The Influence of Tourists’ Experience on Destination Loyalty: A Case Study of Hue City, Vietnam
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I really do not think that Sustainability is the right outlet, as this article falls out of scope. If we take a closer look on the authors´ argument: “this research focuses on the impact of tourist experience on the relationship among destination image, tourist motivation, and tourist satisfaction on destination loyalty”, thus, I do not see a clear relationship between the article and Sustainability. My recommendation is to submit the article to a tourism journal, as is the case of “Tourism and Hospitality”, MDPI. I regret not being a bearer of good news, but I will have to preserve the Journal interest/scope.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comment and suggestion on this paper.
Argument/ Justification: At the outset, it is to be noted that the research paper has been submitted for consideration for a special issue entitled “Tourist Satisfaction and Sustainable Destination Branding”. The study in question aligns itself to the central idea of the special issue that concerns enhanced benefits for all stakeholders, including tourists in a particular tourism system, in the case of this study the unit of analysis is a notified UNESCO world heritage site, Hue City which is a pronounced tourism destination for culture, arts, and heritage.
Furthermore, the study investigates various psycho-cognitive dimensions of tourist loyalty taking into cognizance canonical attributes of tourist satisfaction like destination image and tourist motivation. The examination also gauged the moderating capacity of the tourist experience in determining tourist loyalty which is in tandem with the scope of the special issue detailed above.
The study nudges competent authorities at the destination level to ensure a sustainable tourism economy in Hue City by recommending plausible deliverables including, expanding and diversifying experiences for the emerging category of tourists, integration of cultural aspects into popular tourist itineraries, development of local tourism inventory, and facilitation of the local manpower pool to gain access to the tourism industry. It is an attempt to install the concept of the 360-degree benefit system in the tourism economy. The model deployed in the current study exhibits robust psychometric features thus, can be replicated by future investigations in the field of tourist satisfaction and sustainability.
The above premises advocate the merits of our study and purport its candidature for consideration in the upcoming special issue under the aegis of the prestigious journal – Sustainability.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper addresses a relevant topic which can potentially add to the tourism literature. There are some recommendations that the authors should consider prior to the potential publication of the paper:
a) Introduction
- Please clearly identify the literature gap your research aims to fill in.
b) Literature review
- It is unclear what the theory or framework is for this article. It is unclear how it contributes to literature or the industry
- There is no real theory or framework in this paper. Was the idea to just duplicate other studies to see if the results were the same?
- Please clearly identify the literature gap your research aims to fill in.
- There are other studies that you may find useful:
López-Guzmán, T., Torres Naranjo, M., Pérez Gálvez, J. C., & Carvache Franco, W. (2019). Segmentation and motivation of foreign tourists in world heritage sites. A case study, Quito (Ecuador). Current Issues in Tourism, 22(10), 1170-1189.
Medina-Viruel, M. J., López-Guzmán, T., Gálvez, J. C. P., & Jara-Alba, C. (2019). Emotional perception and tourist satisfaction in world heritage cities: The Renaissance monumental site of úbeda and baeza, Spain. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 27, 100226.
Santa Cruz, F. G., Lopez-Guzman, T., Gallo, L. S. P., & Rodríguez-Gutiérrez, P. (2019). Tourist loyalty and intangible cultural heritage: the case of Popayán, Colombia. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development.
Muñoz-Fernández, G. A., López-Guzmán, T., López Molina, D., & Pérez Gálvez, J. C. (2018). Heritage tourism in the Andes: The case of Cuenca, Ecuador. Anatolia, 29(3), 326-336.
d) Discussion
- The discussion is expected to develop the relationship between results and literature from a more critical perspective.
- When discussion the results of your research, please highlight their theoretical contribution.
e) Contributions
- The authors are also advised to rework the conclusions. What is unique about this study case? The results are described, but there is a lack of discussion on what these findings mean for industry, or in relation to academic research. Some of the results described are not clearly justified/ explained in relation to the aims of this research, or the wider implications thereof.
- The practical application of the research (the management implications) presented in the Conclusion are vague and brief. Perhaps more can be said about the potentially impact and the consequent tourism experience management?
f) Other comments
- Extensive proofreading needs to be done throughout the document.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your precious recommendations, the paper was edited and highlight in full text.
thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I think you provided an empirically and methodologically sound manuscript. However, its theoretical base must be improved for the paper to make a scientific contribution.
First, the paper's contribution/novelty should be made clearer in the introduction section. Travel motivation/destination loyalty are well-researched concepts so you need to argue why your study makes a distinct contribution.
Furthermore, the study's theoretical underpinning should be strengthened. I am sure there are theories on consumer loyalty from marketing research or specific destination loyalty theories.
Detailed suggestions:
Hypotheses 1 to 3: You need to argue (and provide a theoretical base) why you suspect an impact of destination image on the constructs ‘tourist motivation’, ‘tourist satisfaction’, and ‘tourist loyalty’.
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of participants.: Did these sociodemographis have any impact on the other constructs or were they controlled within the SEM?
- Results and discussions, 4.1. Results
Direct Effect: “On the other hand, Tourist Motivation with β=0.807 and t=0.736 share a negative association with Destination Loyalty, which disagrees with H5.” Why is the coefficient positive if the relationship is negative?
Coefficient of determination (R2). “According to [100], the R2 value is a measure of how significant is lower R squared values and values are there exists a significant difference of significant utilized.” This sentence is unclear and should be rephrased.
