The Mediating Role of Tourism Brand Co-Creation Behaviour in Linking Tourist and Operator Resources to Tourist Satisfaction and Loyalty

Abstract

Tourism increasingly depends on value that tourists and service providers build together, because such joint interaction raises tourist satisfaction and loyalty. Drawing on Service-Dominant Logic, this research tests how tourist operant resources (self-efficacy and tourist expertise) and operator operant resources (co-creation operator and service quality) influence Tourism Brand Co-Creation Behavior (TBCB), tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty, and whether TBCB mediates the path to satisfaction. A causal-explanatory design was applied to 526 respondents, selected purposively, who had been to the Ubud area of Bali during the previous 12 months. The data were processed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in AMOS 24. The findings show that each of the four antecedents significantly and positively affects both TBCB and tourist satisfaction; TBCB in turn raises satisfaction, and satisfaction raises loyalty. According to the Sobel test, TBCB significantly mediates the link between every antecedent and satisfaction. Since the direct effects also remain significant, the mediation is complementary (partial) and not full.