Rethinking Emotions and Destination Experience: An Extended Model of Goal-Directed Behavior

Abstract

This research aims to extend the model of goal-directed behavior, by deepening its emotional path and including new variables to predict tourist behavioral intention: hedonism, destination experience, and tourism innovativeness. Based on a final sample of 457 European tourist nationals, the findings showed the significant influence of hedonism and tourism innovativeness on tourist desire. In addition, findings uncover the mediating role of hedonism on the emotional path. The findings also extend previous research by revealing that not all destination experience dimensions (sensory, affective, behavioral, and intellectual) equally influence tourist behavioral intention. Indeed, only sensory and intellectual destination experience dimensions were found to affect behavioral intention. The findings have important implications for tourism managers crafting destination experiences and contribute to tourism research by presenting a more comprehensive framework of goal-directed behavior applied to tourism.