The influence of companions on the quality of travel experience from the perspective of communitas

Travel companions are participants of tourists’ travel activities, which have an important influence on tourists’ travel experience. From the perspective of communitas, the research builds the "travel companions influence perception-tour involvement-tourist experience quality" research model based on the Drive Theory and Activity Theory and discusses the mutual influences of travel companions influence perception on tourist experience quality and the mediating effect of tourism involvement in this process through questionnaire survey and Structural Equation Model. The research finding are as follows. ① Travelers’ perceptions of the influence of travel companions can be characterized by the five dimensions of perceived emotional value, perceived functional value, perceived social value, perceived cognitive value, and perceived constraints extracted from the interview data by the grounded theory technology. ② Tourists’ perception of the emotional/functional/social/cognitive value of tourism partners has a significant positive impact on their tourism involvement and tourism experience quality. ③ Tourism involvement plays a partial mediating effect on the relationship between perceived emotional, functional, social, cognitive value and tourism experience quality. ④ The direct negative effects of perceived peer constraint on tourist involvement and quality of tourism experience, as well as the mediating effect of influencing the quality of tourism experience through tourist involvement does not pass the significance test. Finally, countermeasure suggestions are put forward in terms of product optimization, emotional marketing, and market development.