Exploring the Relationships of Experiential Value, Destination Image and Destination Loyalty: A Case of Macau Food Festival

Abstract

Festival has been taken advantaged by destination marketing organization (DMO) for promoting their destination. This paper focuses on the role of food festival in the development of tourism destination, and explores the relationships among the experiential value of food festival, destination image and destination loyalty. Research data were collected at the eighteenth Macau food festival and the relationships were tested by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Experiential value scale (EVS) (Mathwick, Malhotra, & Rigdon, 2001) was adopted in this study. It was found that the experiential value of tourists in the food festival positively influence destination image and destination loyalty. This study suggests that food festival organizers should pay attention to and create the experiential value (playfulness, aesthetics, excellent service and customer return on investment) for tourists in order to effectively promote destination image and strengthen destination loyalty.