Role of tourist motivation as mediating variable on visitor decisions at Indonesian tourism village

The tourism sector has become a truly global force for promoting economic growth and development. Therefore, the study of tourism has become an interesting topic for researchers lately. On the other hand, local tourism, generally in developing countries, is often neglected by academics and policymakers. For this reason, this study aims to examine and analyze the role of tourist motivation in mediating accessibility, amenities, and attractions on visiting decisions. This study is a survey research with an explanatory method. The population is tourists who visit the tourism village of Bumiaji, Indonesia, in the low and busy seasons. The population is infinite and the number of respondents who were interviewed is 100 respondents; data were collected by distributing questionnaires to domestic tourists who came from outside the tourist village of Bumiaji, then the data were processed and analyzed using Warp Partial Least Squares. The findings indicate that the effect of accessibility on visiting decisions is not mediated by tourist motivation. This shows that the decision of tourists to visit can be directly influenced by the time and means of transportation available. Meanwhile, the influence of amenities and attractions on the decision to visit is mediated by the motivation of tourists. This means that amenities and attractions can influence a tourist’s decision to visit if there is an urge from tourist to relax or make friends or enjoy the culture at tourist attractions, etc.