IMPACT OF DESTINATION IMAGE ON TOURIST SATISFACTION: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT)

Abstract

Tourism is a multifaceted field and in order to understand its complexity, none of its components should be excluded. Based on the opinions and thoughts of tourists, this research aims to determine to what extent the destination image has an impact on the satisfaction towards that destination. Survey data was collected from tourists who visited key tourist attractions in Kuching, Sarawak. SmartPLS 3 was applied to assess the developed model based on path modeling and bootstrapping. The results revealed that political images, cultural images, and infrastructure factors on destination image are positively related to tourist satisfaction. It was found that information technology (IT) does not play any moderating role in the relationships between destination image and tourist satisfaction. Results further indicated that the tourism industry can be improved for getting satisfaction among tourists by offering a better development on significant destination image in Sarawak.