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Abstract
The island tourism market is a major growth segment, worldwide, for international tourism. Penghu, Taiwan, and Phuket, Thailand, have become major destinations for foreign and domestic island tourism for Taiwanese tourists. Island tourists might have different reasons for choosing domestic versus international destinations. The objectives of this study are: (1) to identify motivational factors and marketing drivers across the two islands; (2) to investigate measurement invariance across samples; and (3) to examine the moderation effect of marketing drivers on the relationship between island tourists' motivations and their travel behavior, across samples. The measures were validated via confirmatory factor analysis, using EQS, and identified four motivational factors: experience, facilities and services, natural resources, and special events. Moderated regression was carried out to examine whether marketing drivers have a moderating effect on the relationship between motivation, and trip duration and group size. As there is measurement invariance exhibited throughout the samples of both Penghu and Phuket tourists, managers and academics alike can be confident that the scales capture the motivations and marketing drivers effectively across different contexts. In addition, marketing drivers moderate the effect of motivation on trip duration and group size in Phuket, and on group size in Penghu. Both islands need to emphasize that tourist motivations for experiencing island travel can bring a longer stay through pricing and promotional tour package programming.
