TOURIST SATISFACTION WITH TAIWAN AS A RAILWAY TOURISM DESTINATION

The purposes of this study were to identify the sector-specific destination attributes as antecedents of tourism satisfaction in the context of railway tourism and examine their relative impact on intentions to recommend and re-participate in rail travel as consequences of tourist satisfaction. The results identified four attribute-level satisfaction factors: “availability of natural and man-made attractions”, “quality of accessibility”, “provision for rest and entertainment” and “provision of ancillary services”. While “quality of accessibility” and “provision of ancillary service” are the most important positive contributors to overall satisfaction, which in turn exert positive effects on intention to recommend and re-participate, “availability of natural and man-made attractions”, however, is found to have significant influence on intention to re-participate but not on intention to recommend. Nevertheless, it is concluded that the higher overall satisfaction the visitors have, the more possibility they will recommend and re-participate in rail travel.