How constraints on tourist complaints affect perceptions of justice and intentions of loyalty: Case of tourists from China visiting Turkey

Erdogan Ekiz, King Abdulaziz UniversityFollow

Abstract

Companies rarely enjoy hearing bad news, particularly when it comes from dissatisfied customers. Yet, in the face of continually growing competition and empowerment of customers, it is essential that companies learn of the problems that are causing their customers distress. In fact, companies never hear from most of the customers who simply go away unsatisfied, without voicing their complaints. The tourism and hospitality industries have a number of unique features that make them especially susceptible. Although several studies treat tourist complaints and general consumer complaints as the same, Ekiz (2011) reasoned that these unique features demand a new measurement scale, tourist complaint restraints (TCC scale). Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of TCC on perceptions of justice (justice perceptions in the model) and commitment to loyalty (loyalty intention) among Chinese tourists in Istanbul, Turkey. To achieve this aim, 700 questionnaires in Mandarin were printed and distributed around Istanbul’s historic tourist attractions as a form of purposive sampling. 597 questionnaires were found to be complete, giving a response rate of 85.3 percent. Structural Equation Modeling analyses indicated that the proposed seven-factor theoretical model fitted the data reasonably well. Results indicated that the majority of the hypothesized relationships were supported. In particular, limited communication on the interactional justice dimension, and unfamiliarity on the procedural and distributive justice dimension were found to be the most important constraints. Distributive justice was found to have the strongest effect on loyalty. The implications of these findings will be discussed.

Keywords

tourist complaining constraints, perceptions of justice, intentions of loyalty, Chinese tourists, Turkey

Chinese Abstract

游客投诉约束如何影响游客的公平感和忠诚意向：以访土耳其的中国游客为例

公司很少喜欢听到坏消息，尤其是来自不满意的客户的投诉。然而，面对不断加剧的竞争和客户赋权，企业必须要了解导致客户不满的原因。事实上，企业从来没有听到过大多数不满顾客的声音，这些顾客只会带着不满离开，并不会把不满诉诸于口。旅游和酒店业有一些独特的特点，使其特别容易受到影响。虽然有些研究将旅游投诉和一般的消费者投诉一直对待，但Ekiz（2011）指出旅游业的独特性需要一个新的测量量表--旅游投诉约束量表（TCC量表）。因此，本研究旨在评估在土耳其伊斯坦布尔游览的中国游客的旅游投诉约束(TCC)对他们公平感（模型中的公平感）和忠诚承诺（忠诚意向）的影响。为此，本研究采用目的性抽样，在伊斯坦布尔的历史旅游景点周围发放了700份中文问卷，共收集到597份完整问卷，回复率为85.3%。结构方程模型分析表明，所提出的七因素理论模型与数据拟合度很高。结果表明，大部分的假设关系都得到了支持。特别是在互动公平维度上的有限沟通，以及在程序公平和分配公平维度上的不熟悉感被认为是最重要的约束因素；而分配公平对忠诚度的影响最强。本研究将基于这些调查结果提出相关建议。

关键词：游客投诉约束，公平感，忠诚意向，中国游客，土耳其

DOI

10.5038/2640-6489.4.1.1036

Recommended Citation

Ekiz, E. (2019). How constraints on tourist complaints affect perceptions of justice and intentions of loyalty: Case of tourists from China visiting Turkey. Journal of Global Business Insights, 4(1), 1-17. https://www.doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.4.1.1036