MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER: MEASURING TOURIST
MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER:MEASURING TOURIST SATISFACTIONDr Ying WangGriffith Institute for Tourism Research Report SeriesReport No 10June 2016
MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER:MEASURING TOURIST SATISFACTIONDr Ying WangGriffith Institute for Tourism Research Report No 10June 2016ISSN 2203-4862 (Print)ISSN 2203-4870 (Online)ISBN 978-1-925455-12-0Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
Peer Review- Dr Char-lee McLennan, Griffith Institute for TourismAcknowledgmentThis review exercise is part of a larger visitor satisfaction project that involves the followingresearchers Associate Professor Bela StanticProfessor Susanne BeckenDr Ali Reza AlaeiDr Ying WangDr Char-lee McLennanMs Jinyan (Emily) ChenWe would like to acknowledge the funding support of the City of Gold Coast for the project. Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University 2016This information may be copied or reproduced electronically and distributed to others withoutrestriction, provided the Griffith Institute for Tourism (GIFT) is acknowledged as the source ofinformation. Under no circumstances may a charge be made for this information without theexpress permission of GIFT, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.GIFT Research Report Series eriesAbout Griffith UniversityGriffith University is a top ranking University, based in South East Queensland, Australia.Griffith University hosts the Griffith Institute for Tourism, a world-leading institute for qualityresearch into tourism. Through its activities and an external Advisory Board, the Institutelinks university-based researchers with the business sector and organisations, as well aslocal, state and federal government bodies. For more information,visit ism .i
1. Executive summaryTourism destinations are operating in an increasingly experience oriented economy withconsumers seeking more customised products and demanding superior service quality.Technologies such as social media, search engines, booking sites, travel blogs, and sharingplatforms, are also dramatically changing the competitive landscape for tourism businesses.These technologies present both opportunities (e.g., enhanced connectivity, effectivecustomer engagement, reduced cost of communication, and improved service offering) andchallenges (diminishing negotiation power and loss of control of the communication processand messages) to the conventional model of business. In particular, empowered by theInternet, consumers can quickly voice their content or discontent to a global audience,enhancing or damaging a destination’s/business’s brand image. As such monitoringcustomer satisfaction has never been so critical in order to inform strategies on servicequality and satisfaction management.This report presents a review of current understanding of visitor satisfaction with touristdestinations, and how satisfaction has been measured in academic and industry practice.The review consulted academic research, industry reports, as well as Internet sources suchas key tourism review and booking sites. The review starts with an overview of theimportance of achieving customer satisfaction, followed by key definitions and constructsrelated to customer satisfaction. The review then presents commonly adopted approaches tomeasuring satisfaction, types of satisfaction studies, as well as how satisfaction and itsrelated constructs are operationalised in these studies. A discussion of the recent availabilityof user generated content (UGC) online and its implications for satisfaction research isprovided. The review concludes with a number of suggestions for destinations andbusinesses to consider when researching satisfaction. This review exercise is part of a Cityof Gold Coast funded visitor satisfaction project conducted by Associate Professor BelaStantic, Professor Susanne Becken, Dr Ali Reza Alaei, Dr Ying Wang, Dr Char-leeMcLennan, and Ms Jinyan (Emily) Chen.1
Contents1.Executive summary . 12.Why is Satisfaction More Important Than Ever? . 32.1. What does satisfaction bring?. 32.2. What exactly is satisfaction? . 52.2.1.Definitions . 52.3. Framework of satisfaction . 62.4. The effect of socio-demographics and trip characteristics . 63.Approaches for Measuring Satisfaction . 73.1. Expectancy disconfirmation approach . 73.2. Performance only approach . 83.3. Benchmarking approach. 83.4. Importance-performance approach. 83.5. SERVQUAL and its extensions. 93.6. Kano’s model of customer satisfaction . 104.Types of Practical Satisfaction Studies . 114.1. Satisfaction management at the individual business/sector level . 114.2. Tourism Research Australia’s (TRA) Visitor Profile and Satisfaction Program 114.3. The Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) Projects . 114.4. Satisfaction Index . 124.5. Satisfaction with Australia and the Gold Coast. 125.4.5.1.Australia . 124.5.2.Gold Coast . 13Operationalisation of Satisfaction and its Determinants . 155.1. What constitutes a destination?. 166.Recent Developments – The Social Media Domain. 206.1. Types of study . 216.2. Sentiment analysis . 227.Conclusions. 248.References . 262
2. Why is Satisfaction More Important Than Ever?Satisfaction has always been a central focus of business operation. It is a leading indicatorof destination performance and a key point of differentiation. Tourism destinations andservice providers must pay even greater attention to customer satisfaction in the modern dayenvironment because of the fast evolving competitive landscape resultant from recentconsumer and technological trends, which make customer satisfaction more important thanever (e.g., Confente, 2015; Oh, Fiore and Jeoung, 2007; Mӧhlmann 2015; Sharma andBaoku, 2013; Sparks and Browning, 2010). Tourism is transitioning from a service economy to an experience economy wheretourists are more experienced, have higher expectations, demand more personalisedservices, and anticipate greater flexibility in the service offering.Search engines and booking sites bring about information and price transparency,empowering customers but diminishing businesses’ negotiation power, forcingbusinesses to differentiate on services, not prices.The explosive growth of sharing platforms, such as Airbnb and Uber, challenges theconventional business model and introduces greater competition for traditionalservice providers. The determinants of satisfaction with shared options might differfrom traditional settings, but there is very limited understanding in this regard.Consumers’ expectations, behaviours, and decisions are increasingly shaped byelectronic Word-of Mouth (eWOM) on Web 2.0 platforms, referring to Internet sitesemphasising user-generated content and interactivity, e.g., social media and reviewsites.Consumers are more vocal in airing their grievances on social media and reviewsites. This can seriously damage a business’s reputation if not dealt with properly.These trends highlight that consumers are continuously searching for new ways of‘purchasing’ and ‘consuming’ tourism. The competitive environment for businesses is alsorapidly changing. As such, the tourism sector never stands still and constantly needs tomonitor its performance in service delivery; as satisfaction can make or break a business.Social media and review sites create challenges but also allow for digital connections withcustomers and make it easier to interact with satisfied or dissatisfied customers. These sitesalso create opportunities for satisfaction research as demonstrated in studies based on UGCon review platforms and social media analyses.2.1. What does satisfaction bring?Ensuring visitor satisfaction is critical to the long term success of the destination and bringsbenefits for key stakeholders including the industry, the visitors, and local communities (formore information, see www.sustainabletourismonline.com; Foster, 1999). Customersatisfaction provides six major competitive advantages as shown in Figure 1 below. Atourism destination is also able to gain these competitive advantages through delivery qualityand visitor satisfaction.3
Figure 1. Six Competitive Advantages through Customer Satisfaction (Source: Sheth, 2001)Customer satisfaction is indicative of destination performance. Decades of academicresearch (e.g., Chea and Luo, 2008; Gounaris, Dimitriadis and Stathakopoulos, 2010;Szymanski and Henard, 2001) offers insights into the outcomes of customer satisfactionwhich include: Word-of-mouth referral,Consumers’ complaining behaviour,Brand loyalty,Continuance,Recommendation, andRepurchase intention / repeat visitation.Visitor satisfaction studies with regard to tourist destinations find that a high level ofsatisfaction encourages tourists to re-visit the destination; satisfied tourists also tell theirrelatives and friends, providing free advertisement and helping promote increased travel tothe destination (Kau and Lim, 2005; Kozak and Rimmington, 2000; Yu and Goulden, 2006).Satisfaction also offers financial competitiveness through a number of ways. Repeat purchase and positive word-of-mouth reduces business costs (Sheth, 2001).There is a significant and positive relationship between customer satisfaction andwillingness to pay more for products and services at the individual level (Homburg,Koschate and Hoyer, 2005). Similarly, satisfaction may lead to higher expenditureduring a holiday, as satisfied customers are willing to pay higher prices (Wang andDavidson, 2010).Satisfied customers support the destination financially and morally in times of crisis.The results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the national cross-industrymeasure of customer satisfaction in the United States, show that customer satisfaction isstrongly related to economic performance. At the micro level, businesses achieving highlevels of customer satisfaction tend to have higher financial returns compared to theircompetitors. At the macro level, customer satisfaction predicts both consumer spending andgross domestic product growth (http://www.theacsi.org/about-acsi).4
