In recent years, Hebei Province has actively developed rural tourism under the guidance of an important deployment of Chinese rural development strategies, but it is still been insufficient in terms of rural tourism infrastructure construction, rural ...
In recent years, Hebei Province has actively developed rural tourism under the guidance of an important deployment of Chinese rural development strategies, but it is still been insufficient in terms of rural tourism infrastructure construction, rural tourism service management, rural tourism characteristic product innovation, local image and brand recognition due to the unbalanced economic development and late rural tourism development between regions in Hebei Province. Accordingly, this study aims to provide future development instructions that can help tourists visiting Hebei Province's leading rural tourism sites increase loyalty, attract more tourists, revitalize rural tourism, improve service quality, promote regional image formation, and enrich brand assets.
This study classifies and defines the basic concepts of rural tourism, rural tourism service quality, regional image, brand equity, loyalty, and emotional response based on the prior research of international scholars, systematically summarizes the progress of related research of various variables, and starting from the actual background of Hebei rural tourism, rural tourism service quality (rurality, reliability, attractiveness, comfort), regional image (cognitive image, emotional image), brand equity (brand awareness, perceived quality), loyalty and emotional response (pleasure, arousal, dominance) an evaluation model and measurement were established for the effect on the mediating effect. Field investigations and distribution of electronic questionnaires were conducted from June 10, 2023 to August 31, 2023. The 523 copies collected were mainly based on the SPSS.26.0 and Amos27.0 programs and empirical analysis was performed through analysis methods such as frequency analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and path analysis. According to the analysis of the research process and results. the following research conclusions were drawn.
First, rurality and attractiveness were found to have no significant effect on cognitive and emotional images, reliability was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on both cognitive and emotional images, and comfort was found to have a significant positive (+) effect only on cognitive images. Second, rurality was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on perceived quality, and reliability had a significant positive (+) effect on brand awareness, and attractiveness and comfort all had a significant positive (+) effect on brand awareness and perceived quality, Third, rurality, reliability, attractiveness, comfort were all found to have a significant positive (+) effect on arousal and dominance. Fourth, it was found that the influence on loyalty in both regional image and brand equity had a significant positive (+) effect. Fifth, it was found that all the effects of regional image on brand equity were not significant. Sixth, in the relationship between rurality, attractiveness, and regional image, it was found to have a complete mediating effect of arousa and dominance, and in the relationship between reliability and regional image, it was found to have a partial mediating effect of arousal and dominance in the relationship between comfort and cognitive image, but it was found to have a complete mediating effect of arousal in the relationship between emotional images. Seventh, in the relationship between rurality, reliability, attractiveness and brand awareness, it showed a complete mediating effect of pleasure, arousal and dominance, but in the relationship between rurality, attractiveness, comfort, and perceived quality, it showed a complete mediating effect of reliability, pleasure, and arousal.
Based on the research results, this study presented implications and suggestions for environmental protection, employee training, tourism facility improvement, smart management platform development, regional image creation, and brand marketing reinforcement to help improve tourism loyalty.