Experiential Marketing, Destination Image, Tourists Satisfaction, and Tourists’ Destination Loyalty for Sustainable Tourism (Evidence from Tourists’ Cultural Destinations in Sri Lanka)

Abstract

World tourism has significantly contributed to destinations generating more social, economic and environmental benefits. Therefore, all tourist destinations have identified sustainability as their main goal of tourism. There are plenty of research to discuss the effect of experiential marketing, tourists’ satisfaction, destination image and destination loyalty than measuring these variables’ effect on sustainable tourism. In the Sri Lankan context, though Sri Lanka has many world heritage destinations to facilitate sustainable tourism, it has only a few cultural attractions. Further, there was no research to address the experiential marketing effect on sustainable tourism through image, satisfaction and loyalty. This gap has been addressed through this research with three mediating variables referenced to cultural destinations in Sri Lanka. To collect data for the study 513 tourists representing all tourists who visited Sri Lanka in 2019 conveniently interviewed. The data were analyzed through the SPSS Amos software and was able to achieve all the research objectives and answer all the research questions. The findings of the study include adaptable strategies for the attention of all the destination marketing authorities in Sri Lanka, which may help to facilitate experiential marketing for sustainable tourism through destination image, tourists’ satisfaction, and destination loyalty for cultural destinations in Sri Lanka.