Relationship among Travel Motivation, Satisfaction and Revisit Intention of Skiers: A Case Study on the Tourists of Urumqi Silk Road Ski Resort

Abstract

With the approach of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, the ski tourism market in mainland China is gradually heating up. As an important node city of the Silk Road Economic Belt, Urumqi is vigorously developing winter tourism to enhance its image as an urban tourism spot. In this study, visitors to the Urumqi Silk Road International Ski Resort during the winter were taken as the research object, and a quantitative study was carried out using a questionnaire survey. 278 questionnaires were recovered. A model of tourism motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention based on the push-pull factor was constructed, and the relationship among the three was verified by structural equation modelling. The research results can provide a theoretical basis and can reference suggestions for the development of ski tourism in destination cities and the strategic marketing of ski resorts.

1. Introduction

Skiing is one of the main activities of winter tourism. As the main product of snow and ice tourism, ski tourism, together with hot spring tourism and golf tourism, is one of the world’s three major themed vacation leisure tourism activities. In Europe, the benefits of snow and ice tourism mainly come from ski tourism, which has even become a pillar industry of the national economy in some countries (Tuppen 2000). Ski tourism can be incorporated into the field of sports and natural tourism because people want to participate in sports activities in the natural environment of snowy mountains (Mauri and Turci 2018). Ski tourism is highly participatory and experiential, making tourists’ activity time relatively long, which leads to increased tourism consumption. Compared to traditional sightseeing tourism, ski tourism is a high-consumption tourism activity. For example, participating in ski sports requires a certain expense in terms of equipment, and resort skiers need to bear higher dining and accommodation costs. Skiing also has a high revisit rate, many repeat customers and a high rate of repeated consumption. As a sport, skiing can entice many people to become lifelong enthusiasts.

Ski tourism is very important not only for the regional economy of tourist-intensive areas but also for the national economy (Vanat 2018). In many mountain destinations, the tourism sector drives the socio-economic growth and development of local communities (UNWTO 2018). World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimated that there were around 27 million skiers in 2003 (Vanat 2020). The 2017/18 snow season was the fourth-best snow season since the new millennium (Sancho Esper and Álvarez Rateike 2010).

China has undeniably become one of the world’s major skiing countries and will soon be among the top players in the ski industry (Vanat 2018). The country’s successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing caused the ski tourism market in mainland China to heat up rapidly. In mainland China, ice and snow resources are extremely rich, and the number of tourists is huge. In recent years, ski tourism has become an industry with great development and promotion potential for mainland tourism.

Because of the natural conditions, Xinjiang province in the north-west offers quite good snow quality (Vanat 2020). Urumqi is the capital city of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China. It is the political, economic, cultural, transportation and information exchange centre of Xinjiang and the bridgehead of the Second Continental Bridge of Asia and Europe. Moreover, it is the geographical centre of the Asian continent and the largest tourist centre in Xinjiang. Urumqi has a long winter and a snow season of about 150 days. Its mountain area has a large amount of snow and good snow quality, making it an ideal destination for ski tourism. The Silk Road International Ski Resort is located in the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, 38 km south of Urumqi and covering an area of 12 square kilometres. It is one of the three major ski resorts in mainland China and can accommodate 10,000 skiers at the same time. Therefore, Silk Road Ski Resort is an ideal place to conduct research.

On the basis of the above background, it is clear that the original motivation of the skier and the skier’s feeling after skiing are important to understand whether the skier is interested in continuing to participate. This information also helps assess the strengths and weaknesses of the ski industry. The main purpose of this study is to analyse the relationship between the motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention of ski tourists and build models to better understand their decisions and behaviours. The study results can guide the marketing strategies of ski resorts and the development planning of local tourism sectors.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Tourist Motivation

