Experienced international business traveller’s behaviour in Iran: A partial least squares path modelling analysis

Abstract

Few researchers have examined travellers’ experience with destinations despite the importance of their attitudes, behaviour and perception in selecting destinations. Current study aims to examine the relationship between risk perceptions, motivation, information source, travel experience and destination image among experienced international business travellers in Iran. The total number of 234 valid questionnaires was collected from international business travellers and structural equation modelling was employed using partial least squares path-modelling analysis to assess measurement and structural model for reflective constructs. Our empirical results support the negative relationship between destination image and risk perception, travel experience and risk perception while information sources were found to be unrelated to travellers risk perceptions. The results further shown that information sources and destination image, information sources and motivation, motivation and travel experience and destination image are related. However, the partial least squares-multigroup analysis results reveal that the significance of path coefficients differs across various demographic subgroups. Moreover, our results support experience and risk perception as a second-order reflective construct. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed along with a discussion on research limitations.