Xin Wang
Ivan Ka Wai Lai
Xinyu Liu- Faculty of International Tourism and Management, City University of Macau, Macao, Macao SAR, China
Life satisfaction is a research hotspot in positive psychology in recent years. This study uses overseas students as subjects and attempts to examine the effect of place attachment and student life satisfaction on Mainland Chinese students’ word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations and their Ambassador Behavioral (AB) intention. A survey was systematically conducted in six institutions in Macao. The results of 312 valid data indicate that place dependence has a positive influence on place identity; place identity and place dependence have a positive influence on student life satisfaction; student life satisfaction mediates the influence of the two dimensions of place attachment on WOM and AB intention. Recommendations are provided to improve overseas students’ life satisfaction in the study places. It helps to improve their sense of ownership and actively participate in the construction of the study places.
Introduction
With the development of the economy and the influence of globalization, population mobility increases, and the relationship between people and places becomes a prominent problem. Place attachment is one of the most important theories to explain the relationship between human and place (Lewicka, 2011). It originated from psychological research. With the deepening of research, place attachment theory has gradually become a research hot spot in human geography, environmental psychology, and sociology. Previous studies in tourism have used place attachment theory to understand the relationship between visitors or residents and destinations. Place attachment is a connection formed by the interaction between people and places. Its essence is a theoretical framework with three dimensions: people, psychological process and place (Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006). Sojourners have a long-term destination experience and prolonged social contact with the host region (Brown, 2009). Overseas students are the most representative group of sojourners. They travel to other places to study and stay there a long time. They have a full understanding and special feelings about the place of study and become an important force to support the development of study place, so they may take a city tourism ambassador role (Chen et al., 2015). However, it remains unclear what is the underlying mechanism behind the formation of such positive behavioral intention. Since people’s emotional attachment to a place is closely related to a sense of satisfaction that the place brings to people (Shumaker and Taylor, 1983), it is essential to explore the emotional connection of overseas students to their study places to enhance their life satisfaction and urban development.
A positive correlation between satisfaction and behavioral intention has been demonstrated in many previous studies (Kotler et al., 1993) that includes the tendency to recommend a destination to other people (Yoon and Uysal, 2005). However, overseas students are different from general tourists because they stay in one destination for a certain period. Therefore, their satisfaction should not be seen as a one-time transactional travel experience but rather as satisfaction with student life in the city where they study and live. Cognitive congruence theory suggests that attitude is an important driver of behavior, and many previous studies have shown that individuals are more likely to behave responsibly toward an object if they have a positive attitude toward it (Zhang and Xu, 2019). Therefore, in the context of this study, it is reasonable to predict that students’ life satisfaction with a destination of study, as a significant attitudinal factor, will impose a positive effect on their destination brand-building behavior.
This study aims to examine the inter-relationship between place attachment, student life satisfaction, and destination brand-building behaviors of overseas students. The literature on tourism reveals that the two major components of place attachment are “place identity” and “place dependence” (Yuksel et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2012). From another perspective, destination brand-building behavior is mainly composed of “word of mouth” (Chen et al., 2018) and “ambassador behavior” (Wassler et al., 2021). Therefore, the conceptual model of this study includes these four elements. This study makes considerable contributions to the literature in two ways. First, the theory of place attachment is used to explain the human-place bonding (Ramkissoon and Mavondo, 2015), and the need satisfaction theory is used to explain the cognitive psychological factors caused by people’s deep behaviors (Pagán, 2015). The two concepts have rarely been empirically linked as potential factors to explain resident and tourist behavior. This study combines place attachment theory and life satisfaction theory to explain the formation of overseas students’ ambassadorial behavior. Second, the majority of previous studies on word-of-mouth (WOM) and ambassadorial behavior in destination branding have focussed on examining local residents and tourists (Litvin et al., 2008; Chen and Šegota, 2015). Sojourners have a long-term destination experience and prolonged social contact with the host region (Brown, 2009). However, there is little research on the potential of their direct involvement in destination marketing and the psychological factors that influence their destination building behavior. Therefore, this study contributes to destination brand research by adding findings on overseas student behaviors in tourism marketing. The study has implications for the destinations’ governments with reference to understanding how to involve major groups of sojourners as overseas students in the promotion of tourist destinations where they studied and lived.
Literature Review
Overseas Students in Tourism
At present, most studies on overseas students focus on education and culture, mainly discussing their life experiences and cross-cultural adaptation (Sung, 2020). In the tourism field research, overseas students are generally considered to be an important tourism market, and their tourist behavior and reception of friends and relatives during the study period as well as their economic contribution to the places of study has been confirmed (Gardiner et al., 2013). Previous studies have determined tourist and resident’s WOM recommendations and ambassador behavioral intentions (Lai et al., 2018; Wassler et al., 2021). However, the studies on the destination brand-building behavior of sojourners are rare. Overseas students are a typical example of sojourners. From the perspective of tourism destination marketing, it is essential to examine Mainland Chinese students’ intention to participate in the branding of the destination. Xu and Huang (2018) mentioned that the life experience of students in mainland China was an important motivation for them to revisit, but they did not have an in-depth discussion on students’ life characteristics and life satisfaction from the perspective of a human–place relationship. Therefore, it makes sense to explore their current sense of place and study how life affects their willingness to act as a “middleman” and “facilitator,” and as those who recommend cities as future tourist destinations.
Student Life Satisfaction
Life satisfaction is a long-term cognitive perception (Bartram, 2015), it refers to the overall quality of an individual’s life (Pagán, 2015). With the development of social cognition and cognitive psychology, affective factors, such as those influencing satisfaction evaluation, have become increasingly important in satisfaction research (Bradshaw et al., 2011; Gavín-Chocano et al., 2020). To a certain extent, these affective factors can be explained or predicted to a considerable extent; these include use behavior, complaining behavior, word of mouth and repurchase plan, and so forth (Westbrook, 1987). Oliver (1993) explained the determinants and formation of emotion, in terms of satisfaction evaluation, and positive emotions like being interested and pleased, affect the formation of satisfaction. Consequently, a satisfied person tends to recommend a destination to other people. Unanue et al. (2017) observed that satisfaction in one domain positively influences other life domains, as well as overall life satisfaction. Ramkissoon et al. (2018) also supported that place satisfaction influences the quality of life of repeat visitors to a national park.
