Exploring the efficacy of youth sport camps to build customer relationships

Professional sport teams strive to cultivate a large, loyal fan base. Relationship marketing is well suited for developing loyal customers. Professional sport teams provide youth sport camps mostly for added revenue streams and marketing extensions. However, research neglects to investigate which relationship factors may help build or reignite long-term fan development. This exploratory study examined the efficacy of these camps on factors theorised for developing long-term customer loyalty. Parents of camp participants were evaluated because they may appeal to teams interested in short- and long-term results. Using repeated measures MANOVA, matched pre- and post-camp data were collected from 70 parents of participants from four different NBA teams’ youth sport camps around the United States. Data analysis revealed the camps were effective in enhancing team identification, attitudes toward the team, and team satisfaction. Results suggest that youth sport camps assist in building customer relationships with parents. Further, the benefits of relationship marketing efforts may extend beyond primary participants via the familial socialisation process. The three aforementioned precursors to fan loyalty showed significant increases after parents’ experience with the teams’ youth sport camp. These findings highlight a possible marketing platform that can serve both short- and long-term objectives for professional basketball teams.     

Cognitive,affective, conative,and action loyalty: Testing the impact of inertia

Research increasingly emphasizes the significance of customer loyalty to a firm's success. In order to provide a clearer understanding of hotel customers’ loyalty-formation process, this study proposed and tested an extended Oliver's (1997) four-stage loyalty model by employing a multi-dimensional approach for each attitudinal loyalty stage while considering the moderating impact of inertia. The original model was slightly altered to improve its fit and predictive ability. Results from the structural model generally supported proposed paths among the variables in the model (cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty components and action loyalty) and verified the mediating roles of study variables in forming action loyalty. Further, findings from structural group comparisons using invariance tests indicated that the links from satisfaction to commitment and intention and from intention to action loyalty were stronger for the low inertia group, supporting the moderating role of inertia. Implications are discussed, and limitations of this study are briefly outlined.     

Reexamining the Dimensionality of Brand Loyalty: A Case of the Cruise Industry

This study revisits the dimensional structure of the brand loyalty construct. Following recent developments in loyalty studies, this research conceptualizes brand loyalty as a four‐dimensional construct comprising of cognitive, affective, conative, and behavioral loyalty. It is proposed that the first three dimensions collectively form a higher order factor—namely attitudinal loyalty—which then leads to behavioral loyalty. However, this conceptualization is not supported by the data. Alternatively, a modified model—based on the traditional conceptualization that attitudinal loyalty is a first‐order, one‐dimensional construct—was found to better fit the data. Thus, this study revalidates the traditional two‐dimensional conceptualization of loyalty. It also contributes to the literature by introducing and validating a five‐item attitudinal loyalty measure.     

Multi-dimensions of patrons’ emotional experiences in upscale restaurants and their role in loyalty formation: Emotion scale improvement

The main purposes of the present study were to improve and modify an existing emotion scale to increase its efficacy for assessing upscale restaurant customers’ emotional experiences, and to develop and test a conceptual model of the relationships among emotion factors, their cognitive antecedents, and direct/indirect outcome variables (satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty intentions). Following a survey of 324 upscale restaurant patrons, results confirmed that the modified and improved consumption emotion measurement has a satisfactory level of reliability, validity, and applicability in an upscale restaurant context. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used, and a psychometric procedure for scale improvement/modification was thoroughly followed. Findings also revealed that the hypothesized relationships were generally supported, and the proposed model displayed an excellent fit. The significance of comfort and annoyance was identified, and the mediating roles of study variables were verified.     

