| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄應用科技大學 === 觀光與餐旅管理系 === 100 === Background: Souvenirs can extend tourists’ experiences long after the trip ended. A good souvenir can “tangibalize the intangible experience” of the wonderful days of the travel. Moreover, it can serve as a reminder and catalyst for tourists to share his/her wonderful experiences with others. However, most studies on souvenirs focus on design and their economic contributions to the destination; a study to explore the emotional meaning to the tourists is needed.
Purpose: The purposes of this study were to explore the souvenirs purchasing behavior of theme park goers and the “end meaning” of souvenirs to them.
Methods: This study adopted Means-end chain model to study the emotional end meaning of souvenirs to tourist. Fifty subjects were recruited through e-mail requests. After a semi-structured interview, the transcripts were digitized. The Laddering procedure was applied to analyze the transcripts, the common descriptions were grouped and the relationships on those groups were further analyzed and constructed into sub-groups. Essentially, a final grouping map with relationship links was constructed.
Results: The outcomes of analyses reveal that the end value of the theme park souvenirs to the tourists has three links: "representative- a visit- memories", "cute- collection- sharing", and "practicality- durability- does not want to spend too much money". The intrinsic value for the male tourists is "memories" while for the female is "sharing".
Contribution: This study focus on the end meaning of souvenirs to the tourists. This is different from the majority of the studies that emphasized on the design of souvenirs. Moreover, this study firstly adopted Means-end chain model in souvenirs study. Practically, this study provides in-depth insides on consumer purchasing behavior that can assists destination and souvenirs designers develop products that fit tourists’ needs.
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