In tourism research, a tourist’s overall satisfaction refers to a subjective evaluation of all preceding travel experiences to a destination. Unanimously, the overall satisfaction of tourists positively affects their tendency to recommend a destination to other people (Yoon and Uysal, 2005), which may mean that satisfied visitors hold positive attitudes toward the destination. Therefore, while the studies focussed on the “affective,” researchers used overall satisfaction based on all past visits to a destination to evaluate the past travel experience (Al Azmeh, 2019).
Based on the literature research, the studies of life satisfaction are focused on adults (Chen et al., 2014), while in the context of higher education, students are treated somewhat differently. Specifically, student life includes studying and local living activities. For example, they would visit local enterprises and become local volunteers. They would go out for dinners with friends every week and join local festivals with the local residents together during the holidays. In general, active and in-depth social participation can enhance individual and collective control, self-efficacy, and clearer life goals, thereby affecting citizens’ life satisfaction (Budge et al., 2019). For residents, their quality of life can be measured by their desirable level and enjoyable level of the place to live (Aleshinloye et al., 2021). For college students, the quality of life and satisfaction can be measured by eight aspects: emotional, physical, material, personal developmental, self-determination, interpersonal quality of relationships, social tolerance, and rights (Schalock et al., 2008). In addition, Benjamin (1994) also pointed out that some unique life areas, including “academic,” “university service,” and “university management,” including on-campus and off-campus life experiences, can also affect students’ life satisfaction (de Róiste et al., 2012). Furthermore, research also shows that participation in school activities has a greater impact on students’ life satisfaction (Gempp and González-Carrasco, 2021). Students who actively participate and identify with the school at a higher level are more capable of establishing relationships with others, as well as supporting and cooperating with them (Chen et al., 2015). They can gain better self-esteem and greater autonomy and self-control through the process of participation. These experiences and feelings thereby increase life satisfaction and lower the possibility of causing anti-social or dangerous behaviors (Finn and Rock, 1997).
In recent years, the life satisfaction of overseas student groups has attracted much attention. The study of Xu et al. (2020) has explored the relationship between Mainland Chinese student life satisfaction and the motivation of destination marketing. In the study by Xu and Huang (2018), on length of stay, students may be classified as temporary residents (Glover, 2011) or Mainland visitors (Xu and Huang, 2018). Simpson et al. (2016) found migrant tourists were more satisfied with the destination as the length of residence time increases, and this affected the likelihood of recommending the destination to someone else. Therefore, for Mainland Chinese students, their life satisfaction with the study place may influence their ambassador behavior. However, other than the length of residence time, researchers have not identified the factors related to student life satisfaction with the destination. Given that there are a large number of Mainland Chinese students studying abroad, it is important to explore the opportunities these students have to make a contribution to the destination branding process. It is what makes them feel satisfied with their studies and lives in the place of study.
Place Attachment
In psychology, attachment is regarded as an adaptive emotional response and the state of a person in a specific social relationship (Huang and Zheng, 1991), initially considered to be the emotional connection between the baby and the caregiver (Bowlby, 1982). This was later referred to as a unique compound of emotions combined with positive emotions such as pleasure, happiness, and so forth (Huang and Zheng, 1991). With an expansion in the field of applied psychology, the concept of “place” received attention from environmental psychology, as the object of attachment (Hidalgo and Hernandez, 2001). It belongs to a kind of human-space relationship (Ramkissoon and Mavondo, 2015), which explored “Topophilia” and “sense of place.” Therefore, place attachment can be defined as a positive emotional bond between the individual and the place (Yuksel et al., 2010).
In the early literature, most attention was focused on the distinction between a functional bond and an emotional bond (Lin and Lockwood, 2014). “Place dependence” refers to a function that is satisfied in order to support the desired goal, which is the functional bond dimension (Anton and Lawrence, 2014). “Place identity” is a symbolic feeling that combines the image of a place with the distinction of self, and this is the emotional bond dimension (Ujang and Zakariya, 2018). This two-dimensional structure has become a matter of consensus in the academic world. Although some scholars have extended the dimensionality of place attachment (Ramkissoon et al., 2013, 2018; Isa et al., 2020), the validity and universality of these two dimensions have been verified in different situations (Brown et al., 2015). Therefore, this study also adopts these two dimensions to measure the place attachment of Mainland Chinese students.
In the place attachment research, some researchers identified the antecedents of place attachment. For example, Aleshinloye et al. (2021) indicated that resident empowerment and quality of life positively impact the place attachment of residents. Van Riper et al. (2019) argued the motivations (achievement, similar people, learning, enjoying nature, and escape) are antecedents of visitors’ place attachment in Australian national park. However, more research tended to study the influence of place attachment on the attitudes and behaviors of residents and tourists. For example, Ramkissoon (2020a,2021) proposed place attachment is a way to support residents’ wellbeing in the crisis of COVID-19. For tourists, place attachment also influences tourists’ revisitation (Isa et al., 2020; Majeed and Ramkissoon, 2020).
In the literature on brand citizenship behaviors, it is helpful to understand the potential causal relationships between human-place relationships and behavioral intentions (Chen et al., 2018). In this sense, place attachment—specifically, its dimension of place identity (reflecting one’s identity and perceived citizenship)—may have an impact on place-related behaviors such as WOM and goodwill ambassador behaviors. However, how to strengthen the influence of place attachment on place related behaviors is not well studied, so this study attempts to fill the research gap and explore the role of student life satisfaction for Mainland Chinese students in building the destination brand regarding the place attachment theory.
Destination Brand-Building Behaviors
Destination branding is a series of efforts made by a country, industry organization, or responsible government agency to promote the place represented (Morhart et al., 2009). Destination branding literature first surfaced in 1996; an academic postulated that destinations are the biggest brand in the travel industry and that in the future marketing would be a brand battle (Chen and Šegota, 2015). In the context of tourism, the name of the place is not enough to build its brand. For the majority of destinations, slogans are a necessary form of public expression of a destination’s brand positioning strategy, but they fail to achieve anything other than an ephemeral indifference. Residents can be considered as employees who advocate the destinations to their friends and families (King et al., 2015). This behavior can be regarded as a destination’s brand-building. In general, brand-building behaviors can be divided into two forms, “in-role” and “extra-role,” according to the degree of contribution required by the actors.
