Tourist Causal Attribution: Does Loyalty Matter?

Spillover Effects of Status Demotion on Customer Reactions to Loyalty Reward Promotions: The Role of Need for Status and Exclusivity

“…The findings from study 1 provide support for the moderating role of need for status in influencing spillover effects of the cause of demotion on post-demotion promotions and post-promotion loyalty. Congruent with previous research (Breitsohl and Garrod 2016; Choi and Cai 2016; Hwang and Kwon 2016; Lepthien et al 2017; Tsang, Prideaux, and Lee 2016; van Berlo, Bloemer, and Blazevic 2014; Wagner, Hennig-Thurau, and Rudolph 2009), participants low in need for status showed lower levels of loyalty when the demotion was due to policy changes (vs. decreased spending). Negative emotions toward the promotion are the underlying mechanism explaining the adverse effect of policy-based demotions on post-promotion loyalty among low need in status individuals.…”

“…Accordingly, we propose that when the customer’s status is demoted as a result of his or her decreased spending (policy changes), the customer is likely to attribute the cause of demotion to himself or herself (the company). Causal attributions are particularly relevant for negative events in the travel and tourism context (Choi and Cai 2016), including service failures in the airline context (Nikbin et al 2014; Weber and Sparks 2010), unethical tourist behaviors (Breitsohl and Garrod 2016), and perceived unfairness regarding airline auxiliary fees (Chung and Petrick 2013). This stream of travel and tourism literature demonstrates that consumers’ external attributions for negative events tend to decrease satisfaction in the airline (Choi and Cai 2016), destination (Breitsohl and Garrod 2016), and theme park context (Tsang, Prideaux, and Lee 2016).…”

“…Causal attributions are particularly relevant for negative events in the travel and tourism context (Choi and Cai 2016), including service failures in the airline context (Nikbin et al 2014; Weber and Sparks 2010), unethical tourist behaviors (Breitsohl and Garrod 2016), and perceived unfairness regarding airline auxiliary fees (Chung and Petrick 2013). This stream of travel and tourism literature demonstrates that consumers’ external attributions for negative events tend to decrease satisfaction in the airline (Choi and Cai 2016), destination (Breitsohl and Garrod 2016), and theme park context (Tsang, Prideaux, and Lee 2016). Similarly, external attributions for demotion heighten negative emotions (e.g., Wagner, Hennig-Thurau, and Rudolph 2009) and reduce loyalty (e.g., Hwang and Kwon 2016; van Berlo, Bloemer, and Blazevic 2014; Wagner, Hennig-Thurau, and Rudolph 2009).…”

Frontline robots in tourism and hospitality: service enhancement or cost reduction?

“…According to Nijssen et al (2016), customers' dispositional attributions about the service provider motivations to introduce a technology focuses on service enhancement and cost reduction reasons, having positive and negative consequences for the customer-provider relationship respectively. Previous research on hospitality an tourism also indicate that customers own psychological processes (especially when making inferences about the positive and negative aspects of a service) play a central role in the customer-provider relationship (Choi and Cai 2016). Thus, as far as the introduction of a robot represent a disruptive innovation that could be perceived as fulfilling or violating the customer-provider psychological contract, we propose that these attributions lead to customer's behavioral intentions towards the company (Baeshen 2018).…”

“…In addition, as far as service robots represent a disrupting innovation (Belanche et al 2020a), customers may perceive that the firm is altering the established conditions of the service provision, thus leading to customers' psychological attributions (i.e. inferring the service provider reasons for introducing the innovation) and affecting the customer-provider relationship (Choi and Cai 2016;Nijssen et al 2016).…”