The impact of olive oil tourism on multisensory experiences and tourist loyalty

The aim of this study was to investigate the multisensory experience of tourists who provided online reviews of olive oil tours, as well as the impact of such experiences. Spain is a country known worldwide for its olive trees and for the production and quality of extra virgin olive oil. This study proposes three complementary theoretical models and a mixed methods framework based on online reviews to measure the impact of multisensory tourism experiences on destination image through participant satisfaction and loyalty. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted using 859 visitor reviews (546 English and 313 Spanish) published on the TripAdvisor website. Quantitative methods included word frequency and multisensory experience reviews supplemented by descriptive statistics. Qualitative analysis involved theme content analysis. The results of this study show that olive oil tourism is characterised by special interest tourism and multisensory experiences, that provide tourists with memorable memories and indirectly enhance destination image, satisfaction, loyalty and intention to purchase souvenirs. The professionalism and knowledge transmission of good tour guides are the main factors, and this study also proposes the management strategy of sensory marketing and tour guide training according to the cultural differences of different language tourists.