Abstract:
Domestic rail tourists play a prominent role in Sri Lankan tourism industry by
contributing to the growth of the industry considerably. As a niche tourism
segment, the rail tourism can be effectively utilized for the development of the
tourism industry. Sincethe concepts of satisfaction and reuse intention is closely
combined with the assessment of various services in the tourism industry, the
main purpose of this research is to identify the impact of rail transportation
attributes on domestic rail tourists’ reuse intention via the mediation effect of
domestic rail tourists’ satisfaction. Four rail transportation attributes were
identified as independent variables namely scenery, comfort, customer service,
andsafety. Data was collected by an online questionnaire from 149 of domestic
rail tourists who have visited to Badulla by train during the past year by adopting
convenient samplingtechnique which is laid under the non-probability sampling
method. Pearson Correlation statistics were calculated in order to identify the
relationship between independent, mediating, and dependent variables and the
results have proved that there are positive significant relationships between all
the variables in the study. The results of multiple regression analysis have
proved that the rail transportation attributes do have a positive impact on
domestic rail tourists’ reuse intention. The Sobel test showed that the
satisfaction mediates the impact of rail transportation attributes on reuse
intention. In general, the findings make a significant contribution to the
knowledge of tourist behaviour in rail tourism, and in particular the results
illustrate how the attributes of rail transportation can increase the re-use
intention through satisfaction as the mediator proving the mediating effect of
satisfaction in between service attributes and loyalty. In considering the
managerial implications, the findings of the research direct the Sri Lanka
Railway, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, and Sri Lanka Tourism
PromotionalBureau as to how the rail tourism should be promoted through the
improvements of the rail transportation attributes which can eventually lead to a
satisfied domestic rail tourist.