In-role brand-building behavior refers to the fact that residents can serve as goodwill ambassadors, who perceive the destination brand consistently with how the destination conveys itself through public messages and marketing communications; such as residents’ support for their participation and involvement, as well as tourism planning and development (Morhart et al., 2009). The behaviors of these residents constitute ambassador behavior which is a development-related behavior aimed to enhance the equity of a destination brand (Hung et al., 2017). Extra-role brand-building behavior, in the context of tourism destination, refers to word-of-mouth (WOM), and discretionary and individually generated actions. Moreover, WOM is becoming the most powerful form of marketing in the new information age (Simpson and Siguaw, 2008).
Overseas students including the Mainland Chinese students coming to a tourist destination, who have a long-term destination experience, for a period of at least 6 months, can be defined as sojourners, and these are similar to local residents (Liu and Ryan, 2011). Local residents’ hosting experience and attitude to the destination can be accumulated in the leisure space, which will influence the visitors’ experiences. With the experience of cultural adjustment and the increase of residence time, the Mainland Chinese students may also exhibit destination brand-building behaviors to guide their friends and family thus influencing them to visit the study place.
Methodology
Research Hypotheses
Moore and Graefe (1994) pointed out that people need more time to develop a personal sense of identification with a place than to have a personal sense of dependence on a place. Therefore, a cause-and-effect relationship exists between place dependence and place identity (Vaske and Kobrin, 2001). Researchers have verified this relationship that place identity is an intermediary in the influence of place dependence on behavioral intention (Su and Hsu, 2019).
Wang and Davidson (2008) claimed that there is a semi-stable human-place relationship between Mainland Chinese students and the study city. Thus, the initial formation of Mainland Chinese students’ attachment to the study city is mainly due to its specific physical and social environment and continuous participation in social activities (Chen et al., 2021). This is physical dependence on the place. Subsequently, the Mainland Chinese students perceive emotional identification with the study city. Accordingly, it can be assumed that for sojourners, place dependence is an antecedent of place identity. Thus, this study proposes the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: Mainland Chinese students’ place dependence has a positive impact on their place identity.
From the perspective of the human-place bond, people attached to their living place is bound to exert a certain significant influence on their life satisfaction. Fleury-Bahi et al. (2008) proposed that intimate human-place dependence, in short, place attachment, offers a unique perspective of people’s own perceptions, including their psychological perceptions. For tourists, in Hwang et al. (2005) study of Taiwanese national parks, it was confirmed that the existence of place attachment could influence tourists’ satisfaction. Ramkissoon et al. (2018) in their study of visitors at the Dandenong Ranges National Park, in Australia, also supported the existence of place attachment on quality of life. On the other hand, Ramkissoon (2020a,2021) recently argued that place attachment influences residents’ wellbeing in the crisis of COVID-19. Since place attachment has an intensified connection to satisfaction (Qiu et al., 2020), so it is possible that a sense of attachment and belongingness of Mainland Chinese students may influence their life satisfaction. Thus, this study proposes the following hypotheses.
Hypothesis 2a: Mainland Chinese students’ place identity positively affects their life satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2b: Mainland Chinese students’ place dependence has a positive impact on their life satisfaction.
The self-determination theory (SDT) argues that employees are likely to internalize the brand-based role identity when they experienced the satisfaction of their needs (Hancox et al., 2015). The more satisfied consumers are more likely to exhibit positive brand-building behaviors (Yoon and Uysal, 2005). In tourism research, Khuong and Van Nga (2018) argued that tourists’ satisfaction with the destination would influence their intention to perform positive brand-building behaviors. The Mainland Chinese students act as internal employees of the company: once they are satisfied with the destination they may exhibit destination brand-building behaviors. Because destination brand-building behaviors include WOM and ambassador behavior, the study proposes the following hypotheses regarding the brand-building behaviors:
Hypothesis 3a: Mainland Chinese students’ life satisfaction has a positive impact on their word-of-mouth intention.
Hypothesis 3b: Mainland Chinese students’ life satisfaction has a positive impact on their ambassador behavior.
A high level of attachment to a place can result in positive residents’ behaviors, such as protecting the environment (Ramkissoon, 2020b) and spreading a positive destination brand (Ahearne et al., 2005), because place attachment can motivate individuals to protect and improve it. As a resident’s attachment increases, he or she is more likely to build the destination’s brand (Chen et al., 2018). Hung et al. (2017) found that the highly attached residents would engage in brand-building activities. Thus, this study proposes the following research hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4a: Mainland Chinese students’ place identity positively affects their word-of-mouth intention.
Hypothesis 4b: Mainland Chinese students’ place identity positively affects their ambassador behavior.
Hypothesis 5a: Mainland Chinese students’ place dependence positively affects their word-of-mouth intent ion.
Hypothesis 5b: Mainland Chinese students’ place dependence positively affects their ambassador behavior.
The research model is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Research models.
Research Setting
Overseas students are an important group of sojourners. They live temporarily in other places due to their established learning goals. Overseas students usually transfer the academic knowledge and life experience acquired in their sojourn places to their host countries to promote the flow of international knowledge and information. The number of Mainland Chinese students is the largest among overseas students. Macao is the tenth most popular study destination for Mainland Chinese students and received around 200,000 students between 1998 and 2018 (UNESCO, 2019). According to the latest statistics, there were 18,904 Mainland Chinese students in Macao. This is a ratio of 1:37 in relation to Macao’s total population (Macao Higher Education Bureau, 2020). Therefore, choosing Macao as a research site can effectively demonstrate the influence of Mainland Chinese students in destination brand-building behaviors.
