With the continuous development of destinations, tourists have more choices and have become more demanding in the selection of destination, which makes it necessary for destination managers to adopt different marketing strategies to convey attractive messages that will motivate tourists to visit and revisit them [1]. Transactional and relational perspectives have always been used as two different marketing perspectives by destination managers. While the former emphasizes the consumer’s perspective of quality and price [2], namely perceived value, the latter focuses on cultivating a strong connection between the customer and the brand [3]. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of perceived value [4] and relationship quality [5] to tourist loyalty respectively, however, the question of whether there exists an internal relationship between perceived value and relationship quality remains largely unexplored.

On the other hand, there is a growing interest in destination loyalty studies as loyal tourists tend to spend more money (Shoemaker & Lewis, 1999) and provide positive word of mouth [6], which is a key concern for destination managers. Previous studies mainly focus on concepts, antecedents and indicators [7]; for example, Asli et al. modeled an integrated place-oriented and people-oriented concept to explore destination loyalty [8]. Li, Lv and Scott believed that sensory impressions and destination image are two important antecedents of destination loyalty [9]. Cossio-Silva and his colleagues adapted Best’s customer loyalty index to destination loyalty [10]. However, there exists limited research attention on the impact of both tourist–destination relationship [5] and perceived value.

2. Tourist Loyalty and Perceived Value

Tourist loyalty can be divided into a behavioral level and attitudinal level. The former refers to tourists’ participation in activities and measures their repeated and consistent behavior. The latter focuses on describing tourists’ emotional preferences and favoritism towards a destination [11]. A high degree of visitor loyalty dramatically enhances the stability of a destination’s clientele. It provides an effective marketing channel for the destination, that is, publicity through word of mouth, which can significantly increase the destination’s economic revenue [12]. Due to the importance of tourist loyalty, tourist loyalty studies have emerged since the 1980s, and loyalty remains a vital focus for the academic community until today [13]. The academic community has increasingly focused on the importance of perceived value. The concept of perceived value was developed in the 1970s and early 1980s in the retail industry. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the perceived value concept was introduced into tourism research, with Murphy et al. emphasizing that the perceived value of a destination represents the weighting of a tourist’s travel time (or investment of money) against the experience gained from the visit [14]. Tourists estimate the value of a destination based on the difference between the perceived benefits and the costs paid for the tourism experience, including the acquisition value and the transaction value [15]. Exploring tourists’ perceived value is therefore crucial for the management of tourism destinations [16]. It helps destination managers better grasp tourists’ needs and gain a deeper understanding of the value and meaning of the products and services offered by the destination. However, whether and how perceived value leads to tourist loyalty has not been adequately explored.

3. Tourist–Destination Relationship

“Relationship” is a social psychological concept derived from the structural theory of interpersonal relationships [17], and its essence is interdependence over time [18]. According to Blackston, brand relationship is a stable, intimate, and continuous relationship formed during the interaction between a customer and a brand [19]. Muniz et al. further extended the scope of the concept, arguing that brand relationships should include not only customer–brand relationships but also inter-customer relationships and inter-brand relationships, thus proposing a broad brand relationship theory [20]. Since the 1990s, progressively more discerning tourists and increasingly fierce competition have forced marketers and managers to think about how to distinguish their destinations from competitors, deliver positive messages to tourists, and encourage them to repeat their visits. Destination branding is undoubtedly a quality solution. Some scholars argue that a successful destination brand needs to meet tourists’ emotional and functional needs, thus creating a positive and active relationship between tourists and the destination [21]. DeBenedetti et al. also suggested that the relationship between tourists and destinations can be inspired by the relationship between customers and brands [22], and Li conducted a study on the tourist–destination relationship from the perspective of destination marketing [23]. Chen and Phou conducted an empirical study focusing on the tourist–destination relationship, which consists of three dimensions (satisfaction, trust, and attachment), and their conclusions confirmed the hypothesis that the better the relationship between tourists and destinations, the higher their loyalty [5]. Kumar et al. measured the strength of destination relationships using these three variables (satisfaction, trust, and attachment) in their study on destination personality, self-consistency, and tourist loyalty [24].

4. Hypothesis Development

A large body of research in tourism confirms the link between tourists’ perceived values, attitudes, and behaviors [25]. For example, Han and Hyun demonstrated a positive relationship between perceived quality, tourist satisfaction, tourist trust, and loyalty [26]. Wu et al. showed that environmental quality, relationship quality, and interaction quality positively contribute to medical tourists’ trust, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions [27]. That is, the higher the perceived benefits and the lower the perceived costs, the more likely a tourist is to develop satisfaction, trust, and attachment to the destination and form a close relationship with it. Therefore, the study concluded that perceived value positively influences destination relationships. Among the three dimensions of the tourist–destination relationship, tourists’ satisfaction can be strongly impacted by the value they perceive [28], and this relationship has been confirmed in studies of destination marketing. For example, Chen and Chen focused on tourist behavior in heritage tourism destinations and demonstrated that tourists’ perceived value of the destination plays a significant role in their satisfaction levels [29]. Pandža et al. similarly found a significant positive effect of perceived value on satisfaction [30]. When customers perceive a brand as having a high value, they are more willing to establish a long-term connection with the brand and have confidence in its future development [31]. When the perceived value increases, this emotional attachment also increases, which is another dimension variable of the tourist–destination relationship. While perceived value has been studied intensively in tourism studies, these have focused on how tourism companies can make customers perceive higher tourism benefits, thus increasing tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty. The present study argues that just as perceived value is one of the value bases of destination trust, it also plays a vital role in place attachment. If tourists perceive the costs of tourism to be higher than its benefits, emotional place identity, place dependence, and attachment will cease to exist. Finally, the link between perceived value, attitude, and behavior has been emphasized by many scholars in recent years, Doney et al., for example, explored the nature of trust in buyer–seller relationships and argued that customer perceived value plays a value-based role in the trust formation process [32]. Additionally, empirical studies have verified the hypothesis that perceived value has a significant positive effect on trust in destinations ^[33][34][33,34]. Al-Ansi, for example, pointed out that tourists’ perceived value of halal-friendly destinations is essential for their trust. If tourists feel that the benefits of tourism are more significant than the costs, they will trust the products and services more and thus enjoy a good interaction with the destination [25]. Based on the arguments above, Hypotheses 1a–c for this study are presented: