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Introduction
Coffee is viewed as a historical and cultural attraction that is capable of drawing tourists by itself (Kleidas and Jolliffe, 2010). This is certainly apparent in Vietnam where coffee has become a custom drink, and the robust patronage of the beverage has paved the way for the creation of plantation tours and the Buon Ma Thout coffee festival (Jolliffe et al., 2010). Besides the tours and festivals, a small store that exhibits the character, narrative and symbolism of coffee in a community can fascinate visitors and positively influence local tourism development (Lyon, 2013). For instance, the Café Apartment in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), which is known for assembling various well-decorated coffee stores in one (apartment style) building, has made this facility distinct for travellers and locals (Le, 2017). This attraction demonstrates the energetic and continuous evolution of the Saigon coffee culture, and it is gradually becoming a “pilgrimage” site for coffee enthusiasts. The emergence of the coffee tourism market has resulted in increasing requests for more research on the topic (Yun, 2014). This is especially true in the Southeast Asian market, where coffee tourism can stimulate more investment in these developing countries (Kleidas and Jolliffe, 2010).
Contemporary tourism operators, as well as researchers, are embracing the “experience economy” concept as a means of bringing greater success and competitive advantage for destinations (Zhang et al., 2018). Jolliffe (2010) suggested that coffee could be an important component of tourism experiences through the presentations of cafés and related physical establishments. However, majority of coffee tourism studies focus on the culture or community development aspects. Research examining coffee tourists' experiences is very limited (Wang et al., 2019).
While investigating experiences is considered an important topic for tourism studies (Jernsand et al., 2015), researchers posit that understanding the factors related to “memorable” tourism experiences (MTEs) is more critical for the success of destination management (Wei et al., 2019). Zhang et al. (2018) found only those “remembered” experiences can influence the decision-making for future trips. Nonetheless, the exploration of MTEs, especially the antecedents and consequences, has received inadequate attention in special-interest tourism (Sharma and Nayak, 2019). This research gap becomes more obvious when reviewing the literature in beverage tourism. Particularly, in the...