内部营销视角下饭店员工忠诚度研究

目前随着饭店行业竞争的不断加剧,人才保留和员工忠诚受到了管理实践者的极大重视.本研究从内部营销视角出发,以中国饭店业为研究对象,分析员工信任、满意和组织承诺对饭店员工态度和行为忠诚的递推影响作用.实证研究发现,员工信任和满意通过组织承诺影响员工态度忠诚,最终影响员工行为忠诚.因此,饭店行业的管理者在强调通过物质利益树立员工忠诚度的同时一定不能忽视员工心理状态对于忠诚度的影响作用,更要充分利用组织承诺的效能来降低员工流动率.     

Visitors’ Emotional Responses to the Festival Environment

Despite the importance of emotions and psychological commitment to loyal behavior, little empirical work has been done to explore their simultaneous effects on the festival loyalty development in the tourism literature. Guided by Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) framework in environmental psychology, this study examined how emotions elicited from the festival environment influenced visitors’ postvisit behavior. Data were collected from visitors to community festivals using the onsite and postvisit survey procedure. Results revealed that festival atmospherics had a positive indirect effect on loyalty via positive emotions, satisfaction, and psychological commitment. Based on the study findings, both practical and theoretical insights were provided.     

Attitudinal and Behavioral Aspects of Loyalty in the Screen-Golf Industry

Although screen-golf ranks among the fastest-growing leisure and recreation trends in Korea over the past several decades, a clear explication about the formation of screen-golf participants’ loyalty remains lacking. Filling this gap, the present study attempted to provide an understating of the attitudinal and behavioral loyalty-development processes of screen-golfers by employing Oliver’s (1997) four-stage loyalty theory. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis verified adequateness in the measurement model. Findings from the structural equation modeling indicated that cognitive image induced affect, conative intention, and behavioral loyalty; affect was a significant direct predictor of conative intention and behavioral loyalty; behavioral loyalty was a function of conative intention; and affect and conative intention worked as mediators in the proposed theoretical framework. The results of the present study will help owners and managers of screen-golf cafés create efficient management/marketing strategies to improve their customers’ attitudinal and behavioral loyalty aspects.     

The role of loyalty programs in boosting hotel guest loyalty: Impact of switching barriers

This study examines the relationships among the perceived value of a loyalty program, customer satisfaction with a loyalty program, affective commitment, switching barriers, and customer brand loyalty in the hotel context. An online survey method with a quantitative approach was used. Our results from a structural equation model revealed that the perceived value of a loyalty program is essential in the formation of customer brand loyalty. Lastly, findings from an indirect analysis showed that affective commitment and switching barriers mediated the relationship between the perceived value of a loyalty program and customer brand loyalty. Overall, our research will help researchers and practitioners demonstrate to the industry that the loyalty program is a crucial strategy for customer loyalty and helps develop competitive loyalty programs for success.     

Predictors of Behavioral Loyalty Among Hikers Along the Appalachian Trail

In recent years, conceptual and empirical papers have begun to appear in the leisure literature examining the processes leading to the formation of recreationist loyalty. While this work is still in its infancy, current understanding suggests that leisure involvement plays a formative role in the development of social psychological commitment, which in turn, is an antecedent to loyalty to a brand or organization. In the context of natural resource-based recreation the concept of loyalty is most often used to refer to recreationists' attachments to specific recreation areas. The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical examination of the first order structural relations among involvement (i.e., Centrality, Attraction, Self Expression), commitment (i.e., Social Investment, Financial Investment, Position Involvement, Informational Complexity, Volitional Choice), resistance to change (i.e., Activity Resistance, Place Resistance) and behavioral loyalty for hikers along the Appalachian Trail. These data provided partial support of our hypothesized model. The strength of the structural models varied and not all predictors were significant. Also, the valence of the dimensional relations varied. These data highlight several measurement related issues relating to each of the constructs modeled. These measurement issues inhibit progress toward a fuller understanding of the relationships between each of the constructs and their dimensions.     