Many factors determine the skier’s choice of a particular destination, including internal factors, such as personal characteristics, personal motivation, and opinions and evaluations of other customers; and external factors including the characteristics of the destination (Pearce 2005), and the condition of the slope, skiable kilometres and weather forecast (Cristobal-Fransi et al. 2018). The motivation for travel must be considered when promoting destinations and dividing target markets, because motivation drives people and is thus very important when choosing a destination (Sancho Esper and Álvarez Rateike 2010). Many authors have contributed to the concept of defining tourism motivation, a concept created by introducing psychological motivation to tourism science (Murphy 1986). Mansfeld (1992) believed that improving tourism motivation theory and measurement models can help scholars better understand tourist choices and tourism behaviour. Alexandris et al. (2009) studied the motivation of Greek skiers. They investigated the motivation, participation and loyalty of professional skiers and obtained a seven-dimensional motivational scale by using cluster analysis. Fakeye and Crompton (1991) studied a winter resort in Texas and showed that the dimensions of tourist motivation are composed of seven factors.

Since the 1970s, scholars from various countries have studied tourism motivation and come up with a series of theoretical frameworks and conceptual models, such as push-pull theory, self-centred-anisotropic-centred theory, escape-seek theory, the tourism career model and Maslow’s demand hierarchy model.

Among the numerous tourism motivation theories, push-pull theory has been widely used in the study of tourism destination selection and decision-making processes.

Intrinsic motivation, the motivation to push, is an inherent desire for out-of-town travel, while extrinsic motivation, the motivation to pull, is the external attraction to people travelling (Dann 1981), so the theory explains why people participate in tourism due to both internal and external factors. Particularly noteworthy is that the driving factors impel people to travel, while the pulling factors promote destination selection (Uysal and Jurowski 1994). Caber and Albayrak (2016) used push-pull theory to study the motivation of rock climbing tourists and proved that motivation is an antecedent of overall satisfaction. For tourists who participate in rock climbing, the push motivations include risk taking, challenge, catharsis, recognition, creativity, and physical setting; pull motivations include climbing novelty seeking, destination novelty seeking, climbing tourism infrastructure, non-climbing sport and leisure activities, and reclusiveness. The motives of rock climbers vary according to tourists’ experience. The results of the study confirm that Dann (1981) push-pull framework is suitable for understanding the motivation of climbers.

Other research also supports the fact that understanding the motivations created by pushing and pulling can help us improve destination attractiveness and competitiveness.

Oh et al. (1995) pointed out that if you want to market a destination effectively, you have to understand the push and pull motivations and the relationship between the two. They surveyed five cities in Australia to look for people who had already travelled abroad or will travel abroad in the next few years. Through their investigation, they identified several dimensions of pushing and pulling. The pushing aspects obtained were knowledge/intellectual, kinship/social interaction, novelty/adventure, entertainment/prestige, sports, and escape/rest.

Kim et al. (2003) surveyed the motivations of tourists in six national parks in South Korea. They found that the pull motivations consisted of key tourist resources, information and convenience of facilities, accessibility and transportation. In addition to the above factors, other scholars also used: satisfy conceit, gain knowledge, maximize benefits, evade punishment, realize self-worth, social adjustment (Fodness 1994); relaxation, knowledge, adventure, prestige, family reunion, sports (Cha et al. 1995); self-actualization, self-esteem, recognition/status, belonging, physiological requirements; and attractiveness of the destination area (Chon 1989) as push and pull factors for tourists.

Therefore, the present study is based on the push-pull factor as the theoretical basis for research.

2.2. Satisfaction

Satisfaction is an important indicator for ski resorts in collecting feedback from tourists. According to tourists’ satisfaction, ski resorts can obtain helpful data. Based on classic understanding, the essence of customer satisfaction is a psychological state, that is, the customer compares what he/she has gained with what he/she has paid, and then judges whether the cost is reasonable according to the result of the comparison. In other words, tourists compare their expectations with on-site experiences (Pizam 1978; Howard and Sheth 1969; Ostrom and Lacobucci 1995). In many studies of satisfaction, the definition of customer satisfaction by Oliver (1993) is generally accepted in the academic community, in which customer satisfaction is considered to be the judgment of customers on the degree to which products and services meet their needs. In tourist activities, if the tourist is satisfied, then he is likely to want to revisit a tourist destination (Santoso 2019). The definition of satisfaction related to tourism activities is mainly divided into three categories, namely, satisfaction related to services received by tourists, satisfaction related to destinations, and satisfaction of tourists (Santoso 2019; Lee et al. 2011).

