A quest for destination loyalty by profiling loyal travelers

Consumer loyalty is one of the most critical marketing constructs and has received ample academic attention. However, despite many studies on consumer loyalty in different fields, including tourism and hospitality, the results on drivers of consumer loyalty are not fully defined. As a complex tourism product, destinations, in particular, pose challenges for understanding what affects loyalty or disloyalty. The current study uses two large data sets to profile consumers of different loyalty levels in order to better understand destination loyalty. Results show that loyal consumers are different from others in socio-demographic, psychographic and behavioral characteristics. Results also show that attitudinal loyalty may be a better indication of loyalty than both future visit likelihood and the number of past visits. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.