A formative model of the relationship between destination quality, tourist satisfaction and intentional loyalty: An empirical test in Vietnam

This study focuses on the relationship between destination quality, tourist satisfaction and loyalty intention. First, the paper investigates if and how the intention of visitors to revisit a tourist destination differs from their intention to recommend the same destination. Second, it explores and tests a formative model describing how the different facets of perceived destination quality influence overall satisfaction, intention to revisit and intention to recommend and whether they do so with the same strength and valence intensity. Finally, this research tests whether a formative model is significantly better at predicting a visitor's satisfaction and loyalty than a general reflective model containing only perceived destination quality. Using structural equation modelling to analyse data obtained from 912 domestic visitors in Vietnam, the results provide support for most hypothesized relationships with both intention to recommend/worth-of-mouth and intention to revisit as the dependent variables. In addition, this paper conceptualizes destination quality as a formative construct consisting of five dimensions. Therefore, this study provides deeper insight into the role of different dimensions of perceived destination quality in increasing tourist satisfaction and loyalty intention, by means of which it can help managers and marketers make more accurate predictions and adopt appropriate strategies to improve tourist loyalty. (C) 2015 The Authors.