The effects of festival attendees’ experiential values and satisfaction on re-visit intention to the destination: The case of a food and wine festival

Purpose: The purpose of this study was first to examine how goal-oriented attendees and experiential-oriented attendees were related with their overall satisfaction and loyalty of the destination with respect to international food and wine festival. It also investigated how these relations are mediated by different dimension of experiential consumption values such as consumer return on investment (CROI, active value), escapism (active value) and service excellence (reactive value) and aesthetics (reactive value). Design/methodology/approach: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to and collected from attendees at the 2011 Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami, Florida. A total of 450 subjects were collected from attendees indicating a response rate of about 88 per cent. Total 13 hypotheses were tested using structural equation model (SEM) with AMOS, and the results were interpreted adapting Mathwick’s (2001) typology of experiential value. Findings: The findings indicate that goal-oriented attendees had stronger relationship with reactive experiential values such as service excellence and aesthetics than active values, whereas experiential-oriented attendees had more significant relations with active experiential values such as CROI and escapism than reactive values. In addition, CROI, escapism and service excellence were found to have a positive influence on the overall satisfaction with the festival; in turn, the attendees’ satisfaction had a positive effect on their intention to revisit the destination. Further, the results demonstrated that all experiential values, including CROI and escapism (active values), and service excellence and aesthetics (reactive values), played a mediating role between goal-oriented/experientially oriented attendee and satisfaction with the festival. Practical implications: The festival organizers and managers should understand what drives the attendees’ participation in the festival. Implementing experiential marketing through various dimensions of experiential value can attract more potential attendees, provide unique experiences and create favorable perception toward the destination. Originality/value: The research is original in terms of conceptualizing and empirically testing the relation between experiential consumption values and behavior loyalty within the special events and festivals with a specific focus on international food and wine festival. A finding of particular importance here is verifying the unique characteristics of goal-/experiential-oriented attendees in festival settings and determining the linkages between these different attendees and active/reactive experiential values, not to mention the relation with the overall satisfaction and loyalty to the festival destination.