Influence of Experiential Tourism on Destination Brand Loyalty: Evidence from Emerging Markets

Abstract

Experiential tourism has emerged as a central strategy through which destinations in emerging markets differentiate themselves and cultivate long-term visitor commitment. Although destination image, tourist engagement, and destination trust have each been studied individually as antecedents of loyalty, comparatively little empirical work has examined how these mechanisms jointly translate multi-dimensional tourist experiences into destination brand loyalty within the specific context of emerging-market destinations. To close this gap, the present study develops and tests an Experiential Tourism-Brand Loyalty framework that integrates five experiential dimensions (sense, feel, think, act, relate) with destination brand image (DBI), tourist engagement (TE) and destination brand trust (DBT) as mediating mechanisms leading to destination brand loyalty (DBL). Data is gathered through structured questionnaire administered to tourists visiting destinations across emerging economies and examined utilizing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Reliability of the measurement approach confirmed by indicator loadings, Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, average variance extracted, the Fornell-Larcker criterion, and heterotrait-monotrait ratio, while the structural model is assessed under path coefficients, the coefficient of determination (R²), predictive relevance (Q²), effect size (f²), and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA). The results show that the experiential tourism exerts a significant positive influence on DBI, TE and DBT, each of which, in turn, positively predicts destination brand loyalty; tourist engagement emerges as the strongest mediating pathway. This work contributes to the body of experiential marketing literature by expanding it to the emerging markets tourism scenario and provides practical insight for destination management organizations on creating distinctive tourist experiences.