Integrating destination positioning and identity salience to enhance childcare service experiences in family travel: An insight from Macau

Abstract

AbstractAddressing the lack of an integrated view of family travel destination positioning and experience design, this study focuses on examining how a new form of family travel experiences, that is, childcare service experiences available during the hospitality and tourism consumption, combined with destination positioning to trigger travelers' positive perceptions of the overall tourism experiences in Macau. Furthermore, using the lens of identity salience, this study is among the first to investigate how the salience of self‐ or family‐identity changes the impact of childcare service experiences on travelers' destination attitudes. The findings of the two scenario‐based experiments suggested that compared to family travel destination positioning, individual characteristics (i.e., identity salience) exerted a significant strengthening effect on the impact of childcare service experiences on family travelers. This study is informative for destination marketers and hospitality and tourism managers and will help them to effectively design tourism experiences that appeal to family travelers.