Online reputation, virtual experience and tourists’ revisit intentions. The case of Vilakazi street tourism corridor in Soweto

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Online reputation, virtual experience and tourists’ revisit intentions. The case of Vilakazi street tourism corridor in Soweto
 
Creator Mgiba, Freddy M. Chiliya, Norman
 
Subject Management; Marketing; Technology; Tourism, Loyalty fourth industrial revolution; reputation; pre-visit experience; visit intention; satisfaction; loyalty.
Description Background: Academic literature has documented the benefits of technology for the tourism business. However, the influence of the fourth industrial revolution environment on the destination reputation, pre-visit experience, visit intentions and how these affect tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty intentions have not received much attention, especially within the African context.Aim: The purpose of this study was to empirically test the effect of this environment on all these variables.Setting: This study is one of the few empirical types of research conducted in an urban tourism destination centre in a South African context.Methods: The study employed a positivist quantitative research methodology. Primary data (N = 235) were collected from tourists who visited the Vilakazi Street precinct during October–November 2019, using the convenient probability sampling approach. For analysis, the study employed structural equation modelling.Results: There are positive relationships between the fourth industrial revolution environment and the online reputation and the pre-visit experience. These, in turn, have a positive effect on the intention to visit the precinct, which affects the tourists’ feelings of satisfaction after actually visiting the centre. Satisfaction has a positive impact on their loyalty intentions.Conclusion: The findings create a space for future research by providing another framework for investigating the usefulness of new technology in the tourism industry, which can also extend to other industries. For managers, the findings can help in the creation of online advertisement strategies, online reputation management and online pre-visit experience enhancement.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor None
Date 2020-08-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Quantitative survey study
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v23i1.3533
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 23, No 1 (2020); 11 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/3533/2156 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/3533/2155 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/3533/2157 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/3533/2154
 
Coverage International 2019 JEL M15, M16, M31, M37
Rights Copyright (c) 2020 Freddy M. Mgiba, Norman Chiliya https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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