Antecedents and Impacts of the Pilgrimage Destination Personality in the Tibetan Region: Case from Larong Wuming Buddhist Academy

Abstract

The present research aims to explore the perceived destination personality of the Larong Wuming Buddhist Academy, a site that is a pilgrimage destination in the Tibetan region of China, and to examine the influence of involvement as an antecedent on the destination personality. This study further investigates the direct and indirect impact of a destination personality on loyalty. A total of 2454 online travel reviews and a convenience sample of 348 usable surveys were analyzed. The personalities of the pilgrimage destination in three specific dimensions were revealed, namely, the religious, agreeable, and ethereal dimensions. The findings verified the positive effect of tourist involvement on the pilgrimage destination personality. Furthermore, in the context of a pilgrimage, the mediating role of self-congruity and satisfaction between the destination personality and loyalty has been confirmed.

Festival personality, satisfaction and loyalty: the moderating effect of involvement

“…They further provided empirical evidence for the need to develop a culture-specific destination personality scale in the context of Chinese culture. Also, Liu et al (2022) defined destination personality, namely, the religious, agreeable and ethereal dimensions in the context of pilgrimage destination in the Tibetan region of Chin. They suggested that the BPS may not be fit for direct introduction into the context of the destination personality and that each destination should develop its unique personality characteristic.…”

“…Specifically, festival satisfaction can be defined as "the total sum of the experiences of visitors at the festival" (McDowall, 2011, p. 282). In the literature, there is strong evidence of the relationship between brand, destination and festival personality traits and satisfaction (Chen and Phou, 2013;Chi et al, 2018;Ekinci and Hosany, 2006;Hultman et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2022;G€ uzel et al, 2022;Rocha et al, 2022). Choosing a particular brand with a particular personality allows consumers to express themselves, and the more the brand personality is related to the consumer's personality, the higher the customer satisfaction and loyalty (Aaker, 1999).…”

“…Unlike manufactured products, destinations and events involves hedonic (emotional) oriented experiences. Therefore, it is emphasized that the personality traits developed by Aaker (1991) for product brands cannot be transferred to event brands, which are hedonic-oriented and experiential products (Hultman et al, 2015;Pan et al, 2017;Liu et al, 2022). However, like other tourism and recreation products, festival personality is an important tool for festivals to differentiate themselves and position themselves in the market.…”

“…On the other hand, visitor satisfaction and loyalty have become a critical part of tourism research due to increased competition and an understanding of the importance of loyal visitors (Papadopoulou et al, 2023;Lee et al, 2011;Chi and Qu, 2008). In the tourism and marketing literature, brand personality is mentioned as the determinant of satisfaction and loyalty (Hultman et al, 2015;Chi et al, 2018;Kim et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2022). However, these relationships remain unclear due to contradictory findings in the literature on brand personality, satisfaction and loyalty.…”

Destination Personality: Gaining Insights for Destination Branding through the Lens of the Pandemic

“…Destination personality is a complex construct which is difficult to measure. Its relationships with other marketing concepts have been studied in recent studies, such as destination branding Hultman et al, 2017), destination image (Hosany et al, 2006;Papadimitrou et al, 2015;Souiden et al, 2017), destination brand equity (Salehzadeh et al, 2016) and brand attachment (Huang et al, 2017), positioning (Hanna & Rowley, 2019;Kumar & Nayak, 2018), involvement (Chi et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2021), loyalty and behavioral intentions (Ekinci and Hosany, 2006;Baloglu et al, 2014;Pool et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2021). The relationship of destination personality with self-congruity (e.g., Yang et al, 2022), self-identity or tourist-destination identification (Huaman-Ramirez et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2022) is another critical issue in the relevant literature, especially if we consider that it may act as a partial mediator on the relationship between destination personality and tourist's behavioral intentions (Usakli and Baloglu, 2011).…”