Thesis Defense
International Tourist’s post-visit behaviors:
A study of short-term revisit intention in the emerging tourism destination of Vietnam.

Van Ha LUONG - PhD candidate in the PhD programme ESCP

Van Ha Luong, PhD candidate in the PhD programme ESCP, publicly defended his PhD thesis in Management Sciences.

7 July 2020
ESCP Business School Campus République

Abstract

This thesis is an endeavor to provide a new theoretical framework for investigating international tourists' short-term revisit intention following the experiential marketing paradigm in the context of an emerging destination of Vietnam based on the in-depth exploration of the destination perception and empirical testing of the self-congruity mode.

By employing a mixed-method research design that combines both content analysis and structural equation models, it aims at bridging several research gaps raised in tourist behavior literature, which mainly are: the irrelevance of expectancy-disconfirmation theory (service quality paradigm) in explaining tourist's short-term revisit intention; the absence of time factor in examining the revisit intention; and the unidentified relationship of novelty-seeking motivation and tourist's behavior in the post-visit stage.

Through a non-linear buying process model, it first discovered that experiential and symbolic perceptions of a destination are found to be key mediators that should be incorporated in tourism destination research.

Furthermore, selfcongruity has been found to have a positive influence on short-term revisit intention whereas novelty seeking is revealed a robust motivation that discourage the revisit intention of tourist to the same destination by its moderating effect on the interrelationship of post-visit behavior constructs. This might explain the reality of the weak return rate of international tourists to Vietnam.

Finally, emerging destinations seem to attract more millennials who prefer novelty and unique traveling experience.

Jury

Supervisor:

  • Mrs Nathalie Prime
    Professor, ESCP Business School

Referees:

  • Mrs Lan Huong Bui,
    Professor Emeritus, French-Vietnamese Center for Management Education (CFVG)
  • Mr Gilles Roehrich,
    Professor Emeritus, Université Grenoble-Alpes

Suffragants:

  • Mr Jean-Pierre Helfer,
    Professor Emeritus, Université Panthéon Sorbonne (IAE Paris)
  • Mr Robert Wilken,
    Professor, ESCP Business School, Berlin Campus

Campuses