Macao is located in the Pearl River Delta on the South-Eastern coast of China, about 60 km east-northeast of Hong Kong. Macao has a total area of 32.9 square kilometers and a population of about 682,800 people. The majority of Macao’s residents are Chinese, accounting for over 90% of the total population, while the rest are Portuguese, Filipino, and people of other nationalities. Macao is an international free port, a world center for tourism and leisure, and one of the world’s four major gambling cities. Although Macao is small in terms of area, it has many world heritage sites such as A-Ma Temple, Yapo Well, and the Ruins of the Cathedral of Saint Paul, as well as several scenic spots such as museums, churches and temples. The historic district of Macao was included in the World Cultural Heritage List in 2005. At the same time, Macao has also been named by UNESCO as the “City of Creative Cuisine.” Macanese dishes are one of Macao’s unique specialities, and the culinary skills of Portuguese natives were added to the list of Macao’s Intangible Cultural Heritage assets in 2012.
Measurement Scales and Questionnaire Design
The measurable items for place dependence, place identity, and student life satisfaction are derived from Huang and Hsu (2009), Chen and Dwyer (2018), and Aleshinloye et al. (2020), respectively. For measuring destination brand-building behaviors, three items for WOM and three items for ambassador behavior are derived from Chen and Dwyer (2018). For measurement, participants responded using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Table 1 lists the 19 items of the research model. An English questionnaire was translated into Chinese and back translated into English to eliminate the translation bias. Two professors in the field of tourism helped to validate the content of the Chinese and the English versions. Since the target samples in this study are Mainland Chinese students, a pilot test with 50 of them was conducted in Macao at the end of October 2020 to further confirm the content. This process allowed for the wording of some of the items of the questionnaire to be improved. One measurement item—“Macao means a lot to me”—was deleted due to its lower reliability.
Table 1. Measurement scales.
The questionnaire has three sections. The first question is a filter question: “Are you a student of a Macao higher education institution from Mainland China?” This was asked to ascertain whether or not the respondent qualified for the study. Only those responding “yes” to the question were invited to complete the questionnaire. The second section questions were designed to measure the five constructs. The third section is the background information of respondents.
Data Collection
According to 2019 statistics from the Macao Higher Education Bureau, there are 10 institutions of higher learning in Macao, six of which have approved the admission of mainland students. The proportion of mainland students in the six schools is as follows: Macao University of Science and Technology: 56.5%, University of Macao: 19.3%, City University of Macao: 19.0%, Macao Polytechnic Institute: 3.0%, Macao Institute of Tourism: 2.0%, and Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macao: 0.2%. The questionnaires were distributed according to the above proportion.
From 23rd to 27th November 2020, six research assistants administered the survey at five locations (the school gate, the library, the dining room, the student dormitory building, and the teaching building) one by one in six institutions from 11:00 to 19:00 every day. Data were systematically collected. The research assistants chose one in 10 people who passed by to fill in the questionnaire. If the respondent was not a Mainland Chinese student or refused to answer the questionnaire because of other reasons, the research assistants would count another 10 people. Four hundred samples were collected. Since some students gave similar rates for most items, 88 questionnaires were removed. Table 2 reports the respondents’ profiles. There were 114 males (36.5%) and 198 females (63.5%). The characteristics of the samples matched the population of Mainland Chinese students in Macao. One-third of them stayed less than 1 year, 1–2 years, and over 2 years.
Table 2. Sample profile (n = 312).
Results
Outer Model Analysis
Table 3 reports the descriptive statistics of 19 items. The minimum value of the PLS factor loading is 0.735 (>0.700). All Cronbach’s α values are higher than the threshold 0.7 and all composite reliability (CR) values are higher than the threshold 0.7 too (as shown in Table 4; Henseler et al., 2015). According to Hair et al. (2010), the values of the average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct are above the recommended 0.5. It shows good reliability and convergent validity. Discriminant validity is examined by comparing the square root of AVE for each construct with the correlations between pairs of latent variables (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Furthermore, all Heterotrait–Monotrait (HTMT) correlations are less than 0.90 (Henseler et al., 2015), achieving a satisfactory result.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics and factor loadings.
Table 4. Reliability, construct validity, and correlation.
Inner Model Analysis
Figure 2 shows the results of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The analytical results indicate that student life satisfaction (SLS) has significant influences on Ambassador Behavior (AB) (β = 0.347, p-value < 0.001); SLS has significant influences on Word of Mouth (WOM) (β = 0.379, p-value < 0.001); Place Dependence (PD) has influences on AB (β = 0.199, p-value < 0.01); PD has significant influences on SLS (β = 0.302, p-value < 0.001); PD has significant influences on Place Identity (PI) (β = 0.782, p-value < 0.001); PD has influences on WOM (β = 0.201, p-value < 0.01); PI has influences on AB (β = 0.247, p-value < 0.01); PI has significant influences on SLS (β = 0.443, p-value < 0.001); PI has influences on WOM (β = 0.260, p-value < 0.01) The R2 of SLS, PI, WOM, and AB are higher than 0.25. Results indicate that all the nine hypotheses proposed were supported. Findings of the path relationships are displayed in Table 5. The multicollinearity was tested by variance inflation factor (VIF), all VIF values did not exceed 5, indicating an absence of multicollinearity issue (Hair et al., 2011).
Figure 2. Results of PLS-SEM analysis.
Table 5. Results of hypotheses testing.
Mediating Effect on Place Identity and Student Life Satisfaction
The results summarized in Table 6 show that both PI and SLS have significant mediating effects. Firstly, SLS mediates the positive impact of PD on AB (indirect effect = 0.105, p-value < 0.001) and WOM (indirect effect = 0.115, p-value < 0.01); SLS mediates the positive impact of PI on AB (indirect effect = 0.154, p-value < 0.001) and WOM (indirect effect = 0.168, p-value < 0.001). Continuing, PI mediates the positive impact of PD on AB (indirect effect = 0.193, p-value < 0.01) and WOM (indirect effect = 0.203, p-value < 0.01); PI mediates the positive impact of PD on SLS (indirect effect = 0.347, p-value < 0.001). Lastly, the mediating effect of both PI and SLS on the positive impact of PD on AB (indirect effect = 0.120, p < 0.001) and WOM (indirect effect = 0.131, p < 0.001) was found to be significant.
Table 6. The mediation effect of place identity and life satisfaction.
