Memorable Tourist Experience Scale (MTES)

Abstract

The Memorable Tourist Experience Scale (MTES) is a seminal psychometric instrument engineered to operationalize and quantify the multidimensional structure of travel experiences that become stored in long-term autobiographical memory. Developed and validated by Jong-Hee Kim and colleagues (Kim, Ritchie, & McCormick, 2012; Kim, 2014), the instrument emerged in response to the theoretical limitations of conventional service quality frameworks (e.g., SERVQUAL) and basic satisfaction metrics, which routinely fail to capture the affective depth, cognitive transformation, and enduring psychological impressions characteristic of post-modern experiential tourism. The MTES comprises 24 self-report items structured across seven foundational dimensions: Hedonism (4 items), Novelty (4 items), Local Culture (3 items), Refreshment (4 items), Meaningfulness (3 items), Involvement (3 items), and Knowledge (3 items). Responses are captured using a standardized 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”). Extensive psychometric evaluations utilizing both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirm that the MTES exhibits robust structural validity, high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically exceeding .80 across all subscales, with composite reliabilities exceeding .82), and remarkable convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related predictive validity. Specifically, empirical research demonstrates that high scores on the MTES reliably predict destination loyalty, positive word-of-mouth (WOM), revisit intentions, and heightened subjective well-being. Today, the MTES serves as a gold standard in tourism psychology, hospitality management, and experiential consumer research, offering both researchers and destination marketers an empirical framework to measure, design, and manage profoundly transformative tourist experiences.

Keywords

Memorable Tourist Experience Scale, MTES, tourism psychology, episodic memory, experiential marketing, hedonism, novelty, destination loyalty, psychometric validation, autobiographical memory

Authors

The theoretical framework and empirical scale development for the Memorable Tourist Experience Scale were spearheaded by Dr. Jong-Hee Kim, whose academic work established empirical benchmarks for experiential tourism research:

• Jong-Hee Kim, Ph.D. — Primary developer of the MTES. Currently associated with Edith Cowan University (School of Business and Law, Western Australia) and previously affiliated with Indiana University and other international research centers. His research focuses on destination marketing, consumer behavior in hospitality, experiential tourism, and psychometric development in tourism studies. (Email: [email protected]).
• J. R. Brent Ritchie, Ph.D. — Co-developer in early conceptualizations (Kim, Ritchie, & McCormick, 2012). Late Professor Emeritus of Tourism Management at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada. A world-renowned pioneer in tourism destination competitiveness, branding, and tourist behavior.
• Bryan P. McCormick, Ph.D. — Co-developer in early conceptualizations. Professor of Public Health, Department of Health and Wellness Design, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington. Expert in psychosocial dimensions of leisure, recreation, and mental health.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Memorable Tourist Experience Scale (MTES) is to measure individual perceptions of the experiential components that convert transient travel encounters into enduring, highly accessible episodic memories. In modern consumer behavior, tourists no longer consume merely isolated hospitality amenities or tangible services; they actively pursue affective, intellectual, and transformative experiences that leave lasting cognitive traces. Prior to the development of the MTES, destination managers and researchers relied heavily on operational measures of functional service delivery, customer satisfaction, or cognitive value-for-money assessments. However, these traditional measures inherently treat tourism as a transactional enterprise rather than an experiential phenomenon.

From an applied research and managerial perspective, the MTES fulfills several vital purposes:

