Identifying Effective Factors in Tourists' Satisfaction of and Tendency to Purchase from Mashhad's Shopping Centers

Purchasing is a new type of tourism that is considered as one of the main activities of tourists. This study sought to investigate the effect of shopping centers' features, traveling options, and the tourist destination's economic and social characteristics on tourists’ satisfaction of and tendency to purchase from shopping centers with an emphasis on comparing tourists and pilgrims visiting Mashhad's traditional and modern shopping centers (Bazaar Reza and Almas-e-Sharq). To this end, 404 questionnaires were administered during the summer of 2019, using multiple logit analyses to identify the relevant factors. The study's results indicated that variables such as background information concerning the shopping center, the number of family members accompanying a person in travel, seller`s appropriate treatment, the existence of parking lots, quality of the product, marital status, geographical location, income, and product variety had a significant effect on tourists' tendency to purchase from shopping centers. Therefore, to increase the tourists' satisfaction of and willingness to purchase from shopping centers, the following steps are recommended to be taken: constructing shopping centers in places that are easier to access for the tourists; Exercising stricter supervision on prices of different products and services; equipping the shopping centers with parking lots that are capacious enough, and providing the shopping centers with diverse various goods and services.