Effects of Visitors' Novelty Seeking and Flow Experiences on Place Attachments in Taiwan's Night Markets

Objectives: The night market is one of the most important attractions in Taiwan and is the place where visitors can learn about local specialties, historical culture and humanistic allusions. However, the key factor that influences the tourists' visiting to the night market still needs further research. This study uses mainly the ideas of "novelty seeking", "flow experience" and "place attachment" to explore the reasons why tourists visit Taiwan's night markets. Methods: The subjects were the tourists who visited Taiwan's night markets and a purposive sampling was used to distribute surveys. A total of 400 questionnaires were investigated. There were 336 valid questionnaires, achieving an 84% effective recovery rate. Results: Novelty seeking has a positive impact on place attachment, especially with respect to escape from boredom and amazing experience, both showing a significant and positive correlation. Flow experience has a positive impact on place attachment, and total concentration and change in the sense time manifest a significant and positive correlation. The R2 of the overall model was 0.39. Conclusions: This study verifies that the novelty seeking and flow experience have a positive impact on place attachment. The night market offers an escape from boredom, an amazing experience, total concentration and a change in the sense of time, all of which are important factors influencing the tourist visiting Taiwan's night markets. This study offers travel agencies a reference for future planning of night market visits.