A comparison of antecedents of satisfaction in city break traveling

Abstract

Research on tourism has been enormously benefited from the marketing of services literature in the understanding of satisfaction, its antecedents and its consequent factors. Recent emphasis on customers’ experiences has shifted the focus to a redefinition of the antecedents of satisfaction. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently no comparative analysis set out to determine whether experiences under this new framework may suggest a more significant influence on satisfaction among city travelers. Our study delves into these phenomena for the specific case of short lasting touristic city trips, a type of tourism not sufficiently studied for its relevance in terms of growth and turnover. From a survey of a sample of 136 British city travelers, using Structural Equation Modeling, we compare the Quality and Value of Services frameworks and the Experience Economy framework in a series of three regression models in order to determine which one shows higher explanatory power, measured by means of the resulting regression coefficient. The experiential factor seems to show slightly better explanatory power on both value and satisfaction opinions.