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Exploring Tourists' Behavior on Hakka Village from Internal and External Cues: The Perspective of a Social Identity Theory
Number of Pages: 150
Graduate School and University: Department of Cultural Resources and Leisure Industries, National Taitung University
Category of Abstract and Graduation Time: Thesis for Master Degree, Summer 2020
Name of Student: Tsai, Yi-Lu
Adviser: Dr. Hsu, Li-Chun
Abstract:
In recent years, Hakka Affairs Council has launched the “Taiwan Romantic Route 3” which capitalizes on the cultural, biological and industrial outlook unique to Taiwan Route 3. Not only does this demonstrate the core of traditional Hakka food culture, but it also infuses in elements of Hakka activities, clothing and scenery. This allows visitors to experience the Hakka culture in depth and promote the development of local tourism. This research used the society identity as the framework for development research and discussed if the external cue “destination attractiveness” and internal cue “food experience” of the Hakka region would affect the behavioral intention of visitors through double identity mechanism (food identity and place identity). At the same time, it also investigated the regulatory effect of personal involvement on the relationship between double identity and destination attractiveness, food experience respectively.
The subject of this research were mainly the visitors who had visited relevant attractions in Xinpu region, Hsinchu County (Yimin Temple, Weiweijia Persimmon Tourist Farm) and completed local experience as well as ate at the Hakka themed restaurants (including Risheng Eatery, Risheng Restaurant, Yuanxiangwu). This research used physical surveys and collected a total of 220 trial surveys prior to the start of the research. After removing the redundant surveys due to incomplete or inconsistent answers, there were 173 surveys, giving an effective sampling rate of 78.6%. There was a total of 950 surveys collected with 773 surveys being relevant and useful (81.4%). This investigation examined the result using the structural equation model and found that the overall model has an excellent goodness-of-fit. The result suggested the following. (1) In the overall model, only the path of food experience to place identity does not have established, the other 6 paths were supported. (2) Place identity and food identity had some mediating effect. (3) In multigroup analysis, the groups were divided into “day trip” and “more than two days one night” with the option of “holiday” and “non-holiday”. The result suggested that there was a difference in the impact path of each group. In terms of the travelling time, it was found that the food experience does not have significant impact on place identity in the “day trip” group. For the group that travelled “more than two days one night”, it was found that the external cue, destination attractiveness, is the main factor influencing food identity. In addition, in the group that chose to travel during “holiday”, internal cue, food experience, is the main factor influencing food identity and influences behavior intention of the visitors indirectly. For the group that chose to travel during “non-holiday”, external cue, destination attractiveness, is the main factor influencing food identity and influences behavior intention of the visitors indirectly. (4) When examining the modetating effect, it is believed that “personal involvement” had a positive and significant modetately impact relationship between “destination attractiveness” and “place identity” while “personal involvement” does not have a significant modetately impact between “food experience” and “place identity”. In addition, “personal involvement” had a positive and significant modetately impact between “destination attractiveness” and “food identity”. Finally, “personal involvement” also had a positive and significant modetately impact between “food experience” and “food identity”.
The novelty in this research lies in the investigation of internal and external cues influencing double identity mechanism (food identity, place identity) and discussed the moderating role played by personal involvement in the relationship between double identity and internal and external cues respectively. In addition, it investigated if the time of travel affects the behavior of visitors at the destination. Finally, based on the research result, one can grasp the real attitude and expectation of visitors towards food and Hakka culture. These results can be used as a reference for Hakka village local tourism and marketing in the future.
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