Formation Mechanisms of Rural Summer Health Destination Loyalty: Exploration and Comparison of Low- and High-Aged Elderly Leisure Vacation Tourists

Abstract

Destination loyalty is a key indicator of the competitiveness of tourist destinations. Rural summer health leisure vacations for urban elderly (RSHLVUE) tourists span a wide range of ages. Destination operators need to understand the loyalty formation mechanisms of different aged tourists. RSHLVUE tourists were divided into a low-aged group (LA) and a high-aged group (HA) to examine and modify the hypothesis of the relationship between perceived value, tourist well-being, place attachment, and destination loyalty based on affect, behavior, and cognition (ABC) theory. The test results of the measurement model indicate that the HA showed stronger responses in terms of cost value, sense of meaning, and place dependency. The formation mechanism of destination loyalty for the LA is tourist well-being → perceived value → place attachment → destination loyalty, and for the HA is perceived value → tourist well-being → place attachment → destination loyalty. The findings deepen the understanding of destination loyalty among elderly leisure vacation tourists and can guide RSHLVUE destination managers to enhance destination competitiveness.

Development Drivers of Rural Summer Health Tourism for the Urban Elderly: A Demand- and Supply-Based Framework

“…Retired American elderly people can migrate from high-cost states to low-cost states [86]. RSHTUE is between short-term tourism and permanent migration [64], with tourists generally staying in destination villages for one to three months [11]. RSHTUE tourists likewise choose destinations with low consumer prices.…”

“…RSHTUE is the intersection of senior, long-stay, summer, health, and rural tourism. RSHTUE tourists are primarily urban retirees [11], which belong to senior tourism [25]. RSHTUE tourists typically stay at destinations for over one month, which is identified as long-stay tourism [26].…”

“…(1) Comfortable temperature Comfortable temperatures are a prerequisite for RSHTUE development [11]. The elderly focus considerably on local weather conditions when choosing their travel destinations [61].…”

“…Examples are Guzhu Village in Zhejiang Province [8], Zhongyuan Township in Jiangxi Province [9], and Jiuba Township in Guizhou Province [10]. RSHTUE has the following main characteristics [11]. (1) In the summer, temperatures in the destination village are comfortable but extremely hot in tourist-origin areas.…”

Structural relationships between workation attachment, workationer power, workation relationship quality, and workation intention

“…Therefore, the processes of place attachment are impacted and experienced not only by workationers, but also by their wider communities (Bassyiouny and Wilkesmann, 2023;Florek, 2011). Recently, several researchers (Matsushita, 2021;Shin et al, 2023;Zhang et al, 2022) consider the concept of workation attachment as a way to extend the scope of place attachment. Workation attachment is an emotional bond or an affective relationship between workationes and their workation (Bassyiouny and Wilkesmann, 2023;Han et al, 2019;Shin et al, 2023).…”