Memorable Whale Watching Tourism Experiences: Insights From the Azores

ABSTRACT This study examines the roles of learning, experience co‐creation, and experiential satisfaction as antecedents of a memorable whale‐watching tourism experience, as well as the relationships between experiential satisfaction, memorable whale‐watching tourism experience, hedonic well‐being, place attachment, and pro‐environmental behavior. Using data collected from 247 tourists who had taken a whale‐watching trip in the Azores, partial least squares structural equation modeling was then applied to the dataset. The results indicate that the higher the levels of learning, experience co‐creation, and experiential satisfaction, the more memorable is the whale‐watching tourism experience. Experiential satisfaction and memorable whale‐watching tourism experience are, in turn, significant determinants of hedonic well‐being, place attachment, and pro‐environmental behavior. The paper therefore calls for greater efforts by whale‐watching trip providers to enhance their learning and interpretation programs and to ensure that the overall trip experience is as interactive as possible.