Examining the relationships of motivation, destination familiarity and destination image on intention to visit India

India is the seventh largest country in the world in terms of area and accommodates more than one billion people. The country is gifted with cultural, racial, and religious diversities. India is the land of many palaces and monuments and its topography also varies from region to region. Despite all of its potential characteristics to attract tourists, India is facing an uphill task. Even many smaller nations in Asia attract more tourists than the number of tourists visiting India. This study explores the intention of Koreans to visit India, as the number of Korean tourists visiting different countries is increasing year after year. Specifically, this study focuses on understanding the effects of motivation (i.e. cultural motivation and travel motivation), and its relationship with destination familiarity and destination image on intention to visit India. A survey was conducted among 279 respondents and the results show that cultural motivation is positively related to destination familiarity and destination image, whereas the relationship of travel motivation with destination familiarity is not significant. Travel motivation with respect to destination image is positive and significant. The relationship between destination familiarity and intention to visit India shows an insignificant relationship and the relationship between destination image and intention to visit India is positive and significant. This study contributes to the existing literature as there are seldom studies done by tourism researchers on any topic about India and Korea together.