On the contrary, an unsatisfactory tourism experience will generate negative word-of-mouth,cause switch to other destinations, and reduce competiveness and growth opportunity forthe destination. It is therefore critical for destinations to understand the level of satisfactionamong visitors, and identify the drivers of satisfaction and causes of dissatisfaction, so as toinform strategic planning for future tourism development, destination marketing, experiencedesigns and delivery, performance management, and human resource development.2.2. What exactly is satisfaction?2.2.1. DefinitionsSatisfaction is defined as the consumers’ overall cognitive or affective response to productuse (Oliver, 1997), and consumers’ judgement of whether a product/service provides apleasurable level of consumption-related fulfilment (Chen, Huang and Petrick, 2016).The underlying dimensions and psychological processes of satisfaction may differ as a resultof the degree of complexity of the consumption experience (Oliver, 1997). A trip to a touristdestination, especially an international destination, is a complex experience. Tourists may besatisfied with some aspects and dissatisfied with other aspects of their trips. Touristsatisfaction at a destination level is therefore conceptually different from satisfaction at thetransactional level because a visitor’s overall experience is a sum of the numerous individualexperiences that occur during the visitor’s stay at the destination. These experiences mayinclude interactions with a diverse range of natural and cultural destination attributes, andare affected by the destination’s attitude toward tourists, and the tourists’ perceptions ofservice quality and pricing (Yu and Goulden, 2006; Wang and Davidson, 2010). Satisfactionwith a destination is therefore described as “cumulative satisfaction” and an “abstractconstruct that describes customer’s total consumption experience with a product or service”(Foster, 1999; Johnson and Anderson, 1995, p. 699).Considering customer satisfaction in isolation is insufficient. There are also levels beyondmerely adequate service level and basic satisfaction. For instance, Ma, Gao, Scott and Ding(2013) raise the need to incorporate a psychological perspective in the study of customers’emotional outcomes of a tourist experience that is often characterised by pleasure andindulgence. These authors, and others such as Oliver, Rust and Varki (1997) and Crotts,Pan and Raschid (2008), differentiate satisfaction/dissatisfaction from delight/disgust; thelatter is an extension of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, which refers to “a positive affect with ahigh level of activation or a combination of arousal and pleasure coexisting with satisfaction”,and includes surprise (i.e., unexpected value, unanticipated satisfaction) as a trigger ofemotional arousal (Ma et al., 2013; Oliver et al., 1997).There is also argument for dissatisfaction to be studied as a differentiated dimension fromsatisfaction, as visitors can be simultaneously satisfied and dissatisfied by different sets ofproduct attributes (Alegre and Garau, 2010; Gregory and Parsa, 2013). Kano’s model ofproduct attributes and customer satisfaction differentiates dissatisfiers from satisfiers (seethe section of Approaches to Measuring Satisfaction for an explanation of this model).Another group of studies focus on addressing dissatisfaction from perspectives of servicefailure and complaint behaviour (e.g., Lee and Sparks, 2007; Matusitz and Breen, 2009;Ogbeide, Böser, Harrinton and Ottenbacher, 2015; Sparks and Fredline, 2007). Forinstance, Sparks and Fredline (2007) examine how explanations or accounts mitigate the5
impact of service failure on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Before Web 2.0, dissatisfiedcustomers typically complained directly to the service provider, but they can now voice theirdiscontent to a global audience through various online platforms. The tourism sector isparticular vulnerable to negative eWOM as travellers increasingly make bookings online(Sparks and Browning, 2010). This requires customer satisfaction research to expand intothe Internet and technological space, as not doing so exposes a destination/business to risksof losing its reputation and competitive advantage.2.3. Framework of satisfactionCustomer satisfaction has long been a focal point not only in academic research, but also inindustry practice. An example of the latter is the ACSI and Figure 2 below depicts thetheoretical approach taken by the ACSI. Satisfaction in this case is determined by acombination of consumer expectations, perceived value and quality, and actual experience.The constructs included in this model are accepted as key determinants of customersatisfaction in academic literature.Figure 2. The ACSI Model of Customer Satisfaction (Source: www.theacsi.org)2.4. The effect of socio-demographics and trip characteristicsAnalysis at an aggregated level may lead to misleading conclusions regarding satisfaction ina particular segment of the market (Füller and Matzler, 2008). For instance, studies (Chuand Choi, 2000; Crotts and Erdmann, 2000; Füller and Matzler, 2008; Master and Prideaux,2000; Reisinger and Turner, 1997, 1998; Turner, Reisinger and McQuilken, 2002; Yu andGoulden, 2006) suggest that satisfaction may vary across different socio-demographic andtrip characteristics, such as: AgeOccupationLifestyleCountry of origin and national culturePurpose of trip (i.e., business vs. leisure)6