Discussion and Conclusion
Conclusion
The results show that place dependence has a positive influence on place identity, and both place identity and place dependence have a positive effect on student life satisfaction. First, the results are consistent with previous studies (Moore and Graefe, 1994; Su and Hsu, 2019) where place dependence influences place identity, which implies that Mainland Chinese students have a personal sense of dependence and developed a connection with Macao after a period of studying and living there. Second, the results are also consistent with the results of Qiu et al.’s (2020) study in which Mainland Chinese students’ satisfaction with life in Macao is affected through the use of resources, facilities, and contact with the social environment during their study and life in Macao. The results of this study also find that two dimensions of place attachment and student life satisfaction influence Mainland Chinese students’ WOM and ambassador behavior. These findings are consistent with a previous study (Chen and Dwyer, 2018) in which place attachment is found to influence destination brand-building behavior, but their target was residents. And it implies that satisfied mainland Chinese students would construct positive brand-building behavior.
Contributions
First, this study uses the theory of place attachment to explore the inter-relationship between place dependence, place identity, and overseas students’ life satisfaction. Although previous studies have confirmed the effect of place attachment on residents’ quality of life (Ramkissoon et al., 2018), the effect of place attachment on sojourners is still under research. Place attachment is an attitude toward the place, and attitude theory holds that attitude is composed of cognition, emotion and intentionality (behavior). The cognitive component of place attachment is the attitude, judgment, belief, value, and symbolic meaning of place based on the cognitive process of place perception and memory. Through memory, people can generate local meaning and associate it with themselves, forming local identity. As life satisfaction is positive psychology, this local meaning improves one’s wellbeing and overall life satisfaction (Ramkissoon, 2020a). For mainland Chinese students, after having a sense of dependence on Macao’s tangible resources, they have developed an intangible emotional identification. Consequently, they develop affective attitudes toward the place of study, including satisfaction with their life in Macao. Compared with tourists’ short-term travel satisfaction, the development of mainland Chinese students’ life satisfaction is longer. However, student life satisfaction is retained for longer, too. In addition, the formation of Mainland Chinese students’ life satisfaction is more complicated than the formation of tourists’ travel satisfaction. When they are living in Macau, they exhibit a long-lasting behavior change. Since lifestyle change can promote people’s wellbeing (Ramkissoon, 2020a,2021), so mainland Chinese students were satisfied with their quality of life. This study stimulates researchers’ interest in studying student life satisfaction and its consequences, such as students’ support for tourism development.
Second, this research links the theory of life satisfaction with the theory of place attachment to enrich the research of the factors influencing the potential for destination brand-building. Destination brand-building is behavioral tendencies related to place attachment. Individuals who are attached to a place can perceive that the place provides them with conditions to meet their action goals more than other places, so they are more likely to show a tendency to be close to the place. The results of this study reveal that place attachment, as a preliminary cognitive–emotional connection between sojourners and Macao, does not only turn to affective attitudes toward the place but also influences sojourners’ destination brand-building behaviors. The indirect effects of place dependence on destination brand-building behaviors (indirect effect PD → WOM = 0.449, indirect effect PD → AB = 0.418) are larger than its direct effect (direct effect PD → WOM = 0.201, direct effect PD → AB = 0.199), which implies that place identity and student life satisfaction acted as mediators complementing the effect of place dependence on destination brand-building. Using Mainland Chinese students as a case study, this research indicates the destination brand-building path for sojourners: place dependence → place identity → student life satisfaction → WOM and ambassador behavior. This study provides researchers with a research direction to conduct further studies in investigating destination brand-building behaviors for tourists, residents, and sojourners.
Given the uniqueness of sojourners travel in the host area and the increase in the number of sojourner groups (Liu and Ryan, 2011), this study also contributes to destination marketing research in understanding Mainland Chinese students’ (as sojourners’) perception of, and attitude to a destination. This study explores the destination brand-building path. Since as a group, sojourners also include working-holiday youngsters and deep-travel tourists, understanding their behavior is expected to provide meaningful implications for tourism planning. As some tourists tend to stay longer in a destination as they have more deeply understood a tourist destination’s culture (Brown, 2009), they become sojourners. This study explores a research target, for which the special market segment becomes more important in the further tourism market. Therefore, researchers should put more focus on sojourners.
In studying the behavior of ambassadors, researchers mainly focussed on local residents as the research objects because residents are internal stakeholders of the country; they are the majority of the people who live in the destination and the largest group that constitutes the destination brand. The active participation of residents in the formation and implementation of the brand is invaluable. In this process, they act as the city’s brand ambassadors (Konecnik Ruzzier and Petek, 2012; Wassler and Hung, 2017). Their brand citizenship behaviors can enhance the equity of a destination brand. However, for some tourist destinations, not only the residents of destinations are a legitimate and salient stakeholder group (Fyall and Garrod, 2019), sojourners are also important internal stakeholders. Compared with residents, the relationship between sojourners and potential tourists is closer. Since sojourners have lived in the destination for a long time, their promotion and guidance are considered more credible by potential tourists. Therefore, sojourners not only show internal brand behaviors but also exhibit external brand behaviors that affect the destination brand development. This study highlights the role of sojourners in enhancing the equity of a destination brand and fills the aforementioned theoretical gap so that people can understand more about this most complex group who are brand stakeholders of tourist destinations.
Recommendations
From a practical point of view, this study provides more effective marketing strategies and programs for the governments, tourism agencies, and other stakeholders in destination countries. Firstly, the governmental tourism offices could utilize sojourners, especially Mainland Chinese students, to construct the destination brand. For example, tourism offices could launch the “Mainland college student tourism ambassador” scheme to recruit volunteers to participate in large-scale tourism promotion fairs in the cities of Mainland China. In this way, the volunteers could understand and become closer to the city where they study more and also have more responsibility for it.
Second, according to the internal brand and marketing approach, it is suggested that the higher education bureau could cooperate with universities and colleges to promote knowledge contests of the destination. For example, the universities in Macao could arrange a “Macao historical knowledge competition” or a “Best Macao Photography Contest” for Mainland Chinese students to create a uniquely positive experience of Macao. These activities help to establish the Mainland Chinese students’ emotional connection with Macao, so as to motivate them to become actively involved in the construction of the Macao destination brand.
Third, dependence on local facilities and resources is the basis of the formation of personal life satisfaction, so governments and other stakeholders should take a leading role in improving sojourners’ life satisfaction. For example, universities and colleges in Macao could establish a “Senior Supervisor” plan to help first-year Mainland Chinese students to familiarize themselves with campus life and the living environment in Macao.
