Indonesia has a variety of interesting must-visit tourist destinations. As part of the 7.7 million target tourists visiting Indonesia, the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, introduced and promoted the new tagline “Wonderful Indonesia” in 2011. This tagline is still used to attract tourists to visit Indonesia. According to data from Statistics Indonesia, in relation to the recovery of Indonesian domestic tourism in 2023, Indonesian domestic tourism is gradually recovering with the number of foreign tourist travels increasing in 2022 by 19.82% compared to 2021 and growing 1.76% compared to 2019. The biggest number of foreign tourists travels of 80.23 million was in March 2022. In 2022, Indonesia’s domestic tourist sector will steadily develop in line with the declining trend of COVID-19 transmission. This is reflected in a 19.82% increase in the number of wisatawan nusantara (wisnus, domestic tourists) over the previous year. In 2022, there were 734.86 million foreign tourist travels reported. Compared to conditions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic tourist travels increased 1.76%.

Bengkayang Regency offers natural and cultural attractions that potentially attract the tourists. One of them is Nyobeng – a cultural tourism attraction, which is a Dayak Bidayuh ethnical ceremony that has become an international festival event in Sebujit Village, Siding District, Bengkayang Regency. The Nyobeng is derived from the words ‘nibakng’ or ‘sibang’, which refer to a huge and special religious activity. The Nyobeng consists of a process of bathing or cleansing the human skull as a result of ngayau – a headhunting tradition by Dayak Bidayuh tribe’s predecessors. The Nibakng is a celebration of thanksgiving to Tipaiakng (a Bidayuh name for God) for the blessings of the rice harvest, formerly viewed as a ritual to respect the human heads as a result of the ngayau headhunting [1].

According to an interview with Mr. Gunawan, Chair of the Siding District DAD and Chair of the Sebujit Indigenous Community (2023), the Nyobeng International Festival Event was attended by approximately 500 foreign tourists from China, Korea, Australia, Russia and Malaysia in 2018 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nyobeng was still performed internally in the Bidayuh community, with no tourists presented. It was finally hosted internationally in June 2023, following the COVID-19 pandemic. Many domestic and foreign tourists, including Malaysian tourists who were related to the Dayak Bidayuh community, came to Siding District to participate in Nyobeng ethnical traditions. The decrease in the number of international tourists attending the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival 2023 demonstrates that the Nyobeng is no longer a popular tourist destination.

The Bengkayang Regency Regional Government is attempting to attract both foreign and domestic tourists to the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival 2023. Efforts are being made to share information, such as through social media. However, visitors are still not as numerous as they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a challenge that necessitates reviving the tourism sector so that the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival can echo on the world stage. One of the supports for attracting the tourists is through the function of technology in promoting tourist destinations [2]. Other factors include demographic characteristics, tourist experience while participating in the activities, superior infrastructure, attractions, inexpensive facilities, simple access and tourist satisfaction [3-5]. According to Giao et al. [6], there are eight factors influencing the intention to revisit, including the infrastructure, accessibility, local food, atmosphere, environment, price value, comfort and entertainment. For these reasons, this study aims to analyze the tourism attractions in relation to the intention to revisit, with visit decision servings as a mediating variable.

Literature Review 

Tourism Attractions: Several researches have been conducted to explain factors influencing the tourism attractions. Studies by Shen et al. [7], Taecharungroj and Mathayomchan [8] and Bi et al. [2] revealed that technology has a role in marketing tourism locations and tourist attractions. According to Kesgin et al. [3], the demographic characteristics can be a factor that promotes a destination. Haneef et al. [4] stated that the best strategy to attract tourists is to use past event experiences and expectations, superior infrastructure, attractions, hotels, inexpensive facilities, simple accessibility and highly developed air and road transportation systems. Suhartanto et al. [5] discovered that the perceived value of tourist satisfaction, as well as tourist motivation, are important elements in determining tourist loyalty to creative attractions.

