The Impact of Sports Tourism Motivation on Tourist Loyalty: The Chain Mediation Effect of Experience Quality and Tourist Satisfaction

ABSTRACT This study adopts the perspective of the social exchange theory and S‐O‐R theory, taking the emotional bond formed between tourists and the tourism destination through interaction as a starting point. It introduces experience quality and tourist satisfaction to construct a chain mediation model of “tourist motivation—experience quality—tourist satisfaction—tourist loyalty” in the context of sports tourism. A total of 497 valid samples were collected for the study, and the hypotheses proposed were tested using AMOS 24 software. The research results indicate that sports tourism motivation, experience quality, and tourist satisfaction all have significant positive effects on tourist loyalty. Experience quality and tourist satisfaction have both independent and chain mediation effects between sports tourism motivation and tourist satisfaction. Finally, this paper discusses the implications of the research findings for theory and practice, the limitations of the study, and future research directions.