TITLE:
Determinants of Tourist Satisfaction in Island Rural Tourism: Evidence from Weizhou Island, Guangxi, China
AUTHORS:
Yanqi Sun, Zhengqi Liu, Yan Zhuo, Xueting Shi, Chenggang Li
KEYWORDS:
Island Rural Tourism, Tourist Satisfaction, Cultural Experience, Service Quality, Consumption Trust, Importance-Performance Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, Weizhou Island
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Service Science and Management,
Vol.19 No.5,
October
14,
2026
ABSTRACT: Island-type rural tourism has emerged as an important component of rural revitalization, cultural-tourism integration, and the development of the marine economy. However, the rapid expansion of tourism can generate challenges related to infrastructure capacity, service quality, market regulation, cultural commodification, and environmental sustainability. This study examines the factors influencing tourist satisfaction on Weizhou Island, Guangxi, China, with particular attention to the transition from resource-oriented tourism toward experience-oriented tourism. Drawing on Expectation-Disconfirmation Theory, Perceived Value Theory, and Tourism Area Life Cycle Theory, the study develops a multidimensional framework for assessing tourist satisfaction. The framework considers consumption trust, infrastructure, service quality, cultural experience, and overall tourist evaluation. Data were collected through questionnaires administered during the 2025 peak tourist season. Of the 180 questionnaires distributed, 160 valid responses were obtained, representing an effective response rate of 88.9%. Questionnaire data were analyzed using reliability and validity tests, Pearson correlation analysis, Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), and structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings identify positive associations between overall tourist evaluation and several experience-related dimensions in the specified model. Cultural experience has the largest reported positive standardized coefficient for overall tourist evaluation (β = 0.646, p