The influence of the atmosphere of religious landscape “EMEI” on tourists’ perceived value

Citation

Ma, Ding. (2023). The influence of the atmosphere of religious landscape “EMEI” on tourists’ perceived value (Master’s independent study). Bangkok: Siam University.

Abstract

The country’s economy has continued to grow, and people’s disposable income has gradually increased, giving people more free time. This has led to a booming tourism industry and an expanding tourism market in China. Religious tourism manifested as the activities of religious believers during the visitation originally arose at the same time with religious beliefs, but nowadays has become mass tourism, popular to all levels and all ages. However, the management of religious scenic spots and other planning and management and publicity planning is not good enough, the commercial atmosphere is heavy, not good enough to pass on the propaganda of its cultural implication, to tourists can perceive the value of the scenic spot many problems. The objectives of this study were 1). To determine the influence of the external atmosphere on tourists’ perceived value, 2). To determine the influence of the internal atmosphere on tourists’ perceived value, 3). To determine the influence of the local atmosphere on tourists’ perceived value, 4). To determine the influence of personnel atmosphere on tourists’ perceived value.

Based on the above objectives, this study conducted quantitative research on tourists’ perceptions of religious tourism attractions and wrote this study. This study takes the religious tourism site of EMEI as an example and researches the factors influencing the perceived value of religious tourism in scenic areas into the perceived value of tourists. Firstly, this study analyses the current situation of religious tourism research domestic and international, and takes the main relevant theories of atmosphere, perceived value, and environmental psychology as the basis, to explore the theoretical framework affecting the perceived value of religious tourists. Using the S-O-R model as the theoretical basis, the research model is established with ambiance as the independent variable, psychological emotion as the intermediate variable, and tourists’ perceived value as the response variable. Based on literature research, a questionnaire was prepared based on fieldwork and interviews with religious tourists in Buddhist scenic areas in EMEI, and a final questionnaire was formed after pre-testing. This study was divided into two research studies, 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 501 valid questionnaires were collected. Statistical analysis software was used to conduct multivariate statistical analysis on the valid samples collected to study the relevant characteristics of tourists in religious tourism scenic areas of EMEI and to analyze the influencing factors related to tourists’ travel to EMEI.

This study hypothesizes that there is a significant positive correlation between the atmosphere and tourists’ perceived value. The results of structural equation analysis show that external ambiance and personnel ambiance have a significant positive correlation on visitors’ perceived value, while the other two ambiance influencing factors do not correlate with perceived value. This shows that the external atmosphere has the greatest influence on tourists’ perceived value, followed by the personnel atmosphere of cultural scenic spots, and religious tourism scenic spots need to increase the construction of the external atmosphere and regulate the behavior of scenic spot personnel.

Keywords: religious tourist site, perceived value, atmosphere, emotion response.

The influence of the atmosphere of religious landscape “EMEI” on tourists’ perceived value

Master of Business Administration (International Program), Siam University, Bangkok, Thailand