Influence of Non-Standard Tourist Accommodation’s Environmental Stimuli on Customer Loyalty: The Mediating Effect of Emotional Experience and the Moderating Effect of Personality Traits

In recent years, minsu (homestays), a non-standard tourist accommodation, have been gaining popularity in China. The minsu has become an innovative driving force promoting the transformation of tourist destinations. This paper attempts to explore the relationship between the minsu’s environment (ambience) and customer loyalty, as customer loyalty is crucial to the sustainability of minsu and tourism destinations. This paper adopts Lijiang, China, as an empirical example to explore the relationship between the multi-dimensional environment of minsu and its influence on customer loyalty. Findings include: (1) the multi-dimensional environment perception of minsu includes spatial, cultural and social environment perception, all of which have a significant positive impact on emotional experience in varying degrees; (2) the emotional experience of minsu guests plays a significant mediating role between the minsu’s environmental perception and loyalty; (3) personality traits of openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness play a moderating role in the impact of residential space environment perception on emotional experience. Using the S-O-R model, this paper introduces emotional experience and personality traits into the relationship model between the minsu’s environment perception and customer loyalty and contributes to extant literature on the influence of customer loyalty in tourist destinations. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.