A Study of Art Tourism Motivation and Tourists’ Satisfaction based on Their Emotional Images on the Tourism Destination : The case of Gwangju Art Tourism in South Korea

Purpose -This study aims to examine differences among art tourist motivation and satisfact ion according to the tourists’ emotional responses to Gwangju. Design, data, and methodology -Online panel survey was conducted and 500 responses were used for the analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted (Factor analysis, Cluster analysis, Discriminant analysis, Chi-square test, and t-test) in order to examine differences among art tourist motivation and satisfaction according to the tourists’ emotional responses to Gwangju. Result - This study found that two clusters with positive and neutral images on Gwangju showed statistically significant difference on their tourist motivation and satisfaction. The group with positive image on Gwangju had more positive attitude in all aspects of tourism motivation and satisfaction than the group with neutral image on Gwangju. That is, this study identified that art tourists’ overall impression on Gwangju plays a critical role in understanding their art tourism motivation and satisfaction. Conclusions - This result offers insights for developing the strategies for attracting art tourists to Gwangju, highlighting the need of efforts to create tourists’ positive emotional image on Gwangju.