THE IMPACT OF NOVELTY- SEEKING AND PERCEIVED COOLNESS ON TOURIST BEHAVIORAL INTENTION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CREATIVE TOURISM EXPERIENCE

Research on tourist behavioral intention is a very important part of the tourism industry, especially for tourism professionals, travel agencies, tourism management agencies, as well as destinations. Specifically, research on tourist behavioral intention is the basis for predicting demand, understanding tourists' psychology and behavior, and providing an important source of information in supporting the development of marketing strategies for tourist destinations. Therefore, tourist behavioral intention is an important variable that destination managers are always interested in in attracting tourists and developing local tourism. This study aims to examine the impact of factors on tourist behavioral intention. In particular, the focus is on studying the impact of novelty-seeking and perceived coolness on travel behavior intention because these are factors that most tourists are interested in in today's tourism context, especially when the similarity of tourism products o f tourist destinations is increasing. To conduct the study, the author conducted direct interviews with 356 tourists to some provinces of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam (Dong Thap, Can Tho, An Giang and Kien Giang) using a convenient sampling method. In addition, the structural equation model analysis method based on the partial least squares method (PLS-SEM) was used to evaluate the measurement model and test the structural model with the support of the SmartPLS 3.2 software tool. The research results show that: First, both novelty-seeking and perceived coolness have a direct impact on creative tourism experience, which means that when tourists perceive a tourist destination as more novel and cool than other tourist destinations, it will promote tourists' desire to experience creative tourism at that destination. Second, creative tourism experience has a direct impact on tourism behavioral intention, this result explains that when tourists have a desire to experience creative tourism at a tourist destination, it will promote tourists' tourism behavioral intention. In addition, th e research results also show that novelty-seeking and perceived coolness have an indirect impact on tourism behavioral intention through creative tourism experience