Thursday 29 November 2007

Kozak 2001

Repeaters'behavior at two distinct destinations

Useful article in that the methodology is similar to that which I will probably employ.
The author considers destination loyalty considering four main factors:
1) Level of tourist satisfaction
2) Previous visits to the same destination
3) Previous visits to the same country
4) Other factors

And considers amongst other hypotheses, how tourist satisfaction is associated with behavioural intentions to return to the same destination and to visit other similar destinations in the same country.

Although there is a strong focus on destination loyalty, the methods used can be of value. A questionnaire was used and was informed by both primary and secondary sources – personal experience, informal discussions, open-ended survey questions, TV shows, holiday brochures.

The main questionnaire itself was in three sections:
1) Questions regarding visits to the tourist destination in question – bio- section.
2) 45-item scale measuring attributes using a D-T scale (delighted-terrible scale)
3) 3-items asking about future intentions to revisit.

The questionnaire was designed alongside the guidelines of the performance-only approach.

A first draft of the questionnaire was piloted with 220 British tourists, before the main questionnaire was administered in Dalaman Airport, Turkey and Palma Airport, Mallorca. Around 500 responses were gained from each destination. The sample size of 500 was targeted to facilitate good factor analysis.

The data analysis was split into four parts:
1) Chi-square was applied to explore if any difference existed between the number of previous visits to Mallorca and Turkey.
2) A series of independent t-statistical tests was used to determine whether significant differences existed between the scores assigned to the intention to return by the first-time and repeat tourists.
3) Factor analysis was performed to identify which attributes could be reduced to a smaller set of factors.
4) Stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to demonstrate the degree of influence of certain variables over the likelihood of respondents to return.

Although may of the findings of the study are specific to destination loyalty, both destinations showed that overall satisfaction had a strong influence of behavioural intention to revisit the same and neighbouring resorts.

No comments: