Abstract:
Luxury tourism has become a growing concern in the tourism industry in recent years, and
although the percentage of the luxury tourism market is low, the contribution to the industry
is high. Since there is a growing trend in luxury tourism, Sri Lanka must concentrate on luxury
tourism to get benefits from that segment. Hence, it is important to understand the factors
that drive destination selection among luxury tourists, as these insights are vital for developing
strategies to promote destinations to the target audience. Thus, this research aims to identify the
factors that determine the luxury tourists’ motivation, examine the impact of luxury tourist motivation
on tourist behavioural intention, and assess the mediating effect of destination brand love
on this relationship. The study adopts a self-administered questionnaire to collect primary data
from a sample of 244 international tourists in resorts on the South coast of Sri Lanka, selected
through a simple random sampling technique. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to
identify motivational factors, and structural equation modelling using SmartPLS software was
used to analyse the data. According to the results, the most influential intrinsic motivations are
relaxation and escape, while the key extrinsic motivation is technological innovation. Also, the
results highlighted that there is a positive impact of luxury tourist motivation on behavioural
intention and indicated that there is a partial mediating effect of destination brand love on luxury
tourist motivation and behavioural intention. Based on the results, focus on sustainability,
technological enhancement, implementation of marketing strategies, designing the service and
offering packages that suit the luxury market and highlighting the unique luxury experiences are
some recommendations that can be used to promote Sri Lanka as a luxury tourism destination.
