Rethinking Leisure Tourism: From the Perspective of Tourist Touch Points and Perceived Well-being

Abstract

The current study empirically examines an integrative model linking multiple types of touch points in tourism experience, hedonic well-being, eudaimonic well-being, revisit intention, and online word of mouth, in response to the calls to revitalize tourism and achieve sustainable development. The research relied on “Nong Jia Le,” an important representative survey on leisure tourism. The questionnaire was developed based on prior studies, then translated into Chinese and set up in an online survey system. In total, 316 respondents were ultimately gathered for analysis. Principal component analysis was used to test the reliability and validity of each construct, and a structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses. The findings show that tourism experiences derived from partner-owned, customer-owned, and social touch points positively affect perceived hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, while experiences derived from destination-owned touch points only positively influence hedonic well-being. In addition, both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being significantly affect consumers’ intention to revisit the destination and to spread word of mouth online. This study fills in a gap in leisure tourism literature by proposing the merits of touch points in tourism experience and placing importance on conceptions of eudaimonia. More importantly, the current research offers important social and economic considerations that can contribute to the sustainable growth of leisure tourism.