• Deconstructing Experiential Quality: Rather than viewing a vacation as an undifferentiated aggregate score, the MTES dissects tourist encounters into seven distinct experiential components, allowing practitioners to identify which psychological triggers (such as intellectual enrichment versus pure hedonistic escape) are operating most effectively at a destination.
• Predicting Long-Term Consumer Loyalty: Psychological research demonstrates that behavioral intentions—such as the decision to revisit a country or recommend an attraction—are governed not by real-time moment-by-moment encounters, but by the retrieved memory of those encounters. The MTES directly measures the constructs that foster high memorability, providing superior predictive validity for long-term loyalty compared to classic transactional satisfaction metrics.
• Strategic Experience Design: Tourism planners, heritage interpreters, and national tourism organizations (NTOs) utilize the scale as a diagnostic framework to audit and re-engineer tourism touchpoints, shifting marketing strategies from passive sightseeing toward participatory, meaningful, and culture-rich engagements.
• Psychological & Cross-Cultural Research: The MTES provides an empirical baseline for investigating how diverse cultural cohorts encode vacation memories, how personality traits (e.g., sensation-seeking, openness to experience) modulate perceived memorability, and how experiential memories contribute to general psychological well-being and life satisfaction.

Psychological Construct

The Memorable Tourist Experience (MTE) construct is defined by Kim, Ritchie, and McCormick (2012) as an individual tourism encounter that is positively recalled and vividly remembered after the event has occurred. Crucially, memorability is not an accidental byproduct of travel; it is systematically generated when a tourist encounter engages specific cognitive, emotional, and self-referential mechanisms. The construct is operationalized as a multi-dimensional psychological phenomenon comprising seven interdependent dimensions:

1. Hedonism

Hedonism captures the affective core of the leisure experience, encompassing positive emotional states such as excitement, pleasure, enjoyment, sensory gratification, and indulgence. Rooted in hedonic psychology, this dimension reflects the extent to which travel activities provide immediate affective elevation and joyous immersion. For instance, participating in a thrilling outdoor adventure, relishing world-class cuisine, or indulging in sensory pampering activates intense positive emotions that significantly increase neural encoding in autobiographical memory networks.

2. Novelty

Novelty reflects psychological encounters characterized by distinctiveness, uniqueness, unfamiliarity, and departures from daily routine. Operating as a primary catalyst for human curiosity and attention allocation, novelty involves engaging in activities that are unprecedented in the individual’s personal history (“once-in-a-lifetime” events). Novel stimuli trigger heightened attentional focus, reducing cognitive habituation and producing deeper episodic encoding, which makes unique occurrences far more resistant to memory decay over time.

3. Local Culture

Local Culture encapsulates authentic socio-cultural interactions between the traveler and the host destination’s residents, customs, traditions, and everyday life. Moving beyond superficial commercial tourism, this dimension reflects genuine human connectivity, intercultural exchange, and exposure to local hospitality. Positive, authentic impressions of friendly local people and close immersion in native lifestyles generate social resonance, imbuing the journey with vivid socio-cultural narratives.

4. Refreshment

Refreshment measures the restorative, stress-mitigating, and rehabilitative psychological consequences of travel. Drawing heavily on Attention Restoration Theory (ART), this subscale reflects a profound sense of mental liberation, physical renewal, psychological detachment from routine work responsibilities, and the recovery of depleted cognitive capacities. When tourists experience cognitive decompression and physical revitalization, the psychological contrast with everyday stress forms an enduring marker of relief in their memory.

5. Meaningfulness

Meaningfulness refers to the eudaimonic component of the tourism experience, encompassing personal significance, spiritual enrichment, personal growth, and self-discovery. Distinct from hedonic pleasure, meaningfulness is associated with introspective activities that foster value clarification, enhanced self-awareness, or altruistic involvement. Encounters that encourage a traveler to contemplate their life trajectory or connect with transcendent values leave a profound existential footprint that resists cognitive fading.

6. Involvement

Involvement reflects the degree of personal relevance, active cognitive investment, and behavioral participation that a traveler invests into a destination’s activities. Grounded in flow theory and involvement theory, this dimension measures the tourist’s proactive engagement in deciding, selecting, and immersing themselves in activities they personally care about. When a person visits a highly desired attraction or participates intensely in a hobby-related pursuit (such as specialized scuba diving or historical exploration), deep mental absorption ensures durable autobiographical retention.

