The Relationship Between Festival Attachment and Arab Tourists' Revisit Intention: A Conceptual Model

Abstract

While there is a large body of literature on revisit intention to festivals, there is surprisingly little knowledge about it in the context of the Arab world. This research aims to develop a conceptual framework that focuses on the relationship between festival attachment and revisit intentions to festivals. The concept of festival attachment in the current research is borrowed from the concept of place attachment, referring to the same bonds that form between tourists and a tourist place that can also be developed or forged between tourists and a festival. Tourists have an opportunity to develop self-identification with festivals, create affective bonds with them, satisfy and meet their needs through specific facilities or attributes of festivals, and form social bonds with other tourists visiting them, just as they would at a tourist place. All of these aspects together represent what we call attachment to a festival or festival attachment. Based on extensive literature review, the researchers proposed that festival attachment is a multidimensional construct that comprises four dimensions: festival identity, festival affect, festival dependence, and social bonding. The current proposed model will be empirically tested in the context of Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts in Jordan from the perspective of Arab tourists. The findings of this research are expected to broaden the scope of the existing literature on place attachment by introducing important insights from festival settings and its relationship with revisit intention, as well as adding new insights about the Arab tourists' attachment to cultural festivals and their revisit intentions to these festivals.

The Influence of Memorable Festival Experiences on Arab Visitors’ Revisit Intention to the Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts (Jfca) in Jordan

“…This relevance stems from the fact that Arabs share various characteristics and values that distinguish them and shape their identities (Harb, 2016). Arab visitors may therefore be influenced by their culture, which impacts how they experience the festivals (Abdelazim and Alajloni, 2016;Al-Azzam et al, 2022). Secondly, this study is in response to Geus et al's (2016) call to evaluate the reliability and validity of EES across multiple studies and samples.…”

“…Marketing initiatives are often devoted to generating and sustaining repeat visitations, which may be of paramount importance as festivals depend largely on repeat tourists (Choo et al, 2016;Lee et al, 2009). Therefore, studying visitors' revisit intention towards a festival has attracted researchers' attention and remains an under-researched topic (Al-Azzam et al, 2022;Boo and Kim, 2022). However, there is surprisingly little knowledge about it in the context of the Arab nations (Al-Azzam et al, 2022;Al-Dweik, 2020;Abdelazim and Alajloni, 2016).…”

“…Therefore, studying visitors' revisit intention towards a festival has attracted researchers' attention and remains an under-researched topic (Al-Azzam et al, 2022;Boo and Kim, 2022). However, there is surprisingly little knowledge about it in the context of the Arab nations (Al-Azzam et al, 2022;Al-Dweik, 2020;Abdelazim and Alajloni, 2016). Thus, this research seeks to address this gap.…”

Tourist Satisfaction, Destination Image, Loyalty and Revisit Intention to Malaysia’s National Parks.

“…Consequently, some previous studies attempted to present the importance of tourist revisit intention and figure out some related factors (Chon & Woosnam, 2020). They described it as; repeated tourists were expected to be more likely than first-timers to choose the exact destination for their future visit (Abdullah & Lui, 2018). With that, Kozak (2001) supported that tourists who had visited a destination once or more times were more likely to revisit it again, thus demonstrating increased tourist satisfaction and loyalty.…”

“…However, no proper criterion can represent the indicators for tourists' revisit intention in Malaysia's ecotourism (Abdullah & Lui, 2018). Concerning that, researchers try to measure tourist revisit intention by considering tourist satisfaction and loyalty towards the destination (Zhang et al, 2014).…”