Predicting destination choice — A discussion of destination loyalty

Abstract

KEYWORDS: destination choice, destination loyalty, tourism forecastingSuccessfully predicting tourism destination choice by potential travellers would be an invaluable advantage to managers and marketers. This paper reviews the literature on brand loyalty, destination choice and repeat visitation behaviour. Based on this review it argues that previous destination choice over a long time period would provide the necessary information to segment (potential) tourists into loyalty segments which in turn will provide destination marketers with valuable information for more cost-effective target marketing. While this article does not test the predictive value of the loyalty typology, it suggests that there is a close linkage between previous destination purchase history and future purchase behaviour.

The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings

“…Despite this, Oppermann (1999) argues that the evaluation of loyalty to a destination can be misleading due to reasons related to time, space and motivation of subjects. Even when a time horizon is fixed, there might be tourists who used to repeat the vacation in a longer frequency than the one that was fixed.…”

“…This is the case where loyalty coincides with 'habit'. Perhaps an active choice of going to 'that' place there might have been in the first times (Backman and Crompton, 1991a;Beatty and Kahle, 1988;Oppermann, 1999). But often it could be very arguable the fact that satisfaction has remained a main factor.…”

“…In this sense, despite the progress in academic studies, the seminal work of Oppermann (1999) and many of the critical aspects highlighted therein still remain of living importance. In particular, trying to describe loyalty and its determinants, and provide a representative profile of the loyal tourist and her motivations, are not easy tasks.…”

“…Moreover, loyalty to a place can be in contrast with the change of resorts at every holiday (Goodall, 1988). Oppermann's (1999) opinion, trips that do not imply any choice of the destination should not be put into account. This happens for instance with business trips.…”

“…Moreover, the respondent determines the definition of the 'primary destination', which is also related to the specificity of the case study. Oppermann (1999) claims that the definition of such phenomenon requires addressing of four aspects. These concern fixing appropriate time intervals, and putting into account the increasing probability to find repeaters the longer the time investigated, changes in attitudes and their effects on actual behaviour, the possibility that other people than the final user can purchase the product.…”