From the perspective of the tourism market, Mainland Chinese students have a direct and indirect role in destination marketing. They act as an attraction factor to motivate their friends and family to visit. Therefore, the Macao government tourism office could cooperate with Macao airlines, hotels, and other related industry organizations to provide promotional packages for Mainland Chinese students and their families. For example, these could be “back to school after vacation preferential ticket counterparts” and “preferential hotel discount coupons,” which would help to develop Mainland Chinese students’ place attachment and increase their life satisfaction. It would also help to increase tourism revenues.
Limitation
The limitations of this study should be acknowledged, and this opens opportunities for future research. First, there are regional limitations in the collection of sample data. The severe impact of the COVID-19 epidemic has caused a restriction on Mainland Chinese students returning to study in Western countries (United States and United Kingdom). The collection of samples in other countries is recommended in order to obtain results that can be generalized. Second, this study only provides a basic model for studying sojourners’ behaviors in the light of place attachment theory and life satisfaction theory, and future studies could be extended on the basis of this research model. Third, from the perspective of research objects, the sojourners involved in this study are Mainland Chinese students, while for some countries, such as Singapore, the labor group accounts for a large part of sojourners. Therefore, attention should be paid to including the labor group in the follow-up research.
Data Availability Statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.
Ethics Statement
Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the participants to participate in this study was not required in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.
Author Contributions
XW contributed to the development of the research framework, the supervision of research, and the revision of the manuscript. IKWL directed the writing of the manuscript, performed data analysis, and revised the manuscript. XYL was responsible for collecting data, drafting the manuscript, revising the manuscript, and managing manuscript submission. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Funding
This research was funded by the Macau Foundation (Grant No. MF2020), Research on the Emergency Management Mechanism of Public Security Emergencies in Macau under the Background of Governance Modernization, Research Centre for Macau Social and Economic Development, City University of Macau.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Acknowledgments
We appreciate the respondents for their participation in this survey.
References
Ahearne, M., Bhattacharya, C. B., and Gruen, T. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of customer-company identification: expanding the role of relationship marketing. J. Appl. Psychol. 90:574. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.90.3.574
Al Azmeh, S. G. (2019). The relationship between e-learning service and student satisfaction a case study at the Syrian Virtual University (SVU). Bus. Manag. Educ. 17, 49–71. doi: 10.3846/bme.2019.7451
Aleshinloye, K., Woosnam, K., Tasci, A., and Ramkissoon, H. (2021). Antecedents and outcomes of resident empowerment through tourism. J. Travel Res. 1–18. doi: 10.1177/0047287521990437
Aleshinloye, K. D., Fu, X., Ribeiro, M. A., Woosnam, K. M., and Tasci, A. D. (2020). The influence of place attachment on social distance: examining mediating effects of emotional solidarity and the moderating role of interaction. J. Travel Res. 59, 828–849. doi: 10.1177/0047287519863883
Anton, C. E., and Lawrence, C. (2014). Home is where the heart is: the effect of place of residence on place attachment and community participation. J. Environ. Psychol. 40, 451–461. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.10.007
Bartram, D. (2015). Inverting the logic of economic migration: happiness among migrants moving from wealthier to poorer countries in Europe. J. Happiness Stud. 16, 1211–1230. doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-9554-z
Benjamin, M. (1994). The quality of student life: toward a coherent conceptualization. Soc. Indicators Res. 31, 205–264. doi: 10.1007/BF01078209
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 52:664. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.1982.tb01456.x
Bradshaw, J., Keung, A., Rees, G., and Goswami, H. (2011). Children’s subjective well-being: international comparative perspectives. Children Youth Serv. Rev. 33, 548–556. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2010.05.010
Brown, G., Raymond, C. M., and Corcoran, J. (2015). Mapping and measuring place attachment. Appl. Geogr. 57, 42–53. doi: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.12.011
Brown, L. (2009). The transformative power of the international sojourn: an ethnographic study of the international student experience. Ann. Tour. Res. 36, 502–521. doi: 10.1016/j.annals.2009.03.002
Budge, G., Mitchell, A., Rampling, T., and Down, P. Bridge Collective (2019). “It kind of fosters a culture of interdependence”: a participatory appraisal study exploring participants’ experiences of the democratic processes of a peer-led organisation. J. Commun. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 29, 178–192. doi: 10.1002/casp.2393
Chen, N., and Dwyer, L. (2018). Residents’ place satisfaction and place attachment on destination brand-building behaviors: conceptual and empirical differentiation. J. Travel Res. 57, 1026–1041. doi: 10.1177/0047287517729760
Chen, N., Dwyer, L., and Firth, T. (2014). Effect of dimensions of place attachment on residents’ word-of-mouth behavior. Tour. Geographies 16, 826–843. doi: 10.1080/14616688.2014.915877
Chen, N., Dwyer, L., and Firth, T. (2015). Factors influencing Chinese students’ behavior in promoting Australia as a destination for Chinese outbound travel. J. Travel Tour. Mark. 32, 366–381. doi: 10.1080/10548408.2014.897299
Chen, N. C., Dwyer, L., and Firth, T. (2018). Residents’ place attachment and word-of-mouth behaviours: a tale of two cities. J. Hospitality Tour. Manag. 36, 1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.jhtm.2018.05.001
Chen, N. C., and Šegota, T. (2015). Resident attitudes, place attachment and destination branding: a research framework. Tour. Hospitality Manag. 21, 145–158. doi: 10.20867/thm.21.2.3
Chen, P., Bao, C., and Gao, Q. (2021). Proactive personality and academic engagement: the mediating effects of teacher-student relationships and academic self-efficacy. Front. Psychol. 12:1824. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652994
de Róiste, A., Kelly, C., Molcho, M., Gavin, A., and Nic Gabhainn, S. (2012). Is school participation good for children? Associations with health and wellbeing. Health Educ. 112, 88–104. doi: 10.1108/09654281211203394
Finn, J. D., and Rock, D. A. (1997). Academic success among students at risk for school failure. J. Appl. Psychol. 82:221. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.221
Fleury-Bahi, G., Félonneau, M. L., and Marchand, D. (2008). Processes of place identification and residential satisfaction. Environ. Behav. 40, 669–682. doi: 10.1177/0013916507307461
Fornell, C., and Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res. 18, 39–50. doi: 10.1177/002224378101800104
Fyall, A., and Garrod, B. (2019). Destination management: a perspective article. Tour. Rev. 75, 165–169 doi: 10.1108/tr-07-2019-0311
Gardiner, S., King, B., and Wilkins, H. (2013). The travel behaviours of international students: nationality-based constraints and opportunities. J. Vacation Mark. 19, 287–299. doi: 10.1177/1356766712471233
Gavín-Chocano, Ó, Molero, D., Ubago-Jiménez, J. L., and García-Martínez, I. (2020). Emotions as predictors of life satisfaction among university students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17:9462. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17249462
Gempp, R., and González-Carrasco, M. (2021). Peer relatedness, school satisfaction, and life satisfaction in early adolescence: a non-recursive model. Front. Psychol. 12:641714 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.641714
Glover, P. (2011). International students: linking education and travel. J. Travel Tour. Mark. 28, 180–195. doi: 10.1080/10548408.2011.546210
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., and Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate Data Analysis: a Global Perspective. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hair, J. F., Ringle, C. M., and Sarstedt, M. (2011). PLS-SEM: indeed a silver bullet. J. Mark. Theory Pract. 19, 139–152.
