Building Tourist Loyalty Through Satisfaction: An Empirical Study of Village Tourism Destinations

Abstract

Tourist loyalty is an important factor in maintaining the sustainability and competitiveness of tourism destinations, particularly tourism villages that depend on repeat visits and positive word of mouth. This study aims to analyze the effect of tourist satisfaction on tourist loyalty in advanced tourism villages in Bogor Regency, Indonesia. A quantitative explanatory approach was employed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with LISREL 8.80 software. Data were collected from 400 domestic tourists who had visited advanced tourism villages more than once through purposive sampling techniques. Tourist satisfaction was measured using four dimensions: attraction, accessibility, infrastructure, and environmental quality, while tourist loyalty was measured through revisit intention and recommendation intention. The results indicate that tourist satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on tourist loyalty, with a path coefficient of 0.80 and a t-value of 7.42. The coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.71 shows that tourist satisfaction explains 71% of the variance in tourist loyalty. Environmental quality emerged as the strongest dimension influencing tourist satisfaction, while revisit intention became the strongest indicator of tourist loyalty. These findings suggest that positive tourism experiences, particularly related to environmental conditions, encourage tourists to revisit destinations and recommend them to others. The study strengthens the application of Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory in the context of advanced tourism villages and provides practical implications for tourism village managers in improving environmental quality, infrastructure, and visitor experiences to enhance tourist loyalty.