The impact of tour service performance on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intentions : a study of Chinese tourists in Hong Kong
Summary (3 min read)
Introduction
- This study proposes and tests a tour service performance framework that assesses the impact of tour service performance on tourists’ satisfaction with tour services and experience as well as their behavioral intentions, based on data collected from 580 Chinese tourists participating in package tours in Hong Kong.
- They are distinct from support services, which stimulate customers‟ desire to participate in the tour, and include attractions, shopping, and recreation and entertainment activities.
- This distinction is important for both managers and researchers, because the two constructs have different foci and determinants.
- LITERATURE REVIEW performance of a particular type of tour service, yet little has been done to segment tour services into distinct components and examine the individual impact of these components on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intentions.
Tour Services
- One of the earliest studies that evaluated tour service performance was conducted by Whipple and Tach (1988), who partitioned a trip to Niagara Falls into tourism services and attractions.
- Similarly, Wang, Hsieh, and Huan (2000) separated a package tour from Taiwan into eight consecutive items comprising pre-tour briefing, airports, hotels, restaurants, coach services, scenic spots, shopping, and optional tours.
- A commonly used approach to measure service performance in the tourism industry is that of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985), in which service is evaluated along the five classification is offered by Gronroos (1984), who identified technical and functional quality as the two fundamental sets of quality dimensions.
- Other researchers have used a similar approach, but identified the dimensions with different terms.
- Czepiel, Solomon, Surprenant, and Gutman (1985) stated that service evaluation depends on functional and performancedelivery components, the former referring to the content of the service and the latter to the delivery process.
Customer Satisfaction
- In the tourism literature, the term “satisfaction” has been used rather loosely.
- An additional difference is that satisfaction with a service can largely be controlled by the service provider (Baker & Crompton, 2000), whereas satisfaction with an experience is primarily driven by the involvement and motivations of the customer, which are more difficult to manipulate (Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987).
- Indirect support for this multifaceted concept of satisfaction can be found in some tourism studies in which service items and experience items are included as measures of tourist satisfaction (see Duke & Persia, 1996; Geva & Goldman, 1989; Ross & Iso-Ahola, 1991).
- Behavioral Intentions Behavioral intentions have been conceptualized and measured in many ways and in various contexts.
- Loyal to the company and willingness to pay more were found to be the key benefits of customer loyalty.
RESEARCH MODEL
- The research model presented in Figure 1 includes seven tour services: attractions, recreation and entertainment, shopping, tour guiding service, food, transportation, and accommodation.
- As food, transportation, and accommodation are fundamental to subsistence, they are referred to as core services.
- Guiding services in this case is the service provided by tour guides.
- Satisfaction with tour services refers to customers‟ evaluation of the services provided by the tour operator, where customers are deemed to be satisfied if their expectations of the service aspects are met.
- Behavioral intentions are consumers‟ subjective probabilities of participating in tours organized by a tour operator and their willingness to pay.
Hypotheses
- Satisfaction with tour services was hypothesized to be related to seven types of tour services based on previous research that treated satisfaction as something that emerges from the is posited to result when customers‟ expectations are met and the tour services are considered “good value for money”.
- Customers would not be satisfied with the tour experience if the core services were good but the support services were boring.
- The two satisfaction constructs examined in this study are believed to have a significant impact on behavioral intentions.
Measurement
- To develop a better understanding of the underlying constructs that constitute tour services, four focus groups were conducted among residents in Beijing who had joined a package tour to Hong Kong in the previous 12 months.
- Respondents rated each item on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
- All scales yielded high coefficient alphas, ranging from 0.84 to 0.91.
- Given that causal relationships are being hypothesized, two separate factor analyses were performed.
- The final instrument consisted of four scales measuring tour service performance (21 items), satisfaction with tour services (three items), satisfaction with tour experience (six items), and behavioral intentions (four items).
Data Collection
- The targeted sample included mainland Chinese tourists who visited Hong Kong in a tour group and experienced various tour services.
- Chinese tourists participating in package tours were approached at three popular tourist spots in Hong Kong over a two-week period.
- Those who matched the age, gender, and marital status criteria and consented to participate were given a complete the survey at the end of the tour and return it to the researcher by post.