Hancox, J. E., Quested, E., Thøgersen-Ntoumani, C., and Ntoumanis, N. (2015). An intervention to train group exercise class instructors to adopt a motivationally adaptive communication style: a quasi-experimental study protocol. Health Psychol. Behav. Med. 3, 190–203. doi: 10.1080/21642850.2015.1074075
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., and Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 43, 115–135. doi: 10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8
Hidalgo, M. C., and Hernandez, B. (2001). Place attachment: conceptual and empirical questions. J. Environ. Psychol. 21, 273–281. doi: 10.1006/jevp.2001.0221
Huang, S., and Hsu, C. H. (2009). Effects of travel motivation, past experience, perceived constraint, and attitude on revisit intention. J. Travel Res. 48, 29–44. doi: 10.1177/0047287508328793
Hung, K., Yang, X., Wassler, P., Wang, D., Lin, P., and Liu, Z. (2017). Contesting the commercialization and sanctity of religious tourism in the Shaolin Monastery. China. Int. J. Tour. Res. 19, 145–159. doi: 10.1002/jtr.2093
Hwang, S. N., Lee, C., and Chen, H. J. (2005). The relationship among tourists’ involvement, place attachment and interpretation satisfaction in Taiwan’s national parks. Tourism Manag. 26, 143–156. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2003.11.006
Isa, S. M., Ariyanto, H. H., and Kiumarsi, S. (2020). The effect of place attachment on visitors’ revisit intentions: evidence from Batam. Tour. Geographies 22, 51–82. doi: 10.1080/14616688.2019.1618902
Jorgensen, B. S., and Stedman, R. C. (2006). A comparative analysis of predictors of sense of place dimensions: attachment to, dependence on, and identification with lakeshore properties. J. Environ. Manag. 79, 316–327. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.08.003
Khuong, M. N., and Van Nga, B. (2018). Factors affecting international tourists’ food satisfaction and word-of-mouth: the case of vietnamese cuisine. Adv. Bus. Hospitality Tourism Res. 1, 27–42. doi: 10.5038/9781732127524
King, C., Chen, N., and Funk, D. C. (2015). Exploring destination image decay: a study of sport tourists’ destination image change after event participation. J. Hospitality Tour. Res. 39, 3–31. doi: 10.1177/1096348012461547
Konecnik Ruzzier, M., and Petek, N. (2012). The importance of diverse stakeholders in place branding: the case of “I feel Slovenia”. Anatolia 23, 49–60. doi: 10.1080/13032917.2011.653631
Kotler, P., Haider, D., and Rein, I. (1993). There’s no place like our place! The marketing of cities, regions, and nations. Futurist 27:14.
Lai, I. K. W., Hitchcock, M., Lu, D., and Liu, Y. (2018). The influence of word of mouth on tourism destination choice: tourist–resident relationship and safety perception among Mainland Chinese tourists visiting Macau. Sustainability 10:2114. doi: 10.3390/su10072114
Lee, J., Kyle, G., and Scott, D. (2012). The mediating effect of place attachment on the relationship between festival satisfaction and loyalty to the festival hosting destination. J. Travel Res. 51, 754–767. doi: 10.1177/0047287512437859
Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: how far have we come in the last 40 years? J. Environ. Psychol. 31, 207–230. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.10.001
Lin, C. C., and Lockwood, M. (2014). Forms and sources of place attachment: evidence from two protected areas. Geoforum 53, 74–81. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.02.008
Litvin, S. W., Goldsmith, R. E., and Pan, B. (2008). Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management. Tourism Manag. 29, 458–468. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2007.05.011
Liu, G., and Ryan, C. (2011). The role of Chinese students as tourists and hosts for overseas travel. Asia Pacific J. Tour. Res. 16, 445–464. doi: 10.1080/10941665.2011.588877
Macao Higher Education Bureau (2020). Higher Education Bureau Compilation of Statistics. Macao: Macao Higher Education Bureau.
