Understanding the Effect of Cognitive Image, Emotional Experience and Place Attachment on the Intention to revisit the City of Karbala in Iraq as a Religious Tourism Destination

Introduction

In many countries, the tourism sector has become an important source for attracting investment and providing foreign currency, as well as solving the unemployment problem. Historically, the first form of tourism that humans inclined was visiting holy places, which is known today as religious tourism. Religious tourism is usually considered as a type of in-person tourism that its aim is visiting holy places and places that people believe in spiritually or a part of their religious and religious history recently, the growth of the religious tourism market has increased continuously around the world. So that religious tourism places in the world attract more than 300 million visitors annually. How to attract tourists to visit and revisit religious tourism places is an important issue to ensure success and earn money in different fields. Many destinations depend on repeat in visits highly because in terms of marketing, retaining loyal visitors costs much less than attract new visitors. Given that, there has not been any research that examines the factors affecting the revisit intention of Karbala as one of the most important destinations of religious tourism in the world. This research, as the first research, has paid attention to this issue and investigated the effect of the cognitive image, place attachment and emotional experience on revisit intention of Karbala city. Meanwhile, the role of attitude and loyalty variables has also been considered.

Methodology

The purpose of this research is to understand the effect of cognitive image, emotional experience and place attachment on the intention to revisit the city of Karbala in Iraq as one of the most important religious tourism destinations. A questionnaire that involve 31 questions was prepared and distributed among domestic and foreign religious tourists between July and August 2023, which coincides with Ashura and Arbaeen 1445 in the lunar calendar. During this period, the largest number of tourists travel to visit Karbala. A total of 385 people participated in this research. The questionnaire consists of two parts; the first part related to the demographic information of the respondents and the second part is about to the specialized questions related to the variables were measured. SPSS software was also used to check the demographic information and Smart Pls3 software was used to analyze the data.

Results

The research showed that the cognitive image affects loyalty, which is confirmed by the studies (Jebbouri et al., 2021; Králiková, Peruthová, & Ryglová, 2020; Wu, 2016). Also, the findings showed that destination image affects the attitude towards the destination, which is confirmed by the studies (Jalilvand, 2017; Liu et al., 2018; Pereira, Gupta, & Hussain, 2022). Since the cognitive image of a tourist destination is made up of must-be, appealing and attractive conditions, these results emphasize the importance of the attention of policy makers and city managers of Karbala to emphasis on must-be, attractive and appealing conditions in order to create a positive cognitive image and loyalty of religious tourists in Karbala city. For this purpose, efforts to improve infrastructures, suitable routes, roads and paying attention to the construction of accommodation places such as hotels and guest houses as well as commercial centers and suitable markets can be effective in creating a suitable cognitive image of the city of Karbala. On the other hand, paying attention to the hygiene and cleanliness of the city, especially the places where tourists are present, is very effective in creating a suitable cognitive image. On the other hand, place attachment affects loyalty, which is confirmed by the studies (Alves, Campón-Cerro, & Hernández-Mogollón, 2019; Chen et al., 2023; Xu & Zhang, 2016; Zhou et al., 2023). Also, place attachment affects the attitude towards the destination, which is confirmed by the studies (Han et al., 2019; Li, Pan, & Hu, 2021; Shen, Geng, & Su, 2019; Wan, Shen, & Choi, 2021)



Conclusion

The findings of this study also provide significant practical recommendations for destination managers and policymakers of Karbala city to create a positive attitude and increase loyalty that leads to empower the intention of tourists to revisit .In order to create a competitive advantage in tourism destinations, firstly should develop their strategies towards loyalty and creating a positive attitude of tourists through the creation of a positive cognitive image because it forms the expectations of tourists before the actual visit. Therefore, it is suggested to take measures such as providing a pleasant and safe environment by maintaining beautiful scenery and complying with high standards of hygiene. Place attachment is one of the other factors affecting attitude and loyalty, therefore the policy makers and trustees of the city of Karbala should be better than introducing less-known tourist and religious places try to use traditional methods such as tour leaders and tourist guides for the elderly as well as use new technologies such as QR code to introduce their historical places and events in an attractive way as well as using multimedia technologies. Virtual reality tools for simulating religious events and creating relevant and accessible content on websites and social networks can also be effective in this field. Paying attention to the proper infrastructure such as the construction of hotels, markets and shopping places and proper urban routes and roads can be effective in attracting tourists and encouraging them to visit the city of Karbala again. Paying attention to these issues creates a positive attitude and also strengthens the loyalty of tourists, which has the greatest impact on the intention of tourists to visit again.

Key words: Religious tourism, Karbala city, loyalty, Revisit intention, place attachment.