Luxury tourist travel motivations and impact on tourist behavioural intention in Sri Lanka: The mediating role of destination brand love

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.