Children’s stories about team selection: a discourse analysis

The aim of our study was to identify and problematise messages and value principles visible in children’s stories about team selection in sport. To achieve this, we adopted a discourse analysis approach. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 24 children aged 10–11 years who participated in four team sports in 12 different Swedish sports clubs. Based on the children’s stories, the findings reveal two discourses of team selection: one participation/inclusion-oriented and one performance/exclusion-oriented discourse in which four different forms of team selection work. The participation/inclusion-oriented discourse constructs sport as a fun game that involves all participating children. The performance/exclusion-oriented discourse shows that coaches select the best children in the team to obtain the best chance of winning games. Some of the coaches have given conflicting messages that align with both discourses, which are revealed by both the girls’ and the boys’ voices in varying degrees. The findings also demonstrate that children’s reasons for playing sport are in harmony with the participation/inclusive-oriented discourse. This discourse represents a child’s perspective, promoting every child’s right to participate under the same conditions. However, the selection procedure in both discourses exhibits strong classification, since coaches are the ones who possess the power to select.     

The impact of the antecedents of relationship development on Thai and Australian resort hotels guests

This study examines the differences in the antecedents of relationship development between Thai and Australian resort guests in Thailand. A modified form of the key mediating variable (KMV) model is used to frame the study. The study found that relationship quality (characterised by trust and commitment) has a strong positive impact on Australian and Thai guests’ loyalty and that both groups rely on similar factors when evaluating their long term loyalty intentions. However, cross cultural variation in the weights attached to each of these factors was evident. Australians value special treatment and social benefits, while Thais place more emphasis on communications and opportunistic behaviour. These theoretical insights can assist resort operators to manage guest relationships and to develop service standards that address the guests’ cultural needs.     

Destination image and tourist loyalty: A meta-analysis

Extant literature is inconclusive on the linkage between destination image and tourist loyalty, due to the multi-dimensional nature of the two concepts. The present study attempts to draw some informative conclusions about the relationship through a meta-analysis. A research framework was proposed in which 14 hypotheses were developed. A total of 66 independent studies were synthesized and analyzed. The findings reveal that the impact of destination image on tourist loyalty is significant, with varying degrees. Specifically, overall image has the greatest impact on tourist loyalty, followed by affective image and cognitive image. Cognitive–affective joint image fails to demonstrate a stable impact on tourist loyalty. Of the three levels of tourist loyalty, destination image has the greatest impact on composite loyalty, and then on attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty, successively. The findings are discussed in light of their theoretical and practical implications for destination marketing and management.     

Can proactivity translate to creativity? Examinations at individual and team levels

Building on Trait Activation Theory, this study explored whether, how, and why proactive personality and inclusive leaders can foster creativity at both individual and team levels. Using multi-wave data collected from hotel frontline employees and their supervisors, the study first found that at individual level, proactive personality could influence creativity via psychological safety, with inclusive leadership moderated the indirect relationship. The study further tested at team level, using lab experiment with hospitality majored students, the relationship between proactivity and creativity. The findings at the team level suggested that teams with highly proactive members exhibited higher levels of creativity than teams without highly proactive members. This research revealed the psychological mechanism of how proactivity contributes to individual creativity, and teams can benefit from having proactive members.     

Investigating emotional commitment towards a region and a hotel brand

This study examines emotional commitment, brand identification and place attachment’s role in hotel brand loyalty and subsequent behavioral intentions. Data for the study stemmed from 823 quantitative and qualitative responses to an online questionnaire by Finnish customers of a Finnish hotel chain. K-Means cluster analysis identified three customer commitment levels, which along with qualitative comments enhance understanding emotional commitment and its role in hotel brand loyalty. A specific place, Lapland, in the hotel’s brand name helps extend place attachment and introduce the concept of brand identification with Lapland’s geographic region. The customer cluster most emotionally committed to the hotel brand also reported the strongest commitment to the Lapland region.     

