The Tourist Experience: Modelling the Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Destination Loyalty

Abstract

Objectives: The paper attempts to develop a post-visit model that focuses on evaluation of consumer’s internal and external satisfactions factors and their influence on destination loyalty in terms of revisit and recommendation. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The study proposes to understand the relationship between the constructs of satisfaction and loyalty in the post-visit stages of a leisure holiday using the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of travel. The methods used are Exploratory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling technique. The demographic factors of age and education are inserted as control variables to identify whether there is a direct or inverse correlation between age,education and the dependent variable of loyalty. Findings: A tourist will revisit and recommend a destination only if satisfied with the experience. The results of the post visit model signify that internal satisfaction has a positive impact on destination loyalty whereas external satisfaction is not a significant factor in building destination loyalty. The findings highlight that internal satisfaction factors influence external satisfaction factors and this also, emphasizes the importance of internal satisfiers. Due to severe competition between destinations offering alike attributes, it is of utmost importance for service providers to identify needs and desires of consumers to offer those services that create a delightful experience.Conclusion/Improvements: The findings can help tourism service providers to increase marketing efficiencies by developing strategically appealing improvements in service features that increase destination attractiveness to different tourist groups creating loyal customers.