7. Knowledge

Knowledge pertains to intellectual enrichment, cognitive mastery, skill acquisition, and factual learning concerning history, geography, language, nature, or culture. Tourism operates as an educational vehicle where encountering unfamiliar geographic environments or socio-political realities expands the individual’s cognitive schemas. The intellectual satisfaction of acquiring new expertise or understanding complex historic narratives integrates the travel experience into the tourist’s ongoing intellectual self-concept.

Theoretical Framework

The MTES is grounded at the theoretical intersection of cognitive psychology, consumer experiential consumption, and human memory systems. Rather than viewing consumer decisions exclusively through the lens of utilitarian information-processing models, the MTES is anchored in three primary theoretical pillars:

1. Tulving’s Episodic Memory and Autobiographical Systems

The psychological cornerstone of the MTES is Endel Tulving’s classification of human memory systems, specifically the distinction between semantic memory (general world facts) and episodic memory (personally experienced events embedded in a subjective spatial-temporal context). Tourism experiences are quintessentially episodic: they are stored as rich, multisensory narratives characterized by “autonoetic consciousness”—the ability to mentally travel back in time and re-experience emotional and somatic states. As posited by cognitive psychology, the longevity of episodic recall depends on the depth of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Encounters possessing high emotional arousal (Hedonism), cognitive schema disruption (Novelty), authentic social engagement (Local Culture), and personal significance (Meaningfulness) stimulate deeper cognitive elaboration, leading to the durable consolidation of autobiographical memories.

2. The Experience Economy and Experiential Marketing

In consumer research, Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) Experience Economy framework and Bernd Schmitt’s (1999) experiential marketing paradigm argue that economic offerings have progressed from commodities and goods to customized, transformative experiences. Pine and Gilmore identified four realms of an experience: entertainment, educational, esthetic, and escapist. The MTES directly operationalizes and expands these conceptual realms into concrete psychometric dimensions: Hedonism aligns with entertainment; Knowledge represents the educational realm; Refreshment operationalizes escapism; while Involvement and Novelty drive consumer immersion and aesthetic absorption.

3. Cognitive Appraisal Theory and Positive Psychology

Cognitive Appraisal Theory (Lazarus, 1991) posits that emotional experiences stem from an individual’s cognitive evaluation of environmental encounters regarding their relevance to personal well-being and life goals. In the context of tourism, when an individual assesses an environment as intrinsically congruent with their values (Meaningfulness) and freely chosen goals (Involvement), it generates positive affective states and feelings of psychological restoration (Refreshment). Furthermore, grounding in eudaimonic well-being theories (Deci & Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory) explains why autonomy-supportive travel experiences (e.g., freedom, self-directed exploration) leave deep psychological impressions that foster personal vitality long after returning home.

Validity

The MTES has undergone rigorous psychometric evaluation across diverse cultural contexts, geographical regions, and tourism sectors (e.g., heritage tourism, nature-based travel, culinary tourism, and mega-events), demonstrating exceptional psychometric validity across multiple empirical metrics:

1. Content and Face Validity

During initial scale construction, Kim, Ritchie, and McCormick (2012) and Kim (2014) conducted comprehensive literature syntheses, expert panel reviews with leading academic tourism researchers, and cognitive pre-testing with active travelers. The 24 finalized items were refined from an initial pool of over 60 candidate items to ensure unambiguous conceptual coverage of the seven intended psychological domains without semantic redundancy.

2. Convergent Validity

Convergent validity evaluates the extent to which the items of a specific subscale correlate strongly and converge on a single underlying construct. Confirmatory factor analyses across multiple international validation studies indicate that all 24 items display standardized factor loadings well above the recommended .60 threshold, with the vast majority exceeding .75 to .85 (p < .001). Furthermore, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each of the seven dimensions consistently exceeds the established benchmark of .50 (frequently ranging from .54 to .73), verifying that the underlying latent constructs explain more variance in their respective indicators than measurement error.

3. Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity confirms that each subscale measures a theoretically distinct construct rather than capturing overlapping psychological phenomena. Utilizing the rigorous Fornell-Larcker criterion, the square root of the AVE for every individual dimension consistently surpasses its highest bivariate correlation with any other latent construct in the measurement model. Furthermore, contemporary structural equation modeling studies testing the MTES have evaluated the Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT), yielding values uniformly below the strict .85 or .90 cutoff, confirming excellent discriminant separation among all seven dimensions.

4. Nomological and Predictive (Criterion) Validity

Nomological validity has been demonstrated through structural path modeling linking the MTES dimensions to established antecedent and outcome constructs. Numerous studies (e.g., Kim, 2014; Kim, 2018; Zhang, Wu, & Buhalis, 2018) prove that MTES dimensions account for substantial portions of variance (R² often ranging from .45 to .68) in critical post-trip consumer behaviors, including:

• Destination Revisit Intentions: Meaningfulness, Refreshment, and Novelty repeatedly emerge as robust predictors of long-term behavioral loyalty.
• Electronic and Traditional Word-of-Mouth (eWOM / WOM): Hedonism, Local Culture, and Involvement demonstrate strong, direct effects on a traveler’s willingness to enthusiastically recommend a destination.
• Subjective Well-being and Life Satisfaction: Refreshment and Meaningfulness demonstrate direct, statistically significant positive paths to perceived life satisfaction measured weeks or months after trip completion.

Reliability

The MTES exhibits exceptional internal consistency and measurement reliability across both its initial development samples and subsequent international replications. Standardized reliability metrics reported in the academic literature substantiate its measurement precision:

1. Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

In the foundational validation study by Kim (2014), the internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s α) for the seven subscales comfortably exceeded the standard psychometric threshold of .70:

• Hedonism: α = .84 to .88
• Novelty: α = .79 to .85
• Local Culture: α = .81 to .86
• Refreshment: α = .80 to .85
• Meaningfulness: α = .82 to .87
• Involvement: α = .76 to .84
• Knowledge: α = .81 to .87
• Overall Composite Scale (24 items): α consistently exceeds .92 to .95.

2. Composite Reliability (CR)

Because Cronbach’s alpha assumes tau-equivalence (equal factor loadings), researchers routinely evaluate Composite Reliability (CR) derived from structural equation models. Across empirical studies, CR values for all seven MTES dimensions range between .80 and .91, surpassing Bagozzi and Yi’s recommended .70 benchmark. This confirms high internal coherence among the reflective indicators representing each latent experiential construct.

3. Cross-Sample Stability and Replicability

The stability of the MTES has been demonstrated through cross-validation across distinct nationalities (including American, Chinese, South Korean, Spanish, Australian, and Turkish samples) and diverse travel typologies (such as eco-tourism, cultural heritage sites, rural homestays, and urban city breaks). Metric and scalar measurement invariance tests (multigroup CFA) consistently confirm that the MTES functions equivalently across varied demographic segments, confirming its stability against systematic measurement bias.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the MTES was developed through a rigorous two-phase analytical procedure involving both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, followed by higher-order structural modeling.

1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the initial scale construction phase (Kim et al., 2012), principal axis factoring with oblique rotation (Promax) was applied to the calibrated item pool. Oblique rotation was specifically selected due to theoretical expectations that experiential dimensions of travel correlate moderately with one another. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently exceeded .92, with Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity achieving statistical significance (p < .001). The EFA yielded a clean, distinct seven-factor solution based on the eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule and Cattell’s scree test, accounting for more than 65% of the total variance. All retained items exhibited primary factor loadings > .60, with negligible cross-loadings (< .30).

2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

The seven-factor measurement model was subsequently tested on independent validation samples utilizing Maximum Likelihood Confirmatory Factor Analysis (Kim, 2014). The first-order seven-factor oblique model exhibited excellent global goodness-of-fit indices:

• Relative Chi-Square (χ²/df): 1.85 to 2.45 (well below the recommended 3.0 ceiling).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .94 to .97 (surpassing the .90 and .95 standard benchmarks).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .93 to .96.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .042 to .058 (with 90% confidence intervals well below .08).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .038 to .051.

