A model of perceived value for leisure travel products

ABSTRACTCompared to service quality and satisfaction, perceived value of products is a new concept receiving growing attention from academicians and practitioners (Cronin, Brady & Hult, 2000). Consumers value perceptions have attracted little attention from consumer behavior researchers despite its accepted importance (Holbrook, 1999). Current research is a part of the effort to discover consumers value perceptions for leisure travel product consumption.The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of perceived value for leisure travel products. Previous models of perceived value have been extended and a model of perceived value for leisure travel products has been proposed. The theoretical framework for this study included seven antecedents of perceived value. In addition to previously proposed antecedents, which were perceived monetary price, perceived transaction value, perceived overall satisfaction and perceived overall service quality, three new constructs, novelty, control and hedonics that make up subjective leisure travel experience were tested as possible antecedents of perceived value for leisure travel products.Empirical assessment of the theoretical framework included a mail survey of 392 cruise vacationers who took their most recent cruise vacation within past one year from the survey administration date. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to 1,500 randomly selected cruise vacationers across the US. All the constructs were measured with multiple items preceded by trip characteristics and followed by socio-demographic inquiries. Statistical properties of the constructs were analyzed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The proposed research model was tested with regression in structural equation modeling technique.The results of the study provided overall support for the proposed research model. As hypothesized, results suggested that perceived overall satisfaction mediates the relationship between affective factors and perceived value. The results further suggested that hedonics plays an important role in predicting behavioral intentions of cruise vacationers. The results of the study also provided support for previously developed relationships in the literature with regards to perceived monetary price, perceived transaction value, perceived overall satisfaction and perceived service quality. Two unexpected findings included the significant relationship between perceived monetary price and perceived overall satisfaction, and also an insignificant relationship between perceived monetary price and perceived overall service quality.Study findings suggested that affective factors are significant antecedents to both perceived satisfaction and perceived value in leisure travel product evaluations. Future research is needed to further analyze the role of affective factors on post-consumption evaluations in leisure travel.