Brand Behavioral Intentions of a Theme Park in China: An Application of Brand Experience
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well organized and the purpose and rationale of the study are clearly stated.
The paper is very interesting and could have an interesting manuscript for the journal. However, some issues must be addressed:
- To point out the objectives and the research contribution in the introduction.
- Although the used in the study by Brakus et al. (2009) measures experience with a wide variety of product- and service-related brands, it features a small variety of tourism brands, which has led some authors (Walls, 2013; Khan & Rahman, 2017; Andreini et al., 2018) to question the scale’s ability to measure experience in sectors such as hotels. Therefore, I suggest the authors to review the paper by Khan & Rahman (2017) where there is a proposal that could be useful for future studies. They should also mention this scale in the paper and establish the reason why they chose Brakus et al. (2009) scale. Because the results are not impresive. In fact, only sensorial and intellectual dimensions have an impact on memory.
- A descriptive results analyses must be included, adding also Cronbach’s alfa reliability measures.
- The authors could include a limitation based on the small sample size and the selection of a convenience sample.
- The same model could be applied in other geographic markets. A cross-cultural investigation would provide stronger empirical evidence about the experience scale, as well as the nature of the relationships between the main dimensions.
To sum up, this research could be the beginning of a fruitful research area involved with experience in tourism after addressing these issues.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript investigated how the brand experience would affect the tourists’ intention to visit different theme parks of the same brand. The idea was intriguing. However, the theoretical framework and the statistical results were questionable.
In terms of the theoretical framework, the authors claimed that: (1) brand experience (SEN, AFF, INT, & BEH) would affect memory (MEM) and satisfaction (SAT); (2) MEM would affect SAT; (3) MEM and SAT would affect behavioral intentions to revisit the theme park (BI) and behavioral intentions to visit other theme parks of the same brand (BBI). The shortage of the theoretical framework was that the authors did not explain why SEN, AFF, INT, and BEH would not affect BI and BBI. The authors have to consult the literature concerned with motivations and planned behavior theory to develop a more solid theoretical framework.
In terms of the statistical results, the authors wrote: “Affective and behavioral experience also had a relatively weak positive influence on memory and satisfaction.” However, the causal paths between AFF, BEH, MEM, and SAT were statistically insignificant.
Overall, the theoretical development process of the manuscript was weak. The statistical results did not even support the hypotheses. Therefore, the manuscript is not publishable.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for your interesting paper! I found your paper very clearly structured, very easy to follow! It was a real pleasure to discover each step of your research!
Please find below my suggestions.
- A brief summary
The aim of this paper is to identify the developing process of brand behavioural intentions from the customer experience perspective, focused on a historical and cultural theme park in China. The main contribution of the paper is given by results adapted to theme parks. The paper is very clearly structured and very easy to follow.
- Specific comments
It would be useful to state the objectives of your research.
Section 3. Method – deliver some more details about the statistical procedures and statistical software that were used. Also, when specifying the sample size, explain if the sample size is large enough considering the number of items included in the statistical analysis. Give some sources to support your statements.
In section 5 – Conclusions. You highlight your contribution. Yet, you could improve the relationships between your results and the previous contributions from literature, which is presented but could be better highlighted. Future research is missing.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This paper presents an isnightful perspective on the forming process of brand behavioral intentions in the context of a Chinese theme park.
The introduction provides relevant information regarding the context of the study as well as the necessity of this scientific approach.
The theoretical framework and research hypothesis section is well written and includes relevant references. More recent references need to be included, to make this section up to date with the latest academic publications (2018-2020).
The method section presents details on data collection and measurement.
The results section includes a profile of the respondents, the measurement model and proposed structural model.
The final section presents conclusions drawn from the study, as well as some theoretical and practical implications. Some limitations of the paper are indicated as well as recommendations for future research directions.
Suggestions of improvement:
The title of the paper needs a reshape in my opinion, especially in the final part and the abstract also needs some rephrasing. On line 40 I suggest that the authors find some more recent statistics regarding world visitation of theme parks. The authors need to mention (in the conclusion section) whether their results regarding each relationship among variables supports or contradicts previous studies.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The previous comment pointed out that the manuscript was lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework to explain why brand experience did not affect BI and BBI.
In the authors’ response, they stated that “because one of our research goals is to consider the influence of satisfaction and memory to be worked as mediators although relationships among SEN, AFF, INT, BEH BI and BBI are confirmed by several previous studies it would be proper not to explain clearly the relationships among variables”.
Such a response is unacceptable. The authors cannot look for the mediation of MEM and SAT by using a false model to execute SEM since different model settings will generate different statistical results. The authors should have known how to set up a reasonable causal model since they have reviewed the related literature (e.g., Quadri-Felitti and Fiore, 2013).
Besides, the authors claimed, “one of our research goals is to consider the influence of satisfaction and memory to be worked as mediators”, and the fact is that the revised manuscript only mentioned, “intellectual experience had a positive indirect effect on satisfaction through memory as a mediate variable” once. Obviously, the revised manuscript did not pay much attention to the mediation of MEM and STA.
Finally, the authors have to hire a professional editor to proofread their responses. Some sentences are difficult for understanding.
Overall, the authors must change the model structure.
Author Response
Thank you very much for the "minor revision" comments given by the reviewers.
In terms of your specific comments, we fully agree with your comments which include the mediation of MEM and SAT, model structure and English editing. With regard to English editing issue we will try to improve the level of English writing while receiving the English editing service for entire manuscript.
Despite your convincing comments besides the issue of English editing, this study seems to be still worthwhile. Although there are some previous studies on theme park, but there are no studies which has stated visitors' behavioral intentions to visit other theme parks of the same brand. In this regard this article aims to determine the development process of brand behavior intention from the perspective of customer experience. In terms of theoretical implications, this study suggests a theoretical basis for theme park brand operators and researchers related to a new perspective on how to retain visitors. It is interesting to note that close relationships exist among the various theme parks of the same brand. Therefore, it is necessary to coordinate the overall development strategy and play a joint role because the theme parks under the same brand are in an interactive relationship. As a specific strategy, the managers of theme parks should consider promoting or mentioning other theme parks under the same brand at the same time when promoting their theme parks via TV advertisements, posters, and leaflets.
The co-authors and I are very happy to receive your meaningful and helpful review comments. Based on your suggestions, we revised our article, and the current version is much more optimized than the original version. If you want to see the modified part specifically, refer to the part marked in red. Although we also received a negative review opinion, we have sincerely revised it according to the reviewer's opinion.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
