A Research On The Influencing Factors Of Mainland Tourists Satisfaction In Hong Kong: Based On Structural Equation Modeling

In the modern context of tourism development, as the core concept in the field of consumer behavior-- "tourist satisfaction" research has become the key field among the governmental policymakers and businesses in different tourism service sector and the tourism academic institutions. In fact, the research results can contribute to helping understand consumer preferences and the strengths and weaknesses of different service sector, thus provide useful information for management to formulate scientific and rational marketing strategy. Just under such a background, there are emerging a series of research achievements in tourism academic field. Therefore, how to effectively evaluate tourist satisfaction more comprehensively, identify factors that influencing tourist satisfaction and explore its influencing mechanism have become the important issues for academe and industry.Recently, under the background of experience, more and more tourists prefer to find a memorable experience in the tourism process and demand for increasingly high quality of tourist experience. Especially, mainland outbound tourists emphasis on higher quality of tourism experience. They are not only going sightseeing exotic scenery, but also hoping to experience the local historic and cultural practices. In a word, the tourism itinerary that they are willing to pay for is the pleasant and memorable travel experiences. For mainland outbound tourism, with the improvement of living standards of the mainland, as well as an increase in leisure time and increasingly frequent of cross-straits exchanges, mainland tourists to Hong Kong has become the most prominent highlight. Correspondently, the mainland has become Hong Kong’s largest tourist market. Existing research on tourist satisfaction of mainland visitors to Hong Kong has been widely explored in the Hong Kong Tourism services sectors, such as hotels, airlines, cruises, etc., but there are still a few researches on the whole mainland tourist satisfaction. Therefore, research on the mainland whole tourist satisfaction, including the influencing factors and its interactive mechanisms has a significant implication for tourism healthy and sustainable development.In this study, elaborating both cognitive and emotional aspects of tourists satisfaction means that tourist satisfaction is not just a process that tourist perceive the destination, but also the process of emotional experience. Tourist entire satisfaction is not only related with the Pre-departure expectations and a trip perceived quality of service, more tourists satisfaction will be influenced by the quality of tourism experience. Therefore, based on the classical “desired – performance” model, this article introduces a key concept--“tourist experience” to build the theoretical satisfaction model of mainland tourists to Hong Kong. By questionnaire and structural equation modeling analysis, the study explores the measurement of the variables and the relationships among all the constructions. Ultimately, the research verifies the hypothesis proposed and draws the following conclusions:(1) service quality and tourist experience are important determinants of tourist satisfaction;(2) tourist experience can be divided into four dimensions-- the shopping experience, tourism activities and facilities experience, learning experience and the experience of self-realization;(3) tourist expectation is direct positively related to service quality and negatively affect the four dimensions of tourist experience, particularly, it direct negative affect the last two dimensions significantly;(4) not only does service quality affect tourist experience and tourism satisfaction direct positively, bur also influence tourism satisfaction in an indirect way through tourist experience, what’s more, except the tourism activities and facilities experience, the other three dimensions play a significant mediating role;(5) the four dimensions of tourist experience through a different directs and degrees influencing tourist satisfaction, only the experience of self-realization is direct positively affect tourist satisfaction. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications are drawn based on the study findings, the research limitations and corresponding recommendations for future researchers are made.