Sjafril Amir, Widji Astuti, Grahita Chandrarin, Bagus Shandy Narmaditya
Tourism often sacrifices environmental integrity and local culture, while ecotourism destination exists as an alternative to sustainable development. The contemporary studies of ecotourism are limited to how tourist enthusiasm and interaction can be translated into revisit intentions. Hence, this research examines the influence of tourist engagement (enthusiasm and interaction) on the revisit intention (tourist priority, willingness to revisit, and willingness to recommend) of ecotourism destinations, with memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) as a mediator. Using a quantitative approach and structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS), this study analyzed data from 230 respondents who have visited National Parks in East Java of Indonesia. The results indicated that tourist enthusiasm and interaction significantly affect MTEs, which increases the revisit intention variability. The findings also showed that MTEs can mediate the linkage between tourist engagement and revisit intention in ecotourism destinations. Importance-Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) analysis disclosed that MTEs are a priority factor, with high performance influencing revisit intentions. Tourist interactions with destinations have high performance in shaping tourist behavior, while tourist enthusiasm needs to be increased to provide a stronger impact. These findings provide practical insights for ecotourism managers to focus on strengthening memorable experiences and promoting destination sustainability. © The Author(s) 2025.
Graduate School, Economic Sciences, University of Merdeka Malang, Malang, Indonesia; Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia
