Understanding gay tourists’ involvement and loyalty towards Thailand: The perspective of motivation-opportunity-ability

Abstract

Gay tourists are increasingly important for destination segment marketing, but little attention has been paid to gay tourism in Asian destinations. This research focuses on the internal and external factors of gay travelers that make them travel in Thailand and explores their interactions with destination loyalty. We first conduct semi-structured interviews to explore the motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) of gay tourists traveling to Thailand and then integrate the concepts of involvement and loyalty into MOA theory to explain destination loyalty formation using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that gay men's travel motivation and ability have positive relationships with their destination involvement and destination loyalty, while their travel opportunity has a positive relationship only with their destination loyalty. Additionally, gay men's destination involvement positively influences their destination loyalty. These findings provide valuable practical implications for developing gay destinations and promoting gay tourism in Asia.