A model of destination loyalty: integrating destination image and sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism has been a popular topic in tourism research. However, there are limited studies on tourists’ perspectives from the angle of sustainable tourism. This research intends to develop and test a destination loyalty model which introduces destination image in the form of the pillars of sustainability. Questionnaires were distributed to tourists at five tourist destinations in Shanghai. The analysis showed that tourist satisfaction fully mediated the effect of cultural image and partially mediated the effects of socioeconomic and environmental images on destination loyalty. Implications were derived from the findings and future research recommendations were proposed.