Majeed, S., and Ramkissoon, H. (2020). Health, wellness, and place attachment during and post health pandemics. Front. Psychol. 11:573220Google Scholar
Moore, R. L., and Graefe, A. R. (1994). Attachments to recreation settings: the case of rail-trail users. Leisure Sci. 16, 17–31. doi: 10.1080/01490409409513214
Morhart, F. M., Herzog, W., and Tomczak, T. (2009). Brand-specific leadership: turning employees into brand champions. J. Mark. 73, 122–142. doi: 10.1509/jmkg.73.5.122
Oliver, R. L. (1993). Cognitive, affective, and attribute bases of the satisfaction response. J. Consum. Res. 20, 418–430. doi: 10.1086/209358
Pagán, R. (2015). The impact of holiday trips on life satisfaction and domains of life satisfaction: evidence for German disabled individuals. J. Travel Res. 54, 359–379. doi: 10.1177/0047287513517424
Qiu, J., Liu, Y., Xian, S., Song, L., and Ru, X. (2020). ‘Plural Reciprocity’vs.‘acquaintance society’: place attachment and residential satisfaction under development-induced resettlement differences in guangzhou. China. Sustainability 12:6444. doi: 10.3390/su12166444
Ramkissoon, H. (2020a). COVID-19 Place confinement, pro-social, pro-environmental behaviors, and residents’ wellbeing: a new conceptual framework. Front. Psychol. 11:2248. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02248
Ramkissoon, H. (2020b). Perceived social impacts of tourism and quality-of-life: a new conceptual model. J. Sustainable Tour. 1–17. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1858091
Ramkissoon, H. (2021). Place affect interventions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Front. Psychol. 12:726685Google Scholar
Ramkissoon, H., Mavondo, F., and Uysal, M. (2018). Social involvement and park citizenship as moderators for quality-of-life in a national park. J. Sustainable Tour. 26, 341–361. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2017.1354866
Ramkissoon, H., and Mavondo, F. T. (2015). The satisfaction–place attachment relationship: potential mediators and moderators. J. Bus. Res. 68, 2593–2602. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.002
Ramkissoon, H., Smith, L. D. G., and Weiler, B. (2013). Testing the dimensionality of place attachment and its relationships with place satisfaction and pro-environmental behaviours: a structural equation modelling approach. Tourism Manag. 36, 552–566. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2012.09.003
Schalock, R. L., Bonham, G. S., and Verdugo, M. A. (2008). The conceptualization and measurement of quality of life: implications for program planning and evaluation in the field of intellectual disabilities. Eval. Program Plann. 31, 181–190. doi: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.02.001
Shumaker, S. A., and Taylor, R. B. (1983). Toward a clarification of people-place relationships: a model of attachment to place. Environ. Psychol. Dir. Perspect. 2, 19–25.
Simpson, P. M., and Siguaw, J. A. (2008). Destination word of mouth: the role of traveler type, residents, and identity salience. J. Travel Res. 47, 167–182. doi: 10.1177/0047287508321198
Simpson, P. M., Siguaw, J. A., and Sheng, X. (2016). Tourists’ life satisfaction at home and away: a tale of two cities. J. Travel Res. 55, 161–175. doi: 10.1177/0047287514541004
Su, W. S., and Hsu, C. C. (2019). examining how place dependence and place identity affect behavioral intention of marathon tourists in Taiwan. Int. J. Organ. Innov. 12, 145–161.
Sung, C. C. M. (2020). Cantonese learning, investments, and identities: Mainland Chinese university students’ experiences during cross-border studies in Hong Kong. Learn. Culture Soc. Interaction 26:100415. doi: 10.1016/j.lcsi.2020.100415
Ujang, N., and Zakariya, K. (2018). Place attachment as indicator for place significance and value. Asian J. Behav. Stud. 3, 95–103. doi: 10.21834/ajbes.v3i10.84
Unanue, W., Gómez, M. E., Cortez, D., Oyanedel, J. C., and Mendiburo-Seguel, A. (2017). Revisiting the link between job satisfaction and life satisfaction: the role of basic psychological needs. Front. Psychol. 8:680. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00680
UNESCO (2019). Education: Inbound Internationally Mobile Students by Country of Origin – Students from China, Both Sexes. Paris: UNESCO Institute of Statistics.
Van Riper, C. J., Yoon, J. I., Kyle, G. T., Wallen, K. E., Landon, A. C., and Raymond, C. (2019). The antecedents of place attachment in the context of an Australian national park. J. Environ. Psychol. 61, 1–9. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.11.001
Vaske, J. J., and Kobrin, K. C. (2001). Place attachment and environmentally responsible behavior. J. Environ. Educ. 32, 16–21. doi: 10.1080/00958960109598658
Wang, Y., and Davidson, M. C. (2008). Chinese student travel market to Australia: an exploratory assessment of destination perceptions. Int. J. Hospitality Tour. Adm. 9, 405–426. doi: 10.1080/15256480802427354
Wassler, P., and Hung, K. (2017). “Conceptualizing residents’ destination brand ambassador behavior,” in INVTUR 2017, 17-19 May 2017 (Aveiro, Portugal: Bournemouth University Business School).
Wassler, P., Wang, L., and Hung, K. (2021). Residents’ power and trust: a road to brand ambassadorship? J. Destination Mark. Manag. 19:100550. doi: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2020.100550
Westbrook, R. A. (1987). Product/consumption-based affective responses and postpurchase processes. J. Mark. Res. 24, 258–270. doi: 10.1177/002224378702400302
Xu, J., Loi, K. I., and Kong, W. H. (2020). The effects of perceptions of flagshipness and iconicity on word of mouth for attractions and destinations. J. Vacation Mark. 26, 96–107. doi: 10.1177/1356766719867387
Xu, J. B., and Huang, S. S. (2018). Exploring Mainland Chinese students’ motivations of re-visiting Hong Kong as a familiar place and their links to student life experiences. J. Destination Mark. Manag. 7, 50–57. doi: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2016.08.004
Yoon, Y., and Uysal, M. (2005). An examination of the effects of motivation and satisfaction on destination loyalty: a structural model. Tourism Manag. 26, 45–56. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2003.08.016
Yuksel, A., Yuksel, F., and Bilim, Y. (2010). Destination attachment: effects on customer satisfaction and cognitive, affective and conative loyalty. Tour. Manag. 31, 274–284. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2009.03.007
Keywords: place attachment, life satisfaction, human-place emotion connection, ambassador behavior intention, word of mouth, overseas students
Citation: Wang X, Lai IKW and Liu XY (2021) The Effect of Place Attachment on Overseas Students’ Tourism Ambassador Behavior: A Mediation Role of Life Satisfaction. Front. Psychol. 12:766997. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.766997
Received: 30 August 2021; Accepted: 15 November 2021;
Published: 13 December 2021.
Edited by:
Soraia Garcês, University of Madeira, PortugalReviewed by:
Haywantee Ramkissoon, University of Derby, United KingdomMaíra Longhinotti Felippe, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil
Copyright © 2021 Wang, Lai and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Xinyu Liu, t21092100097@cityu.mo