University Students' Travel Motivation, Memorable Tourism Experience and Destination Loyalty for Spring Break Vacation

Abstract

The study examined the relationships among university students’ travel motivation, memorable tourism experience, and destination loyalty for Spring Break vacation. It also explored the moderating effects of attribute satisfaction on the relationship between memorable tourism experience and destination loyalty. The research was conducted with 255 university students enrolled in Auburn University located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. Results indicated that university students’ push travel motivation significantly and positively influenced their memorable tourism experience for Spring Break vacation, but pull travel motivation was not found to have a significant influence on memorable tourism experience. In addition, university students’ memorable tourism experience significantly and positively influenced their revisit intention and intention to recommend. Furthermore, satisfaction with restaurant was found to moderate both relationship between memorable tourism experience and revisit intention and the relationship between memorable tourism experience and intention to recommend. Satisfaction with nightlife and satisfaction with hotel moderated the relationship between memorable tourism experience and intention to recommend. All these aforementioned moderating effects significantly weakened their respective relations under investigation. The present study provided tourism industry insights into how to attract the group of university student market segment at key times through positioning effective marketing strategy.