Explaining of factors affecting the tourists' Attachment & loyalty to tourism destinations (Case study: Rasht City)

Tourism is one of the most important and key industries in urban communities that is one of the main agendas of urban planning. Tourism as the biggest and most diverse industry in the world has been able to have a major contribution to the economic growth in developing countries in the past few decades. The rise in the number of cities due to the global urbanization has increased the diversity of tourist destinations, which has created a competitive environment in urban tourism industry. So that every city tourist destination is planning to attract more tourists. Considering the competition in urban tourism and the increasing importance of this industry in creating economic benefits for cities, it seems that cities need to go beyond tourist satisfaction and try to identify the factors affecting the attachment and loyalty of tourists. At present, the first visit of groups of tourists to a destination alone is not considered a success, but in the existing competitive environment to attract tourists, the number of repeated visits to a place by tourists is an important factor. Although the satisfaction of tourists causes them to visit the destination again, as well as the continuity and stability of tourism and the prosperity of the urban economy, the attachment and loyalty of tourists as a major driving force and an important indicator of success in tourism marketing should be considered more than before. Examining the factors affecting the attachment and loyalty of tourists can make city managers aware of the needs of tourists and lead to the growth and development of sustainable tourism. this study aims to explain the criteria of tourist attachment and loyalty to Rasht city. In the first step, this study examines the relationship between tourist satisfaction as a mediating variable, including five indicators (perceived value, perceived quality, experience quality, destination image, and destination brand image) with tourists' attachment. Then, in the second step, tourists 'attachment has been used as a mediating variable in examining the relationship between tourist satisfaction and tourists' loyalty to Rasht as a tourism destination. The statistical population of this study includes all tourists who have traveled to Rasht at least once. Research information has been obtained from the completion of 404 questionnaires by these tourists. This information is analyzed by SPSS and Smart PLS3 software. The results showed that the quality of experience, perceived value, and destination image had a positive and significant effect on tourist satisfaction and they explain a total of 81.3% of the variance of tourist satisfaction. Also, the perceived quality and image of the destination brand did not have a significant relationship with tourists 'satisfaction and, as a result, tourists' attachment and loyalty. In the second step, the results showed that tourist satisfaction has a positive and significant relationship with tourists' attachment and consequently their loyalty to Rasht. Therefore, these indicators at two levels, and mediated by satisfaction and then attachment indicators, have been able to explain 70/0 % of the variance of the tourist loyalty variable, which is a significant and desirable rate.