I think the paper’s quality will improve significantly if you address these points. I am happy to review the manuscript again after the revision. Good luck!
Author Response
Thank you very much for recommendations and suggestion about paper. this article has been edited to follow the comment.
Thank you very much
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I think the authors responded very appropriately to my comments. I suggest you make a last effort, namely:
- follow the instructions for the journal authors.
“In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105)."
That is, citations like [9], [10], or like [11]–[14], should be [9-10] and [11-14]. Without consistency, the article has no conditions for publication.
- At end the introduction section, I would recommend to add a paragraph where the next sections are presented.
- It might be useful to divide the conclusions into: Contributions to theory;
Managerial contributions; Limitations; Suggestions for future research.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
At the outset, we’d like to thank you for extending your expertise on our paper.
We have addressed your concerns and inculcated the required amendments in addition to rectifying minor grammatical errors, reducing redundancies, and managing alignment/formatting issues. The excerpt is given below. Furthermore, all changes made to the document bear track-change information as directed.
Point 1: “- It might be useful to divide the conclusions into: Contributions to theory; Managerial contributions; Limitations; Suggestions for future research”.
Response 1: The required rectification has taken place and the section aligns with the reviewer given algorithm.
Point 2: “2.3 Tourist Satisfaction, last sentence: The satisfaction levels influence tourists' decision to revisit and put and put a positive word of mouth to others about the destination." Apart from the repetition, the sentence lacks a source.
Response 2: The authors have added citations in full text with highlights. Please see the attachment.
Point 3: At end the introduction section, I would recommend to add a paragraph where the next sections are presented.
Response 3: The authors have edited in full text with highlights. Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
First of all, thank you very much for the changes made.
For the rest, the paper seems to me that it is prepared to continue enriching this area of research.
Thank you very much again for the work done.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
The authors would like to thank you very much for your comments and suggestions on the paper.
Thank you very much,
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I appreciate you made substantial improvements of the study in particular with respect to its theoretical grounding. Nonetheless, I have some points which are worth considering:
2.3. Tourist Satisfaction, last sentence: 2.3. "The satisfaction levels influence tourists' decision to revisit and put and put a positive word of mouth to others about the destination." Apart from the repetition, the sentence lacks a source.
4.1. Direct effects, direct effect: "This is an oversight error which has been hence rectified. The correct inference of the insignificant p value has now been stated by replacing the “negative correlation” connotation. In the future the same shall be taken care of." Thank you for the clarification. I assume, however, the comment will not go into the final manuscript.
"The results also portray the negative, yet the significant association between Destination Image and Satisfaction (ß=0.072, t=0.072) in partial disagreement with H2 [...]." As already mentioned for the relationship between tourist motivation and destination loyalty in the previous review, there is again a positive coefficient which is described as a negative association. Please clarify.
Statistical model, table 5: You find no significant direct effect of motivation on loyalty, but a significant moderation effect of tourism experience on the relationship between motivation and loyalty. I think this requires more comment and explanation as it might appear confusing to the reader. Statistically, however, such a combination might be possible according to my brief research.
Table 6: I am not sure how you can see the R square value from the table. Please clarify.
I am happy to review the revised manuscript.
Kind regards,
Author Response
Point 1: 2.3. Tourist Satisfaction, last sentence: 2.3. "The satisfaction levels influence tourists' decision to revisit and put and put a positive word of mouth to others about the destination." Apart from the repetition, the sentence lacks a source.
Response 1: The authors have corrected and added citations: (Lai et al. 2018) in full text with highlights. Please see the attachment.
Point 2: 4.1. Direct effects, direct effect: "This is an oversight error which has been hence rectified. The correct inference of the insignificant p-value has now been stated by replacing the “negative correlation” connotation. In the future, the same shall be taken care of." Thank you for the clarification. I assume, however, the comment will not go into the final manuscript.
Response 2: The rectification has taken place, thank you for bringing the same to our notice.
Point 3: "The results also portray the negative, yet the significant association between Destination Image and Satisfaction (ß=0.072, t=0.072) in partial disagreement with H2 [...]." As already mentioned for the relationship between tourist motivation and destination loyalty in the previous review, there is again a positive coefficient which is described as a negative association. Please clarify.
Response 3: An unfortunate oversight error by the author. A plausible explanation is a confusion between the ß signature (positive) of the pathway and its corresponding mean value signature (negative).
Point 4: Statistical model, table 5: You find no significant direct effect of motivation on loyalty, but a significant moderation effect of tourism experience on the relationship between motivation and loyalty. I think this requires more comment and explanation as it might appear confusing to the reader. Statistically, however, such a combination might be possible according to my brief research.
Response 4: Thank you for bringing the pertinent inferential gap to our notice. The authors have taken cognizance of an observation from extant literature (Becker et al., 2018) which provides a plausible explanation to the occurrence recorded herewith. To this effect, a cited paragraph has been added vide line numbers 410-416 to justify the interaction effect hence observed.
Point 5: Table 6: I am not sure how you can see the R square value from the table. Please clarify.
Response 5: In order to reduce redundancy, the R squared value has been embedded into Table 5 vide line numbers 298-299. The R-squared value is now pronounced along with other empirical observations. This condenses ambiguity in data presentation and increments the fluency of the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