Some scholars have measured satisfaction relating to ski resorts. Matzler et al. (2007) found in a survey of customer satisfaction and loyalty in alpine ski resorts that satisfaction involves factors such as parties, information, price–quality ratio, kids’ slopes, well-being, and slopes and accessibility. Matzler et al. (2008) surveyed ski resort satisfaction and developed a scale to measure customer satisfaction with ski resorts. Five dimensions were identified: quality and safety of slopes, restaurants and bars, variety of slopes and sports facilities, ski lifts, and employees. These dimensions with which to measure satisfaction will help improve the experience of ski resort visitors in the future.

Gnoth (1997) is an early scholar who explored the relationship between motivation and attitude. His model of tourist attitude formation showed that tourists’ motivation influences their attitudes. Ross and Iso-Ahola (1991) argued that tourism motivation can explain more than 90% of the overall satisfaction of tourists with their destination. The study on the satisfaction of festival tourists by Lee et al. (2004) showed that, if tourists’ motivation is satisfied during the tourism process, then they will give a positive evaluation of the tourism process. Santoso (2019) found that tourist motivation has a significant positive impact on tourist satisfaction in tourism research on Yogyakarta.

Yoon and Uysal (2005) used tourism as an example to explore the relationship between tourists’ motivation and satisfaction with travel to Cyprus and found that pushing motivation does not affect satisfaction while pulling motivation harms satisfaction. Hall et al. (2016) studied skiers as the research object and explored the relationship between attribute satisfaction, overall satisfaction and motivation. They found that different tourist groups have different motivation attributes, and not all attributes need to be met to achieve overall satisfaction and positive behavioural intentions.

The above studies have explored the role of tourism motivation in the formation of tourist satisfaction.

Combining the above points makes it possible to propose the following hypotheses:

Hypotheses 1.

Push motivation has a positive influence on satisfaction.

Hypotheses 2.

Pull motivation has a positive influence on satisfaction.

2.3. Revisit Intention

Skiing is a sport with high repetitive consumption, and there are many repeat customers, therefore it is necessary to study the willingness of tourists to revisit. Many research results and models show that the visitor’s intention to visit is not a simple construct. Many researchers believe that the visitor’s intention is a complex concept, and many factors constitute this concept. The definition of willingness to revisit is relatively wide. In commercial consumption, it is called willingness to repurchase, which indicates that consumers are willing to repeatedly consume a certain product. When discussing leisure areas, it indicates that tourists are willing to revisit the tourist attraction or purchase tourism products. The travel destination can be regarded as a product, and tourists can revisit the travel destination or recommend it to other potential tourists, such as friends or relatives (Yoon and Uysal 2005). The operating variables of Santoso (2019) in the construction of access intention are: desire to visit again, desire to tell friends, and word-of-mouth communication. Parasuraman et al. (1985) defined revisit intention as the intention of visiting again after the customer is satisfied with the destination and is willing to consume again or introduce and recommend the product to others. Selnes (1993) believed that repurchase intention is the customer’s intention to purchase the product or service again from the original company and is the customer’s psychological commitment to the product or service. In a study on skiers, Alexandris et al. (2007) used three indicators to measure the willingness of tourists to continue participating in the activity. These three items were ‘I intend to go skiing over the next month’, ‘I am determined to go skiing over the next month’ and ‘I will try to go skiing over the next month’.

