Modeling domestic tourism: motivations, satisfaction and tourist behavioral intentions

Investigating the antecedents of tourist behavioral intentions and its relations with the preceding factors has become an interest of researchers very recently. However, domestic tourism is one of the neglected forms of tourism among academics and policymakers in developing countries in general. This study, therefore, has tried to simultaneously analyze (i) the relationships among motivations (push and pull), satisfaction and behavioral intentions (intention to revisit and willingness to recommend), and (ii) the direct and indirect effects of motivations on the behavioural intentions of domestic tourists in the formation of domestic tourism behavioural model. The relationships were structurally analyzed with Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using data collected from 386 domestic tourists from four destination sites in Ethiopia. The results revealed that both pull and push travel motivations were found to be significant predictors of overall satisfaction. Moreover, the direct effects of pull travel motivation on revisit intention as well as willingness to recommend were observed. On the other hand, overall satisfaction influenced revisit intention more significantly than the willingness to recommend. Overall satisfaction also partially mediated the relationships between travel motivations and revisit intention. Furthermore, the direct and indirect effects of push travel motivation were assessed in this study. The results of this study hold important implications for destination managers and researchers to consider the influences of motivations factors on satisfaction and behavioral intentions in their attempt to develop domestic tourism.