Beyond memory lane: investigating the influences of memorable tourism experiences, overall satisfaction, and perceived travel risk on revisit intentions in Langkawi island / Nurzehan Abu Bakar

Langkawi Island has long been a favourite vacation spot for travellers looking for a true island experience and the chance to make treasured memories. Nevertheless, despite its beauty, many travellers considered the island short of offered experiences. Furthermore, the global COVID-19 pandemic has exerted additional pressure on Langkawi Island's tourism suppliers, compelling them to carefully oversee and regulate the experiences of tourists. Local tourism providers in Malaysia find themselves in a state of confusion, unable to reassure tourists, as the government employs diverse strategies to contain the pandemic and lacks consistent enforcement of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). Such concern has further impacted tourist experiences and intention to return, as tourists overestimated future risk perception. Nevertheless, the perceived travel risk of COVID19 has not been considered in Memorable Tourism Experience (MTE) literature, and the effects of perceived travel risk as a moderator between MTE, satisfaction, and revisit intention have also received little attention in tourism research. Therefore, using the Tourism Consumption System (TCS) as the underpinning theory, the researcher integrated the model of MTE, overall satisfaction, perceived travel risk, and revisit intention to answer the following objectives: (i) to examine tourist MTE, overall satisfaction, and revisit intention; (ii) to examine the mediating effect of overall satisfaction on the relationship between Langkawi Island MTE and revisit intention; (iii) to investigate the moderating role of perceived travel risk on the relationship between overall satisfaction and revisit intention. This study was conducted by collecting data from 337 tourists who visited Langkawi Island, and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses and evaluate the model. The results showed that the higher-order construct of MTE positively correlated with overall satisfaction and revisit intention. Meanwhile, for lower-order constructs, only three (3) out of seven (7) MTE dimensions, namely hedonism, local culture, and refreshment, were found to positively correlate with overall satisfaction and revisit intention. Based on the bootstrapping analysis, overall satisfaction plays a partial mediation role in the relationship between MTE and revisit intention; however, the perceived travel risk of COVID-19 did not moderate the relationship between overall satisfaction and revisit intention. In essence, the findings of this study can help assist tourism stakeholders in proactively addressing and regulating risk perceptions in order to boost passenger confidence and improve postpandemic tourism experience marketing in an island context. Furthermore, the incorporation of MTE as a type 2 second-order construct, along with the integration of perceived travel risk related to COVID-19 into MTE, overall satisfaction, and revisit intention, constitutes an original and noteworthy contribution to the field of MTE and tourism literature.