Kozak (2002) pointed out that factors such as the travel experience and frequency of tourists, entertainment activities, local hospitality and tourist satisfaction with services or recreational products all affect visit intention. Pratminingsih et al. (2014) studied tourism behaviour and showed that motivation not only affects satisfaction but also directly affects revisit intentions, even if the regression coefficient is small. This finding showed that the motivation of the satisfied tourist will prompt the tourist to visit again and return to the same place even though he/she was not satisfied with the first trip (Santoso 2019). Kouthouris (2009) investigated the motivation and participation of recreational skiers to predict the extent of their intention to continue skiing. The results showed that people driven by achievement, friends and nature-related motivations are more likely to continue skiing. The motivation of alpine skiing participants has a direct and indirect effect on their intention regarding continuous participation (Alexandris et al. 2007).

Halstead (1989) proposed that the real value of measuring consumer satisfaction lies in the fact that it can predict the post-consumption reaction of consumers. Therefore, understanding the consumer’s visit intention and its relationship with satisfaction is vital. Satisfactory buying experience seems to be a requirement for products to continue gaining interest, which may lead to repeated purchases (Oliver 1993). If expectations are met appropriately, then tourists will be more satisfied and more loyal after the tour. The higher the tourist satisfaction, the higher the loyalty will be to the destination (del Bosque and Martín 2008). Managers should understand satisfaction as the basic determinant of loyalty. User satisfaction brings loyalty and positive word of mouth (Rodríguez del Bosque et al. 2006). High satisfaction often triggers positive behavioural intent, such as positive word of mouth, consumer recommendations and repurchase (Lee et al. 2007; Cronin et al. 2000). Schofield and Thompson (2007) surveyed tourists from music festivals and concluded that the different motivations of tourists greatly affect their satisfaction and revisit intention.

Therefore, the aforementioned literature will be used as the basis for the mutual relationship between participation motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention (continued participation) of ski tourists. With the aforementioned taken into account, the following hypotheses are thus proposed:

Hypotheses 3.

Push motivation has a positive influence on revisit intention.

Hypotheses 4.

Pull motivation has a positive influence on revisit intention.

Hypotheses 5.

Satisfaction has a positive influence on revisit intention.

A comprehensive consideration of the first two groups of hypotheses can highlight the key role of push and pull motivation for satisfaction and revisit intention; it is expected to be positive and will be measured by the product of the final coefficients of the estimated model. Furthermore, the relationship among variables will be verified with empirical data. Figure 1 illustrates the model and hypotheses of this study.

3. Methods

This study designed a questionnaire based on a literature review. Visitors were invited to answer questions through an online questionnaire. Through convenient sampling and snowball sampling methods, visitors to Urumqi who participated in skiing were surveyed. The pre-test of the questionnaire surveyed 114 tourists. The researchers modified the questionnaire according to the feedback.

This research conducted a formal survey from December 2019 to January 2020 by using an online questionnaire distributed to the visitors of Urumqi Silk Road Ski Resort. A total of 320 questionnaires were issued, and 278 valid questionnaires were collected, resulting in a response rate of 86.88%. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part is an assessment of the skiers’ motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention. The second part asks respondents about their demographic information. The questionnaire used a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). This study used four scales as follows:

Push motivation: This scale was based on the study of Oh et al. (1995) who used the scale to assess motivations that drive skiers to travel. This scale has six dimensions, including knowledge/intellectual, kinship/social interaction, novelty/adventure, entertainment/prestige, sports and escape/rest.

Pull motivation: This scale was compiled by Kim et al. (2003). The scale was used to assess the indicators of ski resort attraction. It has three dimensions, namely key tourist resources, information and convenience of facilities, and accessibility and transportation.

Satisfaction: This scale was based on the results of Matzler et al. (2008). It has six items, which includes various indicators of the ski resort, such as the quality and safety of slopes and catering.

Revisit intention: This scale was based on the findings of Parasuraman et al. (1985). It has three items designed to measure tourists’ revisit intention, for example, ‘I would recommend others to travel’ and ‘I would like to travel and spend again’.

