Building Customer Loyalty in Rural Destinations as a Pre-Condition of Sustainable Competitiveness

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.