Visit Decision 

Over the last few decades, there has been significant progress in researches on tourist travel decisions. Many models and methodologies have also been employed, including gravity and economic models, psychological motivation or values, information processing theory, attitude theory and conjoint analysis. According to the decision-making behavior, the travel decisions follow a contingent decision process that is temporal, dynamic, sequential and multistage. A theory by Gollwitzer of action phases and thought patterns, being inspired by conditions is part of the deliberation phase before decision making, whereas being inspired marks the transition to the decision-making implementation stage. When a person is inspired, their thinking shifts from contemplations to a strong commitment to a certain objective. A study by Khozaei et al. found that there is a cognitive process that underpins the travel decision making and raises understanding of how people build expectations of new and unfamiliar areas. According to other studies, the image of a destination and a country and the presence of unfavorable conditions are the most influential elements in the tourists’ decision to visit a country [9]. 

Intention to revisiting

Many studies in the tourism industry investigate the intention to revisit to a tourist destination. According to the findings of a study conducted by Giao et al. [6] in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, Vietnam, there are eight elements influencing the intention to revisit, such as infrastructure, accessibility, local food, atmosphere, environment, price value, comfort and entertainment. Abbasi et al. [10] explained that perceived behavioral control, perceived value, destination image and satisfaction all had a substantial impact on the visitors’ intention to revisit. Khairi and Darmawan [11] mentioned that attractiveness, location and facilities all played a role in generating the intention to revisit partially or simultaneously. A study by Fianto [12] in marine tourism in East Java revealed that the service quality had a substantial effect on the intention to revisit. Further, Brida et al. [13] found that the socio-demographic factors had a positive influence on the intention to revisit. Chang et al. [14] added that on-site tourism experience was the component that most determined the intention to revisit to creative tourism attractions. A major finding by Peter Ayeni and Peter Ball [15] included the importance of e-word-of-mouth communication in terms of perceived utility and attitudes toward the use of social networks as a potential instrument for tourism destination selection.

Tourism Attractions and Intention to Revisit

While the tourism image has a considerable and positive influence on experience satisfaction, experience value has a direct influence on the experience satisfaction [16]. A study by Rahmawati et al. [17] explained that the service quality is a factor that influences the intention to revisit. Similarly, Pratiwi et al. [18] argued that the attractiveness had a favorable and significant impact on the intention to revisit, visitor satisfaction and the provision of suitable facilities. According to Atmari and Putri [19], the tourism experience had a direct influence on the destination image, satisfaction and intention to revisit. In addition, Arni et al. [20] found that having world-class tourism infrastructure, natural wonders, multicultural identity and unique culture and legacy were characteristics supporting the tourists’ interest in tourist destinations.

This study employed explanatory research and investigated three variables, consisting of tourism attractions, visit decision and intention to revisit. Each variable consisted of two, four and five indicators, respectively. The Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the reliability. The results show that the tourism attractions, visit decision and intention to revisit have a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.712, 0.919 and 0.545, respectively.

Sample and Data Collection

This study was done in a quantitative manner by distributing questionnaires to visitors of the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival 2023. There was a total of 205 respondents participated. The questionnaire was measured using a 5-point Likert Scale, with 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 being ‘strongly agree’. A purposive sampling method was employed. The data was collected from June to July 2023.

Data Analysis

This study evaluated research constructs using construct reliability, discriminant validity, convergent validity and individual item reliability tests using a Structured Equation Modeling – Partial Least Square (SEM - PLS) [21-23]. The goodness of fit evaluation was done based on the R-squared indicator. The outer model was measured to examine the validity and reliability. The composite reliability (CR) value for all variables must be higher than 0.7 [24], while the reliability value for individual variables must be higher than 0.7 [25]. In this study, the loading factor value must also be higher than 0.7. An instrument would be considered a valid construct if its loading factor value is higher than 0.7. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) value was also used to evaluate the convergent validity, with a minimum value of 0.5 [26]. The SEM analysis was a structural model analysis that determined whether or not the study hypotheses could be supported empirically. Each coefficient had a t-value as a result of the SEM analysis. A hypothesis could be supported empirically if the estimated t-value was ≥ t-table (1.96) with a significance level of α = 0.05 [22].

