Predicting Behavioral Intention: The Mechanism from Pretrip to Posttrip

Abstract

Despite research on predicting tourist behavioral intention, the existing research lacks a holistic understanding of the interrelationships among the determinants (i.e., a continuous mechanism from pretrip to posttrip). This article develops an integrated model to test the effects of motivation (pretrip), tourist activity participation and perceived value (on-site), and satisfaction (posttrip) on behavioral intention to help explain this mechanism. This article first establishes a five-factor structure of motivation and then examines the causal relationships among research constructs using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results show that motivation directly and significantly affects all other constructs and has strong total effects on satisfaction and behavioral intention. Tourist activity participation predicts satisfaction but not the behavioral intention. The relationships among perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioral intention are consistent with the literature. Regarding the total effects on behavioral intention, satisfaction is the strongest predictor, followed by perceived value and motivation. Also, this study is among only a few attempts to explore the Canadian domestic tourism market and provides marketing insights into destination marketing organizations (DMOs).