jaue2023+020: Estimating Students’ Motivations of Chinese Rural Educational Tourism

Abstract

Educational tourism (ET) in rural areas is an effective way not only to improve the quality in teaching and learning, but also to reduce the poverty of the rural population and support sustainable development. Nevertheless, relative research on motivation mechanism is lacking in emerging and developing countries. This study took Chengdu，China as an example to investigate the effect factors on consumer’s behaviour with the sample of 234 students. Specifically, push-pull motivation factors and loyalty were examined with a structural equation model (SEM) for data analysis. The results show that participation of rural educational trip may be related to the family economic strength. Push motivation factors have a significant positive (β = 0.626, p < 0.05) influence on overall satisfaction, pull motivation factors has a positive and significant relationship with revisit intention (β = 0.358, p < 0.05), it is confirmed that motivation factors influence loyalty through overall satisfaction. These findings have consequential implications for devising enhanced strategies to effectively promote rural areas and foster sustainable development within local economies.