CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.10 Theories and Concept about Tourists ’ Loyalty (TL)
The result found that a physical environment is confirmed and favourable to the visitors’ satisfaction. Mohi (2013) looked at five quality aspects: the program, the quality of interactions, the physical setting, the outcome, and access. The study discovered an excellent link between festival quality and satisfaction in the food festival. In a small local event, Anil (2012) investigated six quality dimensions:
program, staff, site, food, keepsake, and accessibility. The results revealed three dimensions related to the environmental dimensions: products or food, accessibility, and festival capacity. These three factors affect attendees’ satisfaction and loyalty.
Chen et al. (2012) identified six quality factors (program, staff, information availability, facilities, convenience, and comfort amenities). The study reveals that festival quality factors affect the visitor experience. There is a complex range of attributions that affect the attendees’ experience.
In addition, Yoon et al. (2010) studied five festival dimensions (program, souvenir, food, and facility). The result is revealed that the quality dimensions influence perceived value. This affects visitors’ satisfaction and their loyalty to the festival. Therefore, this study will examine the six festival quality dimensions:
program, food, convenience, information service, and outcome quality, which factors related to the local food festival. Therefore, the mentioned researchers study the festival quality in the context of food festival quality dimensions are needed to examine the local food festival because of strongly affected satisfaction and loyalty.
products and services. A deep commitment to attitudes is a positive perception of customers toward goods and services. Behavioral loyalty can be seen primarily through Word of Mouth. Gamble (2006) described the meaning of customer loyalty that was comparable to the image of promise without question (image of unquestioning commitment is caused by several factors, such as satisfaction from goods and services, perceived value to money invested (Bigne, Sanchez, & Sanchez, 2001; Darnell & Johnson, 2001; Gallarza & Saura, 2006).
Aaker (2009) described that acquiring new customers is necessary no matter what business. It is essential to have a good customer base to maintain that customer base. The investment to acquire new customers has been seen in the past. Customers loyal to the brand will continue to use the product and empower their customers.
Moreover, loyalty was described as prejudiced behavior performed by the travelers with admiration for a single or more alternatives with functional, psychological processes (Jacoby & Kyner, 1973).
The past researchers were aware of the role of loyalty in the context of marketing (Aaker, 2009). Most research found that loyalty is a matter of loyalty, the importance of marketing activities of the business. Bowen and Shoemaker (2003) show that customer loyalty can return customers to the business. Delgado-Ballester and Luis Munuera-Alemán (2001) concluded that loyalty is a value for the organization, a barrier to new entrants. Enhance the organization’s ability to respond to competitor threats. Sales and revenue are growing, and the customer base is less sensitive to competitors’ marketing. The robust competition in the trade market underlines the need to maintain existing consumers (Sirohi, McLaughlin, & Wittink, 1998). Preserving the existing customer loyalty is regarded as an essential strategy to retain a high competitive advantage (Grönroos, 2009; Porter, 1989). Maintaining and keeping a loyal consumer has more spending than acquiring new customers because of start-up operational expenses, promotion, and advertising (Reichheld, 2001;
Tepeci, 1999).
Furthermore, numerous positive advantages will originate from the behavior of loyal customers; superior stability irrespective of challenger efforts (Bove &
Johnson, 2009), a lower amount of examination for the alternatives (Macintosh, 2002), and favorable word-of-mouth (WOM) (Reinartz & Kumar, 2002). Considering
avoid customer erosion, products or services providers should make special efforts to preserve existing customers because of their loyalty (Chen, 2015). Therefore, understanding the behavior of loyal tourists plays a vital role; measuring tourist loyalty is also needed.
The tourist’s returning to the festivals is considered from intention, and many researchers attempted to determine the factors that can enable attaining the high repetition. To assist the tourism research area, numerous studies have implemented satisfaction indicators as a measurement tool of loyalty (Kim et al., 2009; Kivela &
Crotts, 2006; Tussyadiah, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2011). The loyalty can reflect the purchasing from their satisfaction with tourists’ experiences or perceptions. Therefore, satisfaction is the successful key element of any business, and it is also a requirement to achieve tourist loyalty. In the tourism field, tourists’ experience can lead to tourist loyalty that comes from tourist satisfaction (Ozdemir et al., 2012; Haiyan Song, Van der Veen, Li, & Chen, 2012; Sun Chi, & Xu, 2013). Although most tourists’
experiences with satisfaction are fundamentally an increased intention, the repetition and recommendation of the tourists to the destination are the essential keys indicators of tourist loyalty (Chi & Qu, 2008; Cossío-Silva, Revilla-Camacho, & Vega-Vázquez, 2019; Kim & Perdue, 2011).
