AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE VISITORS’ INTENTION TO VISIT CULTURAL HERITAGE SITE
Abstract
This study tests the visitors’ intention to visit the cultural heritage site and their opinions about the impacts of tourism development using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The implications of Theory of Planned Behavior provide the theoretical underpinning for this study. The study is descriptive in nature, and is based on quantitative methodology to investigate the relationships between different constructs. The research study used survey questionnaires for quantitative data collection. The study area is a cultural and heritage tourism place Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, India. Convenience sampling methods was adapted to collect quantitative data from different types of visitors. The sample size is 420. The data was then analyzed using the statistical package SPSS and model was tested using SEM with AMOS. The research shows some statistical positive relationship between Attitude (visitors’ positive or negative feelings and opinions about cultural heritage sites), Subjective Norm (information sources or recommendations from reference groups which might influence visitors’ destination choice), Perceived Control (visitors’ perceived ease or difficulty of leisure travel) and visitors’ intention to visit a cultural heritage site. The result helps the rural tourism planners, governments and support organizations in other areas to better evaluate and understand the visitors’ attitude, perception about the heritage place they are visiting.
Keywords:
Heritage Tourism, Culture, Intention, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)Downloads
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