Destination India: Investigating the impact of Goa\u27s attributes on families\u27 leisure travel experience

The recent discourse of tourism development among officials within the Government of India has included the state of Goa, mainly because it has consistently witnessed positive economic impacts from tourism. However, in view of competition from other destinations, Goan tourism planners will need to identify important attributes of Goa that will positively affect tourists\u27 destination loyalty. This study examines the correlation between five attributes of Goa and tourists\u27 loyalty to Goa. Families traveling to Goa are targeted in this research because they represent a significant portion (39.5%) of the overall tourist arrivals in 2012. A sample of 258 families was collected, through convenience sampling, at the departure hall of Goa\u27s Dabolim Airport between September and October 2012. The findings of the study revealed that all the attributes investigated have exerted destination loyalty. Moreover, price and accessibility are found to the least significant influence on the loyalty to Goa, These findings contradict those from past studies on individual travelers. Implications of the findings along with suggestions for future research for the tourism industry are also presented in the final section of this paper

Mapping Out Factors Constraining Tourist Complaints: Hints For Managers Who Wish To Hear More

Abstract: Present study aims (i) to review how unique features of the tourism industry that may shape its consumers' complaining behaviors and (ii) to find out possible constraints of tourist complaining. Given that tourism is comparatively a new discipline most theories being used to explain this phenomenon are borrowed from mainstream disciplines. Perhaps for this reason many scholars directly use consumer behavior theories to examine tourist behaviors without considering the unique features of the tourism industry. In tourism industry where service failures are unavoidable due to its inherent nature success of any company requires hearing from their unhappy customers. To do so, managers need to understand factors stopping their customers to voice their dissatisfaction. In this vein, results of a thorough literature review suggested that there are five constraints (time, involvement, communication, familiarity and holiday mood) that managers should be mindful, if they want to receive complaints. Section on major findings of the relevant literature is followed by definitions of these constructs and presentation of the implications for the academia and industry

RENTQUAL: a new measurement scale for car rental services

Service quality perception is one of the key determinants of customer satisfaction and repeat purchase. As such, it has received considerable attention in the marketing literature. Quality issues in the car rental industry, however, have received less attention. Furthermore, there is lack of a scale developed to measure service quality in car rental services. This paper aims to develop a measurement scale in accordance with the procedure recommended by Churchill (1979) and Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988). Empirical studies were conducted in two waves. First, qualitative research was undertaken in the form of 23 in-depth interviews that produced 61 items describing tourists’ perceptions. Then, a quantitative study was used to purify the scale items and to examine dimensionality, reliability, factor structure and validity. Finally, an 18-item RENTQUAL scale with the following six factors emerged: comfort, delivery, safety, handing over, ergonomics and accessibility. Results show that safety is the most important factor in car rental services. Paper also presents scale development procedure, discussion, implications and limitations

Obstáculos al reclamo.El comportamiento particular de los turistas ante los reclamos

Tourism can comparatively be considered as a new discipline hence its literature has slightly more than four decades of published work. Many of the former tourism scholars came from other well established disciplines thus they used their backgrounds to explain the tourism phenomenon. This can be the explanation to the fact that so many scholars use consumer behavior theories without considering the unique features of the tourism industry and of course, complaining behavior is not an exception. This paper aims (i) to review how these unique tourism features may shape tourists´ complaining behaviors and (ii) to find out possible constraints to tourist complaining. Results of a thorough review of the relevant literature suggested that five constructs (time, involvement, communication, familiarity and holiday mood) may differentiate tourists from general consumers. A section on major findings of the relevant literature is followed by definitions of these constructs and presentation of the implications for the academia and industry.Comparativamente, el turismo es una nueva disciplina con una literatura propia que data de poco menos de 4 décadas de publicaciones. Algunos de los primeros estudiosos del tema provienen de otras disciplinas más arraigadas, lo que hace que se utilicen esos entornos para explicar el fenómeno turístico. Esta situación permite explicar por qué muchos estudiosos utilizan directamente las teorías de comportamiento del consumidor sin considerar las características únicas de la industria turística, y su comportamiento ante los reclamos no es una excepción. Este trabajo intenta (i) revisar cómo las características particulares de la industria modelan el reclamo de los consumidores y (ii) encontrar posibles obstáculos a la queja de los turistas. El resultado de una profunda revisión a la literatura permite enumerar cinco (5) construcciones (tiempo, participación/vinculación, comunicación, familiaridad y espíritu vacacional) que diferencia al turista del consumidor en general. Así entonces, a continuación de los hallazgos más relevantes de la literatura se pone a continuación de definiciones de las principales conclusiones de la literatura se exponen las definiciones de estas construcciones y se presentan las implicancias tanto para la academia como para la industria