Pursuit of entertainment or self-expression? Research on adventure tourism

This study explores the behavioral patterns of tourists in adventure tourism, focusing on the roles of push factors, self-image congruity, word-of-mouth (WOM), and intentions to revisit while considering the variations attributed to the rafting experience (first-time vs. repeated) and gender. Employing multi-group structural equation modeling to analyze 296 collected questionnaires, significant interrelations among these variables were revealed. Notably, joy emerged as a crucial sub-factor within push factors, particularly influencing inexperienced tourists’ intentions to revisit, whereas self-image congruity predominantly impacted experienced tourists. The study further found gender-specific differences, with males showing higher explained variance rates in self-image congruity and WOM. Experienced and male tourists gravitated more towards experiencing nature, whereas joy was more influential among inexperienced and female tourists. This research contributes to adventure tourism literature by elucidating the effect of push factors on self-image congruity and delineating the nuanced variations across different tourist experiences and genders.