Identifying factors for the customer delight in tourism industrymodel and measurement scale

Résumé

The main objective of the present dissertation is to empirically identify customer delight in customer’s most memorable experiences in the context of tourism services. Specifically, the aim of the present dissertation is to explain to what extent customers achieve to a delighted state and what factors influence it them, grouping available statements in the literature by developing a research model and measurement scale. Data for this study were obtained through a survey applied to tourists face-to-face and by online channels in Spain and Portugal; surveys were development in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. The first sample encompasses 400 cases adds to 119 obtained in the second period during a research stay in the University of Minho summarizing within total of 519 responses. Data are analyzed and showing delighted, most than satisfied and satisfied customers through the application of the scale regarding the effect of cognitive-affective antecedents. Results also describe differences about the impact of the variables in both dimensions (cognitive and affective) separating the sample by sub-samples taking into account the type of service, and about how the contingency factors interact for the elicitation of the delight state. The study provides an original contribution to deeper understand how customers appraise memorable experiences supporting that cognitive-affective antecedents affect the positive affective state of delight. The study group, for the first time, emotions in an affective dimension independently, beyond of traditional conceptualizations of delight based on basic emotions’s test. As well as, the present thesis contributes to find other variables for delight identification. This is a relevant statement for the sustainability of the tourism industry in future, focusing to increase competitive advances by managing the happiness ideal of customers and customizing services.