The long and winding roads: Perceived quality of scenic tourism routes

This study aims to understand self-drive tourists’ satisfaction with and loyalty toward scenic roads. Building on previous studies in the context of tourism destinations, satisfaction is hypothesised to be influenced by leisure and holiday motorists’ motivation for driving the routes and the provision of roadside facilities. In turn, satisfaction is assumed to increase motorists’ loyalty toward the route. The study comprises data from two scenic roads in Norway that differ with respect to landscapes formations, settlements, experiences along the routes, and travel distance. Data are analysed using structural equation modelling. Results show that roadside facilities play a crucial role in achieving overall satisfaction and loyalty among motor tourists, and that route managers should improve the quality of these and related infrastructure facilities and services. Moreover, the study indicates that it is important to take into consideration the motorists’ desire to experience attractive sceneries in order to increase overall route satisfaction. Finally, satisfaction is demonstrated to significantly increase route loyalty, although this relationship appears weaker than in conventional destination studies.     

Corporate reputation,satisfaction, delight,and loyalty towards rural lodging units in Portugal

This paper enriches the model of delight and satisfaction that Oliver et al. (1997) propose and Finn (2005) modifies, with a suggested causal relationship between disconfirmation and arousal and the introduction of two new variables: the lodging unit's corporate reputation and perceived quality. The modified model is applied to rural tourism accommodations in Portugal and validated using PLS (Partial Least Squares). The results suggest that the lodging unit's reputation is a more significant determinant of loyalty than satisfaction or even delight. This study further supports the conceptualization of customer delight and customer satisfaction as distinct constructs. Results may help managers of rural tourism accommodations to develop and implement more successful relationship marketing strategies.     

Determinants of dining satisfaction and post-dining behavioral intentions

The purpose of this research is to empirically investigate the determinants and consequences of dining satisfaction with restaurant services. A total of 338 undergraduate business students participated in this research. Results reveal that there exist three sources of customers’ satisfaction with restaurant services: positive emotions, perceived service quality and negative emotions. Positive emotions have more impact on customers’ satisfaction than negative emotions. In addition, emotions mediate the impact of perceived service quality on dining satisfaction. Finally, satisfaction has a significant impact on recommendation, customer loyalty and willingness to pay more.     

Impacts of cruise service quality and price on vacationers’ cruise experience: Moderating role of price sensitivity

In view of the increased interest in cruise vacations and limited study on cruises, the purpose of this study was to shed light on an understanding of cruise vacationers’ evaluations of onboard experiences with cruise lines in North America and their loyalty-formation process. The empirical results revealed that interactional quality and outcome quality were significantly and positively associated with novelty and perceived value which in turn, affected satisfaction and loyalty. In addition, perceived price was a significant and negative predictor of perceived value. The moderating function of price sensitivity showed that novelty was more effective in inducing satisfaction in the low price sensitivity group and it was more effective in enhancing perceived value in the high price sensitivity group. Overall, these results help cruise line operators who observe that cruise vacationers have become more demanding on service quality, price, and value. Practical and theoretical contributions are discussed.     

The joint effect of consumer and service providers’ culture on online service evaluations: A response surface analysis

National culture exerts substantial influence on consumers' expectations, satisfaction, and evaluations. Despite that, within a service-based context, two cultures are met, that of the customer and that of the service provider, the existing literature systematically explores the effect of customer culture in isolation neglecting the impact of the provider's culture or their joint effect. We fill this gap by considering the concomitant effect of customer and provider cultural factors on passenger evaluations of airline carriers using a large dataset of reviews that covers the majority of countries. Employing a response surface methodology, our study provides significant advantages over methods based on cultural distance scores in revealing more complex non-linear relationships. This multi-dimensional approach provides new insights for assessing the impact of national culture on customers' service perceptions and evaluations, thus bringing significant implications for researchers and service providers.     

Influence of sustainable hospitality supply chain management on customers’ attitudes and behaviors

This study aims to identify the impact of the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable hospitality supply chain management actions on customers’ attitudes and behaviors including satisfaction, loyalty and willingness to pay a premium for sustainable hospitality goods and services utilizing data collected from U.S. consumers who frequently stay at hotels. Findings suggest that while both environmental and economic dimensions’ actions of sustainable hospitality supply chain management have positive influences on customer satisfaction, loyalty and willingness to pay a premium for sustainable hospitality goods and services, the social dimension actions are found to have a positive influence on customer satisfaction and a negative influence on customer willingness to pay a premium. Results also indicate that customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between social dimension actions and customer loyalty. In addition, customer satisfaction positively influences customer loyalty, which ultimately increases customer willingness to pay a premium. The implications of the research findings are provided.     

The effect of perceived trust on electronic commerce: Shopping online for tourism products and services in South Korea

According to the OECD's 2008 statistics (Seoul Finance Internet News, 2009), Korea was ranked number one in terms of the percentage of homes with Internet access, at 80.6% of the total population. The survey also reported that two-thirds of Koreans with access to the Internet at home are online shoppers. Many tourism companies now actively use Internet sites as a key marketing and sales vehicle for their products and services. To be successful, tourism e-commerce services must be trustworthy.     

Understanding customers’ healthy food choices at casual dining restaurants: Using the Value–Attitude–Behavior model

This study examined how individual health values influence interest in healthy foods, positive outcome expectations, hedonic expectations, and behavior intentions. A total of 1188 valid questionnaires were collected from customers who had consumed healthy menu items at casual dining restaurants. The results indicated that health value was the key element that inspired customer interest in healthy eating and aroused hedonic and positive outcome expectations, which in turn enhanced intentions to purchase healthy food items. Restaurant managers are advised to establish creative marketing strategies to motivate customer interest in healthy menu items and emphasize benefits of their healthy food items. Future studies can extend the scope of research by examining differences in geographical areas or demographic profiles.