This study finds that most of the respondents were 20 – 30 years old (43.90%), female (52.68%), from Bengkayang District (61.95%) and knew the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival 2023 from the internet (52.68%) and participated in the Nyobeng once (53.66%).

Measurement and Structural model

Before measuring the structural model, the model was measured. The following Table 2 shows that the tourism

Table 1. Respondent Profile

Table 2. Results of Measurement Model

Figure 1: Results of Full Model Structural Test

Table 3: Results of Structural Model

Note: TA = Tourism Attractions; DC = Visit Decision; RI = Intention to Revisit

Table 4: Result Of Mediating Role Hypothesis Testing

attractions, visit decision and intention to revisit have a CR value of 0.814, 0.822 and 0.839; AVE value of 0.687, 0.536 and 0.756; and a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.545, 0.712 and 0.919, respectively. Meanwhile, the R-squared values of visit decision and intention to revisit are 0.244 and 0.437. The reliability and validity of the model constructed have met the criteria. Figure 1 depicts the structural model investigated using a path analysis to discover the relationship between the dependent variable and each latent variable in the research. The higher the coefficient value, the higher the latent variable’s influence on the dependent variable.

Result of Hypothesis Testing

The results of hypothesis testing in the following Table 3 confirm that there is a positive and significant relationship between the tourism attractions and visit decision (p = 0.000). This shows that the first hypothesis can be supported empirically. Similarly, this study confirms that there is also a positive and significant relationship between the visit decision and intention to revisit (p = 0.000), which supports the second hypothesis empirically.

Result Of Mediating Role Hypothesis Testing

The following Table 4 shows that the third hypothesis can be supported empirically, indicating that there is a positive and significant relationship between the tourism attractions and intention to revisit, with the visit decision as the mediating variable (T-Statistic: 7.875; St. Dev: 0.041; ρ: 0.000). This finding can also be seen in Figure 1.

This study proves that the tourism attractions have a positive and significant relationship with the intention to revisit, with the visit decision as the mediating variable. This finding supports the one by Shen et al. [7], Taecharungroj and Mathayomchan [8] and Bi et al. [2] who explained that the technology played a role in marketing the tourism locations and tourism attractions. According to Kesgin et al. [3], the demographic characteristics could be a factor that promoted a destination. The tourists would decide whether or not to visit the tourist attractions once they had expressed an interest. The process of making tourist decisions was a cognitive process. This was in accordance with a study by Khozaei et al. who discovered a cognitive process that underpined the travel decisions and improved the knowledge of how people built their expectations of new and unfamiliar areas. The image of a destination and a country and the presence of unfavorable conditions were the most influential factors in the tourists’ decision to visit a country [9].

The tourists would revisit the same location if they had a positive experience at the tourism attractions. This was consistent with the findings of a study conducted by Giao et al. [6] in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, Vietnam which found that there were eight factors influencing the intention to revisit, including infrastructure, accessibility, local food, atmosphere, environment, price value, comfort and entertainment. Abbasi et al., [10] added that the perceived behavioral control, perceived value, destination image and satisfaction all had a substantial impact on the visitors’ intentions to revisit. Other research indicated that, while the tourism image had a considerable and favorable influence on the experience satisfaction, the experience value had a direct negative effect on the experience satisfaction [16]. Rahmawati et al. [17] explained that the service quality was a factor influencing the intention to revisit.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of tourism attractions on the intention to revisit, using the visit decision as the mediating variable. This study finds that there is a positive and significant relationship between the tourism attractions and intention to revisit, with the visit decision serving as the mediating variable (p-value = 0.000). On the other hand, this study has a limitation, where the samples used were only domestic tourists. Therefore, future researches are suggested to analyze qualitatively with in-depth interviews for other factors contributing to the decrease in the tourist attractiveness for the Nyobeng International Dayak Bidayuh Festival 2023.

Acknowledgment

The researchers would like to thank the Doctoral Study Program in Management, especially the Department of Human Resource Management, for encouraging the researchers to b write this article.

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