Knowledge sharing in revenue management teams: Antecedents and consequences of group cohesion

The practice of Revenue Management has received widespread acceptance in the international hospitality industry yet a lack of best practice in terms of organizational integration persists. This paper follows the notion that revenue management is first and foremost a human activity, dependent on knowledge exchange and concerted decision within revenue management teams. One critical attribute of effective teams is group cohesion. The authors contrasted communication networks of 38 revenue management teams by means of social network analysis to identify the antecedents and consequences of group cohesion. It was found that industry employment, age and revenue management experience define the structure of communication networks and that awareness of other's expertise is central in explaining differences team performance across the sample. The findings highlight the issue of knowledge asymmetry in teams and suggest that the Revenue Manager occupies a more active role as an information broker in order to enhance group decision making.     

An exploratory study of how casino dealer communication styles lead to player satisfaction

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to verify the importance of communication styles in the casino industry. More specifically, it was proposed that nine types of casino dealer communication styles affect player satisfaction. In addition, it was hypothesized that player satisfaction plays an important role in the formation of trust, commitment, and loyalty. A conceptual model was developed and tested using the empirical data collected from 414 table game players in Korea. The results indicated that six dimensions of communication styles (i.e. attentive, open, friendly, relaxed, animated, and contentious) positively affect player satisfaction, which in turn has a positive influence on trust, commitment, and loyalty.     

Role of service encounter and physical environment performances,novelty, satisfaction,and affective commitment in generating cruise passenger loyalty

This research developed a theoretical model explaining the relationship between service encounter performance, physical environment performance, novelty, overall satisfaction, and loyalty in the cruise context. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that service encounter performance and physical environment performance were significant predictors of novelty, which in turn affected overall satisfaction and loyalty. The mediation test indicated that novelty significantly mediated the effect of service encounter performance and physical environment performance on satisfaction; and overall satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between novelty and loyalty. The relationship between physical environment performance and novelty and the relationship between novelty and overall satisfaction were significant in the high affective commitment group. In addition, the relationship between novelty and loyalty was only significant in the low affective commitment group.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Consumer Commitment in Traditional and Low-Cost Airlines

The present work aims to gain further knowledge regarding the influence of consumer commitment on loyalty in traditional and low-cost airlines. A survey of 592 consumers of traditional and low-cost carriers demonstrates that commitment is built on the basis of trust and identification, which are in turn driven by corporate reputation in both types of airline. With regard to post-purchase behavior, in low-cost companies, customer repurchase intention and word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendation are mainly triggered by satisfaction. With traditional airlines, commitment plays a more important role, having a significant effect on repurchase intention and acting as the principal predictor of WOM recommendation.     

Employee loyalty in Hungarian hotels

This paper's focus is the association between Hungarian employees’ job satisfaction and their loyalty to the organisation. Data were collected from over 600 hotel employees throughout Hungary by questionnaire, designed to elicit their attitudes to loyalty and perspectives with respect to job satisfaction. Principal component analysis identified potential key contributors to job satisfaction (personal satisfaction gained from participation and recognition, social involvement, career development and salary and benefits) and to employee loyalty (commitment to managers and company, job conditions, personal benefits, service element and location, and career and status). An examination of the inter-relationships revealed that managers’ treatment of employees and the positive benefits of social involvement in the workplace had a greater impact on employee loyalty than monetary rewards.     

The Role of Service Quality,Perceived Value,and Relationship Quality in Enhancing Customer Loyalty in the Travel Agency Sector

Relationship quality is crucial to enhancing a tourist’s loyalty. Little empirical research has been conducted to link service quality, perceived value, and relationship quality to customer loyalty in the travel agency sector. This study attempts to investigate the role of service quality, perceived value, and relationship quality on customer loyalty among tourists. Relationship quality consists of three components: customer satisfaction, customer trust, and customer commitment. Structural equation modeling is used to test the linkages between the six variables that have been identified. Findings reveal that service quality and perceived value of a travel package are antecedent factors to the relationship quality with a travel agency; three components of relationship quality significantly influence a customer’s loyalty to a travel agency.