Impacts of tourist destination image on place attachment and tourist loyalty

Hong-Liang Qiu

Department of Business Administration, Tourism College of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311231, China

Although the importance of tourist destination image as a tool to enhance tourist loyalty is commonly acknowledged, prior research on the relationship between tourist destination image and tourist loyalty is not in-depth. Drawing on place attachment theory, a model depicting the relationship among tourist destination image, place attachment and tourist loyalty is constructed. Using the sample of 337 inbound tourists from Japanese and Korean and the structural equation modeling method, the empirical results reveal that:  1) Landscape image, merchandise image and facility image have positive effects on affective image. Landscape image and merchandise image significantly and directly affect place attachment while partially mediating the effect of affective image. Service image has a direct effect on place attachment. Facility image has an indirect effect on place attachment. Facility image significantly and directly affects tourist loyalty while partially mediating the effect of place attachment. 2) Affective image has a direct effect on place attachment and it is an antecedent of tourist loyalty while completely mediating the effect of place attachment.