Village Eco-Tourism and Tourist Engagement: A Case Study

Abstract

This study examines the role of local community – tourist engagement in influencing satisfaction and behavioural intention in eco-tourism context in Mawlynnong village, Meghalaya, India. The factors that are examined in this study are: local community – tourist engagement, cleanliness of village, continuity of traditional heritage and education of the village community leading to enhanced customer experience reflected in terms of developed tourism of the village community. The study builds on the contents and data from 35 in-depth researches on tourism (in the context of Mawlynnong) with the help of a content analysis method and interaction with 8 local village families followed by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis. The results show that cleanliness, local community-consumer/customer engagement, heritage and education enhance tourism development. Moreover, a behaviour (cleanliness) positively influences exploration intention about tourism. The findings also provide various strategies tourism and hospitality firms and government tourism departments can use to prioritize factors and co-creating a replicable model of service innovation effectively using Mawlynnong example.