Night markets are one of the important cultures of Taiwanese daily life. Shilin tourist night market is one of the most famous and largest night markets in Taiwan, which located in Taipei. According to the statistical information of Taiwan Tourism Bureau (2011) annual survey report on R.O.C. inbound travelers, tourist night markets ranked among the top three most popular sight-seening spots and the inbound visitors visiting night markets mostly visited “Shilin Tourist Night Market”. The number of international students in Taiwan has been increasing significantly in recent years, mostly because of a worldwide increase in Mandarin education and efforts by the Ministry of Education to attract students to Taiwan.
There is no any research about international students’ image or experience in night markets. Thus, it is imperative to understand image and experience of international students at night markets. The objectives of this study to explore the relationship among international students’ Shilin night market image, experience, satisfaction and revisit intention. Besides, this study profiled international students’ background information and comparing the differences of motivations according to demographic variables. The target group of this study was international students (non-Chinese, Hong Kong and Macau) who have been studying in Taiwan for any degree more than 3 months and have been at Shilin Tourist Night Market before.
For this research 414 valid samples were collected. For a better understanding of the relationships between all the variables, multiple regressions analysis was used to analyze the relationships between a single dependent variable and several independent variables.
The results showed that both international students’ satisfaction and intention to revisit are partially determined by their experience and image of the Shilin tourist night market. Satisfaction is a strong indicator of their intentions to revisit and recommend the destination to other people.