Article Exploring the impacts of national image, service quality, and perceived value on international tourist behaviors: A Nepali case Juyan Zhang, PhD Department of Communication, UTSA, USA Dharma Adhikari, PhD School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou University, China Shahira Fahmy, PhD The American University, Egypt Seok Kang, PhD Department of Communication, UTSA, USA Abstract The dominant paradigm on tourist behaviors depicts a sequential relationship among image, quality, satisfaction, and post-purchase behavior while the alternative view argues that consumer behaviors are better understood through perceived value. Using Nepal as a case, we tested a synthetic model of tourist behaviors and applied the Fombrun-RI Country Reputation Index (CRI) that was developed in the field of nation branding to measure destination image, an elusive concept in tourism literature since long. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) shows that the data largely supported the model, and national image has impacts on tourist behaviors. However, service quality is not a significant predictor of tourist behaviors. This corroborates the argument that perceived value is a better way to analyze tourist behaviors. The research has practical implications for nation branding programs in the less-developed nations. Keywords CRI, national image, Nepal, perceived value, service quality, SEM, tourism Introduction Literature on tourist behaviors has developed a dominant paradigm that depicts a sequential rela- tionship among a number of key variables, namely image, quality, satisfaction, and post- purchase behavior (Bigne et al., 2001). An alter- native view to the service quality and satisfaction-centered model argues that con- sumer behaviors are better understood through perceived value (Gallarza and Saura, 2006). There are also attempts to synthesize the two approaches by including destination image and perceived value into the “quality–satisfaction– behavioral intention” paradigm (Chen and Tsai, 2007). These competing views on tourist beha- viors have policy implications, in particular, for Corresponding author: Dharma Adhikari, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou University, Shantou, China. Email: dharmaadhikari@gmail.com Journal of Vacation Marketing 2020, Vol. 26(4) 473–488 ª The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1356766720942559 journals.sagepub.com/home/jvm