3. First-Order vs. Second-Order Structural Configurations

Methodological investigations have examined whether the MTES is best conceptualized as a first-order multidimensional model with seven correlated factors or as a hierarchical second-order model where a global “Memorable Tourist Experience” construct accounts for the seven first-order dimensions. Both structures show acceptable fit; however, when the goal is to examine the distinct differential influence of individual dimensions (e.g., isolating whether Novelty or Local Culture is the stronger driver of destination advocacy), the first-order correlated model is strongly recommended. Conversely, when researchers wish to assess overall travel memorability as a unitary mediator within macro-level consumer behavior models, the second-order model provides a parsimonious and psychometrically sound specification.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The MTES is structured as follows:

• Instrument Name: Memorable Tourist Experience Scale (MTES)
• Target Population: Adult leisure travelers, domestic and international tourists, and recreational visitors (typically administered post-trip or during the immediate recall window).
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computer-assisted web interview (CAWI).
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 8 minutes.
• Total Item Count: 24 standardized items.
• Dimensional Structure (7 Subscales):
  • Hedonism: Items 1 to 4 (4 items)
  • Novelty: Items 5 to 8 (4 items)
  • Local Culture: Items 9 to 11 (3 items)
  • Refreshment: Items 12 to 15 (4 items)
  • Meaningfulness: Items 16 to 18 (3 items)
  • Involvement: Items 19 to 21 (3 items)
  • Knowledge: Items 22 to 24 (3 items)
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Subscale Scores: Calculated by computing the arithmetic mean (or cumulative sum) of the items assigned to each respective dimension. Mean scores range from 1.00 to 7.00 per subscale, where higher scores represent higher perceived levels of that experiential attribute.
  • Overall Composite MTE Index: Calculated by averaging the means across all seven dimensions (or computing the composite average of all 24 items).
  • Reverse Scoring: There are no reverse-coded items in the standard MTES; all 24 statements are positively phrased reflective indicators of memorable experience attributes.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Initial Publication Year: 2012 (initial 24-item validation in the Journal of Travel Research), with comprehensive antecedent and predictive modeling finalized in 2014 in Tourism Management.
• Copyright & Intellectual Property: The copyright for the published journal articles is held by the original publishers (Elsevier for Tourism Management; SAGE Publications for Journal of Travel Research), with intellectual authorship attributed to Dr. Jong-Hee Kim and co-authors.
• Fee and Usage Permissions: The MTES is free of charge for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical applications, university dissertations, and scientific investigations, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution and formal citation are given to the original publications (Kim, 2014; Kim et al., 2012). Commercial applications, proprietary market research audits, or integration into fee-based commercial consulting platforms typically require formal licensing permissions from the copyright holder.

References

• Craik, F. I., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11(6), 671–684. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(72)80001-X
• Kim, J. H. (2014). The antecedents of memorable tourism experiences: The development of a scale to measure the quality and meaningfulness of travel experiences. Tourism Management, 44, 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.02.007
• Kim, J. H. (2018). The impact of memorable tourism experiences on loyalty behaviors: The mediating effects of destination image and satisfaction. Journal of Travel Research, 57(7), 856–870. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287517721369
• Kim, J. H., Ritchie, J. R. B., & McCormick, B. (2012). Development of a scale to measure memorable tourism experiences. Journal of Travel Research, 51(1), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287510385467
• Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and Adaptation. Oxford University Press.
• Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. Harvard Business School Press.
• Schmitt, B. (1999). Experiential marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 15(1-3), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1362/026725799784870496
• Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114
• Zhang, H., Wu, Y., & Buhalis, D. (2018). A model of experiential value in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 71, 31–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2018.02.002

Items of the Scale