3. Approaches for Measuring SatisfactionA variety of theoretical approaches to measuring consumer satisfaction have beenproposed; for example, the expectancy disconfirmation theory, the importance-performanceanalysis, the equity theory, the attribution theory, the value-percept theory, and thedissonance theory. A common feature of these measurement approaches is theirconsideration of satisfaction as a relative concept measured in relation to a standard such asvalues, inputs, experience, etc. These standards are often inputs brought about by tourists,acknowledging the active involvement of individuals in the co-creation of their destinationexperience (Foster, 1999). The section below introduces several commonly adoptedapproaches to measuring satisfaction. There are many other approaches to understandingsatisfaction, which will not be discussed here, restricted by the scope of this review. It is alsoworth noting that the below approaches were developed prior to the era of the Internet, Web2.0 and ‘Big Data’. Applying these approaches typically requires data collection throughsurveys of travellers using a predetermined questionnaire instrument.3.1. Expectancy disconfirmation approachThe expectancy disconfirmation model is a widely used measurement model in consumersatisfaction studies with hospitality and tourism services (Wang and Davidson, 2010).Likewise in business practice, companies often ask their customers to rate whether thecompany’s product/service has met or exceeded their expectations in researchingsatisfaction. Figure 3 below is the most basic disconfirmation model, including four keyconstructs: expectation, perceived performance, disconfirmation (i.e., the perceived gapbetween expectation and performance), and customer satisfaction.Figure 3. The Expectancy Disconfirmation Model of Customer SatisfactionThe model suggests satisfaction as a result of discrepancy between customers’pre-purchase expectations and perceived performance of product/service (Wang andDavidson, 2010).7
When a product/service outperforms the customer’s original expectations, thedisconfirmation is positive, leading to satisfaction.When a product/service underperforms original expectations, negativedisconfirmation occurs and the custo
destination, especially an international destination, is a complex experience. Tourists may be satisfied with some aspects and dissatisfied with other aspects of their trips. Tourist satisfaction at a destination level is
per IEC 60751 Class A Measuring deviation of the transmitter per IEC 60770 0.25 K Total measuring deviation according to IEC 60770 Measuring deviation of the measuring element the transmitter Measuring span Minimum 20 K, maximum 300 K Basic configuration Measuring range 0 . 150
Measuring Performance on the Seven Dimensions.30 Measuring Criminal Victimization Measuring Success in Calling Offenders to Account Measuring Fear and the Subjective Sense of Security Measuring the Level of Safety and Civility in Public Spaces. vi THE "BOTTOM LINE" OF POLICING W .
Accuracy specifications (4 . 20 mA version) Tolerance value of the measuring element 2) per IEC 60751 Class A Measuring deviation of the transmitter per IEC 62828 0.25 K Total measuring deviation in accordance with IEC 62828 Measuring deviation of the measuring element transmitter Inf
measuring cup measuring spoons dry/solid measuring cups Methods: K. Dip in. Level off. L. Spoon in lightly, level off. M. Pack firmly, level off. N. Pour, view at eye level. Measuring Equipment Ingredients Measuring Method 3/4 cup milk 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup flour 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup oil 1 cup granu
MF Standard Measuring Microscope M-004 MF-U High-accuracy Measuring Microscope M-005-006 Hyper MF/MF-U Ultra-high-accuracy Measuring Microscope M-007 TM Toolmakers' Microscope M-008 Vision Unit 9 0 0 - M QM-Data200 Data Processor M-010 FS-70 Microscope Head Un
The effect of the model ambiguity on the measurement process may be minimized by establishing certain limits: (1) for 600 thread measuring wires, variations in diameter over the one inch central interval of the wire shall not exceed 10 micro-inches as determined by measuring between a flat measuring contact and a cylindrical contact.File Size: 958KBPage Count: 22Explore furtherUsing the Three-Wire Method to Measure Threadslittlemachineshop.comTHREAD MEASURING WIRE FORMULAS - Osborn Productsosbornproducts.comHow do you measure pitch diameter on a modified buttress .www.practicalmachinist.comRecommended to you based on what's popular Feedback
Internal direct measuring range: 2-100mm Internal comparison measuring range: 10-450mm External thread measuring range: till 200mm Internal thread measuring range: M13 - M90 M6 – M15 (optional) Work table Vertical distance: 0-100mm/1mm Horizontal distance: 0-25mm/ 0.01mm Left-right s
Vision Unit About 90% reduction in variation Unit: µm Measuring microscope only Measuring microscope & vision unit Measuring microscope only Measuring microscope & vision unit 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 平均測定時間も約30%に短縮 （105秒 30秒弱に） Unit: µm 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 バラつきを約11.4%まで減少 （10µm 1µm台に .
