Visitor Loyalty at a Private South Carolina Protected Area

Abstract

Visitor loyalty is necessary to generate a virtuous cycle of people—park symbiosis, but knowledge about loyalty expectations is insufficient. A survey of 300 repeat visitors to South Carolina’s Francis Beidler Forest, a private protected area, yielded a hierarchical pattern of loyalties, with positive overall place identity attitudes and positive intentions on site referrals, future visits, and engagement in advocacy. However, also evident were ambivalent place dependency attitudes, ambivalent intentions about donating and paying higher entry fees, and unwillingness to volunteer. Cluster analysis yielded exclusive loyalists (23%) preferring Beidler above other sites, nonexclusive loyalists (31%) not preferring the site, referral and repeat loyalists (33%), and ambivalent loyalists (13%) displaying low levels of loyalty uniformly. Attribute satisfaction levels were very high across clusters. Income, education, residency, and birding skill level all significantly differentiated the clusters. Implications for the marketing and product development of such sites are considered.

The Effect of Place Attachment on Pro-environment Behavioral Intentions of Visitors to Coastal Natural Area Tourist Destinations

“…Additionally, managers of these natural areas are more likely to be successful in fulfilling their mandate of environmental sustainability when visitors behave in an environmentally appropriate manner while on-site and when they return home (Weaver and Lawton 2011).…”

A method for testing the effect of management interventions on the satisfaction and loyalty of national park visitors

“…Integral to these opportunities are the experiences sought and obtained by visitors, with satisfaction being used for many years as a measure of the quality of experiences in such areas (Baker & Crompton, 2000;Manning, 20 2011;Newsome et al;Ryan & Cessford, 2003;Tonge & Moore, 2007;Wade & Eagles, 2003). A complementary interest in satisfaction derives from the belief that highly satisfied visitors will be loyal, meaning they will visit again, disseminate positive word-of-mouth recommendations to others, volunteer their time, donate money, and generally advocate for parks (Baker & Crompton;Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2004;Lee, Graefe, & 25 Burns, 2004;Weaver & Lawton, 2011;Zabkar, Brencic, & Dmitrovic, 2010). Loyalty to parks by visitors and the wider community is considered essential in the highly competitive world of public sector funding and park management more generally, where budget cuts and increasingly scarce resources are the norm rather than the exception (Weiler, Moore, & Moyle, 2013).…”

“…Visitor loyalty is a more recent addition to these considerations (Kyle et al, 2004;Moore, Rodger, & Taplin, 2013;Weaver & Lawton, 2011). These efforts can be found in the tourism, recreation, and leisure fields, as well as in marketing and consumer behavior (Tian-Cole & Crompton, 2003).…”

“…The behavioral intentions of visitors to protected areas have been studied in a wildlife refuge in Texas (Tian-Cole et al, 2002), Umpqua National Forest in Oregon (Lee et al, 150 2004;, South Carolina's Francis Beidler Forest (Weaver & Lawton, 2011), with Appalachian Trail users (Kyle et al, 2004), and the Galapagos (Rivera & Croes, 2010). A gradual shift in terminology has taken place, from behavioral intentions (e.g., Tian-Cole et al, 2002) to loyalty (e.g., Lee et al, 2007;Weaver & Lawton, 2011), however, the items deployed to measure these constructs have remained constant for most of this time.…”

“…A gradual shift in terminology has taken place, from behavioral intentions (e.g., Tian-Cole et al, 2002) to loyalty (e.g., Lee et al, 2007;Weaver & Lawton, 2011), however, the items deployed to measure these constructs have remained constant for most of this time.…”