EXAMINING THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIPS OF AUTHENTICITY PERCEPTION, PLACE ATTACHMENTAND DESTINATION LOYALTY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF ENSHI PREFECTURE IN HUBEI
YU Yi-feng1,2, ZHANG Chun-yan3,4, ZEN Ju-xing3, LUO Jing3
1. China Case Study Center for Tourism Teaching and Reserch, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China;
2. Institute of Tourism Development and Research, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China;
3. Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China;
4. School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Abstract The cultural authenticity in ethnic destinations is an important research issue in tourism literature. Original ethnic customs and traditional cutural heritages are supposed to be the crucial attrations to tourists. The authenticity of destinations are even believed to be the most important motive and the core experience of modern tourism. This paper studies the influencing mechanism of tourists' perception of authenticity, place attachment and loyalty in ethnic destination. A survey was conducted and the Structural Equation Modeling analysis method was adopted taking Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei as the research area.The research displays the following results: 1）Tourists' perception of cultural authenticity has significant direct impact both on place attachment and destination loyalty. loyalty through place attachment. 2） The place dependence has significant direct impact on place identity. 3） Place dependence directly affects destination loyalty and place identity indirectly affects destination loyalty through place dependence. tourism destination.
2017, Vol. 32 