The factor reliability was analysed by Cronbach’s α and the corrected item-total correlation (CITC). If Cronbach’s α reaches 0.6, testing could ensure the reliability of the questionnaire (Wu 2010). In all structural levels, Cronbach’s α is greater than 0.9. This result was validated with the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test and Bartlett’s sphericity test. All the factors of the two tests were found to have loads greater than 0.7 and were significant at 0.001, which met the requirements of Hair et al. (2010). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results at the motivation level were determined by decomposing the main axis and rotating Promax. Projects with a factor load of less than 0.45 and a community of less than 0.5 were deleted. As a result, the scale included 26 items and was used for the main survey. In the present study, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to study the relationship between data unobtainable structures (Hair et al. 2010). SEM testing procedures have three stages, and data were analysed using AMOS22.0 software.

4. Data Analysis and Results

4.1. Profile of the Respondents

Among the respondents, 135 (49%) are female and 143 (51%) are male. Young people comprise the majority, with the 26–30 years old age group accounting for 41% and the 18–25 years old group accounting for 37%. The data is consistent with Vanat (2020) investigation in showing that skiing is becoming more and more popular among Chinese between the ages of 25 to 35. About 80% of the skiers are under 40. In terms of academic distribution, most of the samples are ‘Diploma/Degree’ holders, accounting for 70%. A total of 53% of the interviewees are working people, and another 26% and 18% are students and other professionals, respectively. Regarding the frequency of participation in skiing, most of the sample had participated less than five times. Specifically, the number of people participating in skiing two–five times is 42% and those participating for the first time accounted for 25% (

Table 1. The demographic profile of respondents.

Variable		N	%
Gender	Male	143	51%
	Female	135	49%
Age	18~25	104	37%
	26~30	113	41%
	31~40	27	10%
	41~50	17	6%
	51~60	10	4%
	60 or above	7	3%
Education	Secondary/High school or below	43	15%
	Diploma/Degree	194	70%
	Master or above	41	15%
Position	Student	71	26%
	Worker	147	53%
	Retired	10	4%
	other	50	18%
Participating in skiing	1	69	25%
	2~5	118	42%
	6~10	47	17%
	10 or above	44	16%

).

4.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results

To test the reliability of the structure, this study used completely standardised loading, construct reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) to test the validity of the structure’s discrimination and convergence.

Table 2. First-order confirmatory factor analysis results for push and pull motivation.

Latent Variable	Measured Lambda	Standard Factor Load	AVE	CR	Goodness of Fit
Knowledge/Intellectual	KI1	0.798	0.699	0.823	X2 = 248.547 X2/df = 2.39 (p = 0.000) GFI = 0.912 CFI = 0.958 IFI = 0.98 NFI = 0.93 RMSEA = 0.071
	KI2	0.871
Kinship/Social interaction	KS1	0.721	0.623	0.766
	KS2	0.852
Novelty/Adventure	NA1	0.897	0.673	0.891
	NA2	0.886
Entertainment/Prestige	EP2	0.831	0.656	0.884
	EP3	0.864
	EP4	0.819
	EP5	0.725
Sports	SP1	0.895	0.766	0.907
	SP2	0.912
	SP3	0.825
Escape/Rest	ER1	0.842	0.651	0.882
	ER2	0.842
	ER3	0.786
	ER4	0.758
Key tourist resources	KTR1	0.785	0.621	0.83	X2 = 58.189 X2/df = 2.425 (p = 0.000) GFI = 0.955 CFI = 0.98 IFI = 0.98 NFI = 0.967 RMSEA = 0.072
	KTR2	0.753
	KTR3	0.841
Information and convenience of facilities	IAC2	0.912	0.618	0.906
	IAC3	0.905
	IAC4	0.819
Accessibility and transportation	AAT1	0.828	0.692	0.87
	AAT2	0.84
	AAT3	0.825

summarises the above results. According to the table, in the first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the standard factor load (SFL) values of all factors in the motivation surface are greater than 0.7, and all the measurement items show a 0.001 level of significance (p < 0.001), AVE values are all greater than 0.5 (Fornell and Larcker 1981) and the component reliability (CR) values of each factor are greater than 0.7 (Gursoy et al. 2004). These results mean that a good correspondence exists between the analysis data factor and the measurement items and it has good convergence validity. Other goodness-of-fit indicators show that the model is acceptable.

