Memorable wellness tourism experiences: Scale development and validation

This study aimed to develop and validate a memorable wellness tourism experiences scale to address an existing theoretical gap. Prior research reveals significant variation in tourist expectations of memorable experiences, indicating a need for focused studies in specialized areas such as wellness tourism. Inconsistencies and subjectivity in memorable tourism experience constructs reveal a gap in universally accepted frameworks and theoretical coherence. Employing a rigorous multi-phase methodological approach, the study combined deductive and inductive strategies. An extensive literature review, complemented by qualitative interviews, generated an initial pool of 40 items across 10 dimensions. These items were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using data from a questionnaire survey of 307 international wellness tourists, refining the scale to 31 items across six dimensions. Subsequent validation through confirmatory factor analysis with a larger sample of 622 participants confirmed the scale's reliability and validity, yielding 29 items within six dimensions. The scale dimensions—professionalism, meaningfulness, environmental aesthetics, tranquil ambience, novelty, and value for money—exhibited strong internal consistency and construct validity, confirming the robustness of the instrument. The scale thus offers a comprehensive and reliable tool for assessing memorable experiences in wellness tourism. It enhances both theoretical and practical understanding, thereby contributing to improved service offerings and deeper insights within the wellness tourism sector.