- The questionnaire items were originally in Chinese and were translated into English for publication.
RESULTS
- Of the 1,200 questionnaires distributed, 580 usable copies were returned, giving a response rate of 48.3%.
- Most of the respondents were either secondary school graduates (24.8%) or college graduates (64.7%).
- Modification indices revealed that the items for attractions and recreation and entertainment cross-loaded, which implied that they might belong to the same factor.
- All other model fit indices provided evidence of a good model fit.
- The results demonstrated that both satisfaction with tour services and satisfaction with the tour experience had a significant impact on customer behavioral intentions, explaining more than 52% of the variation in this construct.
Academic Contributions
- This study makes two major academic contributions.
- It may thus make more sense to treat them as separate constructs and to develop measures for assessing them independently.
- Unfortunately, price and market share will not provide a winning edge when the market becomes more individualized and consumers become more demanding.
- Of all the tour services examined in this study, tour guiding service had the greatest effect on satisfaction with tour services and the second greatest effect on satisfaction with the tour experience.
- In Hong Kong, tour guides are the industry‟s lowest-paid and least-trained employees (Au, 1998).
Limitations and Further Studies
- Some limitations of this study must be noted along with its findings.
- A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research.
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Citations
59 citations
Cites background from "The impact of tour service performa..."
...Tour satisfaction refers to “tour services as tourists’ affective response that results from a cognitive appraisal of the services provided by the tour operator” (Chan, Hsu, and Baum 2015, p. 20)....
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...Since satisfaction is very important in determining future behavioral intentions (Chan, Hsu, and Baum 2015; Han et al. 2017; Han, Kim, and Kiatkawsin 2017; Hwang and Park 2018; Xu et al. 2018), travel agencies try to enhance tour satisfaction....
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54 citations
43 citations
Cites methods from "The impact of tour service performa..."
...This approach was used in previous tourism studies (Chan, Hsu, and Baum 2015; Lyons et al. 2016; Tung, King, and Tse 2020)....
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40 citations
38 citations
References
3,746 citations
"The impact of tour service performa..." refers background in this paper
...Although the chi-square statistic was significant, the ratio of the chi-square value to the degrees of freedom was within the acceptable range (Marsh, 1988)....
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3,168 citations
"The impact of tour service performa..." refers background or result in this paper
...Cadotte, Woodruff, and Jenkins (1987) similarly found that customer satisfaction directly influenced dining experience, and Oliver (1993) demonstrated that satisfaction was significantly related to positive affect (joy and interest), a construct that has similarities with the construct of…...
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...This scale has been referenced in many studies, and has demonstrated good validity and a stable reliability in several populations (Oliver, 1993; Oliver & Swan, 1989)....
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2,419 citations
"The impact of tour service performa..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Crosby and Stephens (1987) reported a reliability coefficient of .96 and Baker and Crompton (2000) found a coefficient alpha of .98....
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...Baker and Crompton (2000) adapted the scale proposed by Zeithaml et al. (1996) to examine the perceptions of festival tourists, and confirmed that better perceptions of festival performance led to greater customer satisfaction, which in turn increased customer loyalty and willingness to pay more....
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...An additional difference is that satisfaction with a service can largely be controlled by the service provider (Baker & Crompton, 2000), whereas satisfaction with an experience is primarily driven by the involvement and motivations of the customer, which are more difficult to manipulate (Mannell &…...
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...Following the work of Zeithaml et al. (1996), and Baker and Crompton (2000), this study conceptualizes behavioral intention as a two-dimensional construct that covers loyalty and willingness to pay more....
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...Baker and Crompton (2000) reported alphas of 0.88 and 0.77 for “loyalty” and “willingness to pay” subscales respectively....
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Frequently Asked Questions (2)
Q2. What are the future works in "The impact of tour service performance on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intentions: a study of chinese tourists in hong kong" ?
Several areas emerge from this study that should be addressed in future research. Finally, other variables that may affect customer satisfaction, including customer motivation, personality, and previous travel experience, could be explored by future research. A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. 93. 88 I will say positive things about this operator to other people..