Next, second-order CFA was performed to test whether the collected data conformed to the recommended model. Eighteen quotas were used in the second-order measurement model (six from push motivation, three from pull motivation, six from satisfaction, and two from revisit intention).

In the second-order CFA, the values of the SFL corresponding to all the factors were greater than 0.7, and all the measured items showed significance at the level of 0.001 (p < 0.001). The AVE values were greater than 0.5, and the component reliability (CR) value of each factor was greater than 0.7. This outcome means that there is a good correspondence relationship between the analysis data factor and the measurement items with good convergence validity. The SFL of all latent variables is less than 1, which means the research data have good discriminant validity. The fit of the whole measurement model was tested and the goodness of fit was acceptable (X² = 303.922, df = 125, X²/df = 2.432, RMSEA = 0.072, GFI = 0.889, PGFI = 0.65, AGFI = 0.848, CFI = 0.957, NFI = 0.93, RMR = 0.031). Therefore, the adjustment of the second-order model was acceptable (

Table 3. Second-order confirmatory factor analysis results.

Latent Variable	Measured Lambda	Standard Factor Load	AVE	CR	Goodness of Fit
Satisfaction	S1	0.914	0.689	0.93	X2 = 303.922 X2/df = 2.431 (p = 0.000) GFI = 0.889 CFI = 0.957 IFI = 0.957 NFI = 0.930 RMSEA = 0.072
	S2	0.828
	S3	0.857
	S4	0.756
	S5	0.727
	S6	0.884
Revisit Intention	RI1	0.862	0.753	0.901
	RI2	0.891
	RI3	0.85
Push Motivation	KI	0.813	0.612	0.904
	KS	0.749
	NA	0.79
	EP	0.737
	SP	0.84
	ER	0.761
Pull Motivation	AAT	0.771	0.669	0.858
	IAC	0.861
	KTR	0.82

).

4.3. Structural Model Testing

After the CFA test, the standardised path coefficient analysis between the measured variables of the structural equation model was carried out to test whether the hypothesis of the research model was valid.

The results show that the model is consistent with the data.

Table 4. Results of proposed model.

Dimension				Standardized Coefficients	t-Value
H1	Push Motivation	-->	Satisfaction	0.317	3.382 ***
H2	Pull Motivation	-->	Satisfaction	0.573	5.827 ***
H3	Push Motivation	-->	Revisit Intention	0.164	1.804
H4	Pull Motivation	-->	Revisit Intention	0.315	2.821 **
H5	Satisfaction	-->	Revisit Intention	0.449	5.186 ***

Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.005.

shows the results according to the SEM analysis for checking the hypothetical path. The display supports four hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 shows that the push motivation of ski tourists affects their satisfaction (t = 3.382, p < 0.001) and is thus supported. Hypothesis 2 shows that pulling motivation has a significant positive effect on tourist satisfaction (t = 5.827, p < 0.001). The results likewise show that Hypothesis 4 regarding pulling motivation affecting revisit intention (t = 2.821, p < 0.005) is supported. Additionally, Hypothesis 5 predicts that the satisfaction of skiers will have an impact on their revisit intention (t = 5.186, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 3 about the relationship between push motivation and revisit intention is not significant. Finally, the model was modified. Figure 2 shows the final model with the hypothesis test results.

The final measurement scale is shown in

Table 5. Final measurement scale.

