Drawing upon the entertainment theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this paper aims to conceptualize and operationalize the concept of entertainment destination experience (EDE) and investigate its crucial role in destination branding.
Following rigorous scale development procedures, this study conducted four studies (i.e. item generation, item purification, scale refinement, and scale validation and model testing) to develop and validate the scale of EDE.
This study develops and validates a 22-item scale of EDE, consisting of six dimensions: hospitality, euphoria, enrichment, sensation, enlightenment, and interactivity experiences. The findings also reveal that EDE enhances destination memorability and satisfaction, which, in turn, stimulates tourists’ destination brand love.
The findings offer a useful toolkit for experience design and destination branding, allowing hospitality and tourism practitioners to tailor EDEs that effectively fulfill tourists’ primary demand for entertainment.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents a pioneering effort to develop a reliable and valid scale for measuring EDE, while providing empirical evidence on its vital contribution to destination branding.
