables of the model. A target group of 420 Thai and foreign spectators and participants in sports events in Songkhla Province was recruited using purposive sampling and snowball sampling to respond to a questionnaire. The model was validated and analysed with descriptive statistics consisting of frequency, mean, percentage, and standard deviation; confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were also performed. The results revealed that the causal relationship model of factors affecting tourist loyalty to sports tourism fit well with the empirical data, with χ2 = 155.59, df = 132, p =.07, GFI =.97, AGFI =.94, CFI = 1.00, SRMR =.02, and RMSEA =.02. The variables of the model could describe 91 percent of the variance of tourist loyalty to sports tourism with LST directly affected by PV and OS with the effect sizes 0.08 and 0.88, respectively. Moreover, LST was indirectly affected by CST through PDI and OS with the effect size 0.75, indirectly affected by PDI through PV with the effect size 0.88, indirectly affected by PV through OS with the effect size 0.64, and the effect was at the statistical significance of 0.01.