Dimension	Ident	Measured Item
Knowledge/Intellectual	KI1	Learning new things, increasing knowledge
	KI2	Develop skills and abilities
Kinship/Social interaction	KS1	Being together with family and friends
	KS2	Meeting people with similar interests
Novelty/Adventure	NA1	Being daring & adventuresome
	NA2	Finding thrills and excitement
Entertainment/Prestige	EP2	Talking about the trip after return home to get respect from others
	EP3	Show my taste in life
	EP4	Go to places that friends haven’t been
	EP5	Participate in festivals, sports events and other activities
Sports	SP1	Keep healthy
	SP2	Being physically active
	SP3	Participating in sports
Escape/Rest	ER2	Change from a busy job or study
	ER3	Relax and enjoy leisure time
	ER4	Stay away from the crowd and experience solitude
Key tourist resources	KTR1	Beautiful natural resources
	KTR2	Cultural and historic resources
	KTR3	Well-conserved environment (e.g., air quality, ecological environment)
Information and convenience of facilities	IAC2	Convenient facilities (e.g., restroom, drinking stand)
	IAC3	Clean and comfortable accommodations and dining environment
	IAC4	Tranquil rest areas
Accessibility and transportation	AAT1	Convenient transportation
	AAT2	Easy accessibility
	AAT3	Convenient parking lots
Satisfaction	S1	Quality and safety of slopes
	S2	Ski lifts
	S3	Variety of slopes and sport facilities
	S4	Restaurant and bar
	S5	Employees
	S6	Overall satisfaction
Revisit Intention	VI1	Suggest that others ski here
	VI2	Willing to ski again
	VI3	Share a pleasant experience with others

.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

This study conducted a questionnaire survey and quantitative analysis of tourists at the Silk Road Ski Resort in Urumqi during the winter of 2019/2020. This research mainly aims to understand the motivations of ski tourists and the important components of such motivations and then explore the relationships among participation motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention. From a theoretical point of view, this study strengthens the literature on skiing and tourism. The results have educational and management implications for the tourism and skiing industry.

Firstly, the exploratory factor analysis shows that tourists pursue six pushing motivations and three pulling motivations. Therefore, destination marketers should consider the actual meaning of these motivational variables because these may enhance the services of the destination and tourist satisfaction and increase the revisit rate of destinations. Path analysis revealed that the sports factor has the highest influence among the six impact factors that promote motivation, followed by knowledge/intellectual. Meanwhile, entertainment/prestige has the lowest influence, and so this factor is not the main reason for skiing tourism. For skiers, the excitement of the experience and the freshness brought by the adventures most impressed them. This outcome is related to the attributes of the sport of skiing. By participating in skiing, tourists can be soothed and relaxed (Luo and Lam 2017), thus reflecting this tourism concept for skiing participants about the nature of skiing.

On the other hand, the participants did not think that skiing can make them different or get a glimpse of others, an outcome that is related to the popularisation of the sport. Tourists who participate in skiing also do not feel that they are special and do not pay much attention to the views of others but more instead to their inner feelings and to self-improvement. The engine of tourism is also changing. Managers pay attention to tourists’ sports experience, skills learning and relaxation to match the tourists’ internal travel motivations. Secondly, information about and convenience of facilities have the highest influence among the three pulling factors. Therefore, when a skier chooses a destination, how the ski resort conveys its range and characteristics is crucial (Cristobal-Fransi et al. 2018). Unlike the findings of Tuppen (2000), accessibility and transportation in this study do not attract skiers’ attention. The reason is that travel is becoming more and more convenient, and so accessibility and transportation are no longer a concern, and tourists from all over the world can easily and quickly reach the ski resort. Studies have shown that managers must consider incentives related to external resources as well as pay attention to the protection of key resources and the improvement of service facilities, thereby enhancing destination competitiveness.

