The influence of communication in destination imagery during COVID-19

A little over a year after the pandemic and ensuing state-of-emergency were officially declared, it seems timid signs of budding recovery are finally appearing. This paper presents empirical evidence related with a destination recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected during the early reopening of tourism in Spain (Easter break). This research evaluates the links between communication -both DMO (destination marketing organization) and tourist-generated communication- and destination awareness, imagery and perceived health safety. We also analyzed the impact of travel frequency on the entire construct set, as well as its role as potential moderator in the causal model. Results allow us to put forth a series of recommendations for tourist destination managers, aimed at meeting the challenges of progressively opening up tourism and mobility as the COVID-19 pandemic reality continues to evolve

Winning your customers' minds and hearts: Disentangling the effects of lock-in and affective customer experience on retention

Building barriers to lock in customers and improving the affective customer experience are two key strategies employed by firms to enhance customer retention. Although pursuing the same goal, these strategies work differently: the former relies more on a calculative, cost-benefit approach to the exchange, while the latter promotes affective aspects of the relationship. Integrating experiential learning theory with social exchange theory, we provide a conceptual framework to understand the impact of lock-in and affective customer experience on customer retention, and the moderating role of relationship depth. Using a comprehensive data set for a sample of 13,761 customers covering all firms in one telecom market for two different services, we empirically test the framework via multinomial logit modeling. The results offer novel insights into the interplay between the two strategies. For poor affective customer experience (i.e., a score below five on a 0-10 scale), lock-in helps firms reduce customer churn (between 49.03% and 47.86%). However, the impact of lock-in decreases when affective customer experience improves and turns to be insignificant once the experience reaches the "acceptable level" (i.e., a score above seven on a 0-10 scale). Importantly, the separate and joint effects of the two strategies are stronger when there is a low relationship depth, and weaker when heavy relationships are established. The findings offer useful practical advice to manage these strategies in an efficient and optimal way

Listening to Your Customer’s Heart or Head? Uncovering the Trade-Offs between Customer Experience and Lock-In

Improving the customer experience and building barriers to lock customers are two key strategies employed by firms to enhance customer retention. Although pursuing the same goal, these strategies work differently: the former promotes the affective aspects of the relationship while the latter relies more on a calculative, cost–benefit approach to the exchange. Integrating experiential learning theory, we provide an integrative conceptual understanding of the separate and joint effects of customer experience and lock-in on customer retention. Using a dataset containing perceptual, competitive, and transactional information for a sample of 13,761 customers covering all firms in the telecom market for two different services, we empirically test the proposed framework via multinomial logit modeling. The results offer novel insights into the presence of trade-offs between these two key strategies. We show that with one lock- in, the role of customer experience becomes weaker. However, with multiple lock-in methods where negative interaction is captured, customer experience does matter. Our contribution consists of identifying whether customer experience and lock-in complement or substitute each other and when such effects occur, thereby helping firms optimally allocate marketing resources to retain customers.</p