Abstract:The paper is dedicated to the issues of rural tourism with regard to the visitor's loyalty towards the destination in a sustainable development context. Particularly, the findings of the research focused on exploring mutual relations among quality dimensions of the rural destination, overall satisfaction of the visitor, and his or her loyalty towards the destination are presented. A structural model was used to explore the relations among quality dimensions, overall satisfaction, and loyalty in the specific environment of the Czech Republic (inland European country, EU member, until 1989 a socialist country, nearly 93% municipalities with fewer than 3000 inhabitants). The research results allow deeper understanding of the visitor's behavior and the factors influencing the loyalty towards the destination. The significance order of the dimensions according to their direct influence on the required loyalty towards the destination, i.e., coming back to the destination and spreading positive references to the destination, is as follows: 1. well-being, 2. image, 3. services. We conclude that overall satisfaction directly influences loyalty towards the destination.
This paper concerns the topic of rural destination quality from the viewpoint of tourism development. The research exploring crucial quality factors from the viewpoint of demand is presented. Rural tourism participants attribute the highest significance to Destination cleanliness and Sense of security. The evaluation of the importance of most research quality factors is not dependent on gender and on the contrary, the importance of 16 quality factors depends on the visitor´s age. In the case of the factor of "Friendly acceptance by the locals", the most significant influence on the visitor´s return to the destination was confirmed. On the contrary, this impact was not proven for the factor of "Level of prices of services and goods in the destination". The research and the successive factor analysis revealed 6 dimensions representing the rural destination quality: Services, Image, Transportation, Well-being, Information/Communication and Attractions/ Experiences; Well-being was identified as the most important. This was consecutively confirmed by the analysis of the quality factors' impact on the visitor´s overall satisfaction and loyalty to the destination. The research findings provide the theory with topical destination quality dimensions as well as contribute to better understanding of visitor´s behavioural mechanisms in rural areas.Key words: visitor´s perception, quality of destination, rural destination, factors of quality, dimensions of quality, IPA analysis Abstrakt: Tento příspěvek je věnován tématu kvality venkovské destinace z pohledu rozvoje cestovního ruchu. Jsou zde prezentovány výsledky výzkumu zacíleného na identifikování a prozkoumání stěžejních faktorů kvality z pohledu poptávky. Nejvyšší význam účastníci cestovního ruchu na venkově přisuzují faktorům čistoty destinace a bezpečnosti v destinaci. Hodnocení důležitosti většiny zkoumaných faktorů kvality (68 %) není závislé na pohlaví, a naopak význam 16-ti faktorů kvality je závislý na věku respondenta. U faktoru kvality "přátelské přijetí místními obyvateli" byl prokázán nejvyšší vliv na znovu návrat návštěvníka do destinace, naopak tento vliv nebyl prokázán u faktoru "cenová úroveň zboží a služeb v destinaci". Provedený výzkum a následná faktorová analýza odhalila 6 dimenzí reprezentující kvalitu venkovské destinace: služby, image, doprava, pohodlí (well-being), informace/komunikace, atraktivity/zážitky. Při posuzování významu dimenzí pro návštěvníka byla jednoznačně jako nejvýznamnější identifikována dimenze well-being, což bylo následně potvrzeno analýzou vlivu faktorů kvality na celkovou spokojenost návštěvníka v destinaci a jeho loajalitu k destinaci. Výsledky výzkumu rozšiřují teoretická východiska o hlavní dimenze kvality destinace a prohlubují poznatky spotřebitelského chování návštěvníků/účastníků cestovního ruchu ve venkovských oblastech.
This article deals with employee engagement in SMEs when the employee’s years of service are taken into consideration. The aim of the paper is to show if seniority influences engagement and if there are further factors that have major impact on employee engagement. To fulfill the aim quantitative methodology was applied. It is based on the analysis of data that derives from an engagement survey that was conducted in 2017 with 70 SMEs globally that belong to the mechanical engineering industry. The sample consists of 5,078 employees that participated in the engagement survey. The survey was standardized based on the engagement model from Aon Hewitt and consisted of 74 questions. The organizational structure of the different legal entities is similar due to the common industry and types of employees who are mainly Service and Sales representatives. This also leads to a similar HR strategy and allows to compare the results. The data from the engagement survey was analyzed with IBM SPSS software that provided the regression analysis. The results indicate that the construct of employee engagement is complex and there is not only one influencing variable. However, seniority does have an impact. The engagement of recently hired employees is around 27% higher than for employees with higher seniority. Additionally, employees with a high seniority show less interest when it comes to rewards and recognition.
The objective of the paper is to explore possibilities of evaluating the quality of a tourist destination by means of the principal components analysis (PCA) and the cluster analysis. In the paper both types of analysis are compared on the basis of the results they provide. The aim is to identify advantage and limits of both methods and provide methodological suggestion for their further use in the tourism research. The analyses is based on the primary data from the customers’ satisfaction survey with the key quality factors of a destination. As output of the two statistical methods is creation of groups or cluster of quality factors that are similar in terms of respondents’ evaluations, in order to facilitate the evaluation of the quality of tourist destinations. Results shows the possibility to use both tested methods. The paper is elaborated in the frame of wider research project aimed to develop a methodology for the quality evaluation of tourist destinations, especially in the context of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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