In terms of satisfaction, the overall satisfaction of tourists is relatively high. It can be seen from the path analysis that, for skiers, the most important is the quality and safety of the ski trails, followed by the slope and other facilities. Catering and employees’ experience for tourists are relatively less important than the former items. In sports tourism, sports are the focus. Tourists fully enjoy the facilities and the fun of participating in them; this is different from other modes of travel. Therefore, they pay more attention to the construction and safety of the venue and are not so concerned with food and beverage. This is not the case in other types of tourism. In the actual management of ski resorts, to increase tourist satisfaction continuous improvement of ski-runs and related lift systems have always been the goal to connect different areas and bring a better experience for skiers (Tuppen 2000). However, attention should also be paid to the activities of non-skiers, such as shopping areas, restaurants, bars and clubs, to give them the opportunity to participate in other recreational activities provided by the destination (Cristobal-Fransi et al. 2018; Luo et al. 2020).

In this study, SEM was used to verify the results of the relationship among motivation, satisfaction and revisit intention. Each goodness of fit indicates that the model is acceptable (X² = 303.922, df = 125, X²/df = 2.432, RMSEA = 0.072, GFI = 0.889, PGFI = 0.65, AGFI = 0.848, CFI = 0.957, NFI = 0.93, RMR = 0.031), The analysis results verify the hypothetical path (Figure 2).

Push and pull motivation have a positive influence on satisfaction, Once again validating the research of previous scholars, this result implies that marketers should pay attention to the impact of tourist motivation to improve the satisfaction of guest travel experience. Pull motivation has a positive influence on revisit intention. This shows that pulling opportunities affect tourists’ willingness to participate again, which includes redefining the destination and recommending it to others, as well as the positive promotion of the destination. Therefore, the destination manager should consider the role of motivation and its purpose. The positive relationship of local loyalty suggests that more attention should be paid to the emotional feelings of tourists to increase the revisit rate (Yoon and Uysal 2005). It is confirmed that, when tourists are satisfied with their travel experience, they are willing to revisit the destination and recommend it to others. Therefore, managers of tourist destinations should establish a higher degree of satisfaction and create positive post-tourism behaviours to improve and maintain the competitiveness of tourist destinations (Yoon and Uysal 2005).

This research is conducted in the context of winter sports tourism, especially for leisure skiers. From the perspective of foreign development experience, the ski industry has its own development rules. It may take about ten years for China’s ski industry to mature further. For China, we want to be full of hope for the ski industry, but we also need to be patient (Vanat 2018). Finally, it is worth discussing that the global tourism industry is basically at a standstill right now, which puts great pressure on tourism practitioners. So far, the tourism industry has suffered huge economic losses, but at the same time the epidemic is also a reminder of the need to be prepared for emergencies. Many travel companies have introduced different travel practices, such as handing out distance caps to tourists. Tourists’ behaviour has also changed, with stricter disinfection and a focus on public hygiene. With the outbreak of COVID-19 and the closure of the 2019/2020 season in most of the northern hemispheres’ ski areas, maybe this heralds a better tomorrow (Vanat 2020).

6. Limitations and Future Research

Although this study provides practical and theoretical implications, given the author’s limited capabilities and resources this study still has the following limitations.

Firstly, the research model was tested in a specific environment. As the research came from a single empirical study, the results may not be generalised. Therefore, the model should be generalised further. Secondly, the Tourism Motivation Scale and Satisfaction Scale were established on the basis of the literature review, and so further research is necessary. Future research can be designed according to the ski resort itself. Furthermore, because tourists’ motivations and responses may be different, Hall et al. (2016) indicated that different groups will have different motivations, and the measurement structure should be further explored and improved. The present study did not conduct demographic statistics information on potential regulatory effects, such as age and number of participants, on the relationship between major structures. Therefore, the characteristics of the interviewees should be considered in future research.

Finally, owing to the rules of the questionnaire survey, the scope of this survey selected respondents over 18 years old. To determine the trend in younger skiing groups, future research could include customers that are below 18, who will be the main participants in the ski resort in the future, and longitudinal research can be conducted to better understand the situation of tourists.