2.10.1 Types of Loyalty
Blair, Armstrong, and Murphy (2003) divided the concept of loyalty into two perspectives: behavior loyalty and emotional loyalty. First, behavioral loyalty is based on the observed behavior pattern, such as the bank’s rate of return. Frequency of purchase from the retailer or the number of purchases. Second, emotional loyalty is the “feeling” that customers have products or services. However, those feelings are influenced by marketing deep in the brand’s heart. Each consumer and the brand have a face-to-face relationship. Emotional loyalty is a metric that assesses how attached a client is to a brand. It is probably the most important measure for an organization.
Developing loyalty as a tourist destination can reflect the behavioral intention;
therefore, the information related to the tourist’s loyalty is essential to the marketers, executives, and firms. The positive experience of tourists on the services, products, and things that provide tourist attractions include revisit or repurchase intention to the
destinations (Chi & Qu, 2008; Chung & Shin, 2004; Petrick & Backman, 2001) and recommendations to their friends, relatives, or individuals (Yoon & Uysal, 2005).
Loyalty is a positive attitude of customers towards the organization and loyalty behavior based on the frequency and number of purchases (Castro, Armario,
& Ruiz, 2007). Customer loyalty is a customer’s return to or repurchases the products in the future; moreover, customer loyalty is free advertising for firms (Hsu, 2008;
Reichheld, 2001). In addition, intentional behaviors such as intention to revisit, willingness, and recommendation to others can be indicators of tourist loyalty (Ryu et al., 2008). In addition, Lin and Wang (2006) explained that behaviors or purchases, including brand loyalty, are also a demonstration of loyalty with return shopping habits or advice to others. Loyalty is often used to measure the success of a marketing strategy (Kumar & Shah, 2004; Yoon & Uysal, 2005).
Therefore, the tourist’s loyalty is a measurement of behavior to purchase or a possibility of returning to purchase (Meleddu, Paci, & Pulina, 2015; Suhartanto &
Triyuni, 2016). In addition, behavior intention is similar to the loyalty to the tourist, such as the decision to return to the place and recommend the place to others through the marketing activities, which can create their loyalty and demand because of its importance (Kotler, WONG, Saunders, & Armstrong, 2014). It is the expectation or inclination of the customer to return with the characteristics of the product or service (Chen & Tsai, 2007). Therefore, measuring and defining tourist loyalty toward tourist destination is theorized as loyalty that visitors revisit further; the attitude approach will be used in this study that explains a psychological or emotional expression of tourists’ intention to revisit places and tourist intention to recommend other prospective visitors (Senders, Govers, & Neuts, 2013).
2.10.2 Types of Loyalty
Perceived value links to loyalty significantly in terms of the overall assessment of the services and products based on perception (Zeithaml, 1988). The tourist’s loyalty has been regarded as the revisit or repurchase (Cronin Jr et al., 2000).
The loyalty of tourists in this context refers to revisit to the festive venue or destination, the combination of being loyalty commonly from visitor’s repetition. The main factor of loyalty is a WOM (Word of Mouth) developed by the attendee’s
preferred attitude to the venue (Konecnik & Gartner, 2007; Yoon & Uysal, 2005;
Zhang, Fu, Cai, & Lu, 2014). Several studies examined that the relationship between perceived value and tourist loyalty also contributes to tourism development by repeating tourists and spending more. Moreover, the repeaters have a significant role in publicizing information of the further visitors (Hovinen, 2002; Reid & Reid, 1994).
The emotional value of perceived value responds to the admirable customers that associate with the products and services.
On the other hand, the emotional value is described by how the venue makes the food tourists feel through the experience. The visitor perceives monetary and non- monetary prices that address components as the effort to purchase products or services (Sato, Gipson, Todd, & Harada, 2018). Therefore, the prestige festival venue can be established based on assessment, and perceived reputation should be considered in food tourism as a festival. In addition, the factors of perceived value significantly affect tourists’ loyal behaviors (Petrick, 2004; Sato et al., 2018). Therefore, the hypothesis is as follows:
H5: Perceived value has positive influences on tourist’s loyalty (figure 2.6)
Figure 2.6 Perceived Value has Positive Influences on Tourist’S Loyalty
Tourist’s Loyalty (TL) Perceived
Value of the local food
festival Emotional Value
- Festival Product - Convenient Facility - Environment
Functional Value - Festival Program - Informational Service
H5
Tourists’ loyalty can affect the experience economy; therefore, hypothesis 3 can be seen in figure 2.7
H3: Experience economy has a positive influence on Tourist loyalty (figure 2.7)
Figure 2.7 The Relationship between Experience Economy and Tourist Loyalty in a Local Food Festival
Moreover, there are two more research hypothesizes as follows;
H6: Experience economy is mediating between perceived value and behavioral intention
H7: Experience economy is mediating between perceived value and Tourist loyalty
In conclusion, tourist loyalty influences customers’ intention and behavior to return or revisit the places that the tourists had visited. Based on past studies of tourist loyalty, its theory explained and provided the human behavior. The study presents that factors (time and size) affect tourists’ loyalty, including perceived value, tourist satisfaction, tourist behavior, and destination image.