Constructs of tourists' destination loyalty and market segmentation

Gyehee Lee, Purdue University

Abstract

Researchers have found that consumer loyalty is an important source of competitive advantage of a business. This concept has been widely tested in reference to various objects, ranging from package goods, retail and service providers to recreational activities. To date, however, few researchers have addressed the issues on destination loyalty in terms of construct definition and measurement, and its related antecedents. The present study suggested and empirically tested a tourism destination loyalty model based on the theory of attitude-behavior consistency, taking a moderating approach with psychological involvement as a moderator between the two constructs. The data used in this study was collected by Japanese Consumer Survey for the Pleasure Travel of North America (PTMS), and a sub-set of 830 respondents, potential travelers to the U.S., were selected from the original data based on two selection criteria. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to the analysis of causalities among antecedents of destination loyalty, followed by cluster analysis for segmentation of Japanese travel market in terms of their level of loyalty toward the U.S. The results explicated that the social-psychological antecedents, such as involvement, attitude, and satisfaction predispose travelers to attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Several key factors that explained the variance of behavioral loyalty were found. First, the importance/pleasure facet of involvement was a significant antecedent to both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Second, attitude measured by overall evaluation exerted the largest influence on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Third, attitudinal loyalty was causally prior to behavioral loyalty. Overall, the consistency between attitude and behavior was moderate. The moderating effect of involvement on the relationship between attitude and behavior, however, was small. This study contributed to the tourism literature in two ways: (1) a theoretical model and conceptual definition of destination loyalty within tourism context was developed, followed by an empirical verification, and (2) a focus was made on the methodological gap of the current literature and advances in loyalty measurement. Limitation of the research and future research directions were also addressed.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Morrison, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Recreation|Marketing

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