Dimensions and Effects of Consumers' Travel–Transportation Involvement: The Case of the Mini Three Links

Abstract

Since its implementation in 2001, the Mini Three Links (MTL) has become the most important transportation means for Taiwanese travelling to China. The MTL is connected to recreation/travel in Kinmen: service providers often include short local trips as part of the transit process. This study focuses on the concept of travel-transportation involvement in the MTL, exploring its effects on consumers' travel-transportation dependence, identity, loyalty, price sensitivity, and product purchase intention. Traveltransportation involvement is divided into behavioural involvement and socialpsychological involvement, which in turn considers attraction, self-expression, and centrality to lifestyle. Survey respondents are passengers using the MTL service at Kinmen Shangyi Airport and Shuitou Port. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the 380 valid questionnaires; results show that different involvement dimensions have unique effects. Behavioural involvement positively affects price sensitivity. Attraction positively affects travel-transportation dependence, which further improves travel -transportation identity. Attraction also has indirect negative effects on loyalty and price sensitivity, which are mediated by its impact on travel-transportation dependence and identity. Further, centrality to lifestyle negatively affects product purchase intention during the travel process. Self-expression has a direct positive effect on travel -transportation dependence and loyalty, but a direct negative effect on price sensitivity. Finally, self-expression has indirect negative effects on loyalty and price sensitivity; the mediation process is identical to that for attraction. This study is valuable in terms of distinguishing between various effects among previously overlooked dimensions of travel -transportation involvement; it also provides practical implications for related travel -transportation-service practitioners and tourism development within Kinmen.

The Relationship between Endurance Involvement and Travel Behavior in Camping and the Moderating Effect of Place Attachment

“…According to the expected value theory model, the motivation of human behavior is the need to be satisfied [32,96]. A critical variable that affects the decision-making process of consumer behavior is involvement [63]. In addition, despite the fundamental importance of enduring involvement as mentioned earlier, in the field of camping tourism there is no research to explore how associate enduring involvement and camping travel behaviors.…”

“…When visitors are attracted by an activity, they have a strong sense of self-expression in the place or think that such a place is part of life. At the same time the dependence on locality is also stronger [62,63]. Place dependence shows that consumers find different resources and values in a specific place that meet the demand function, and then stay there spontaneously.…”

“…When tourists travel to a place, they find that local functions or environmental resources increase the intensity of local attachment to meet demand [62]. Tourists develop deep emotions, connections, and strong identification with places when they travel [63,71]. For example, people who spend a lot of time at or visit a place multiple times have stronger attachment to that place [19,20].…”

“…For example, people who spend a lot of time at or visit a place multiple times have stronger attachment to that place [19,20]. When Lin and Chou [63] studied the influence of camping site involvement, they found the need to evaluate the effect of local attachment and tourist involvement on travel experience. Therefore, place attachment affects tourists' behavior and intention to revisit [72,73].…”

Relational geography of a border island: local development and compensatory destruction on Lieyu, Taiwan

“…Like the Matsu archipelago to the north, Kinmen's vicinity to the People's Republic of China-controlled mainland rendered it strategically important to the government in Taiwan, and Kinmen was substantially militarised and governed under martial law. Kinmen Island's own development accelerated, and its land value increased after demilitarisation in 1992, the creation of tourism development policies, and the implementation of the Mini-Three-Links policy (which lifted trade, postal, and transport restrictions between Kinmen and Matsu and cities in mainland China's Fujian Province) in 2001 (Chen, 2010;Lin & Chou, 2015).…”