The Influence of Involvement upon Customer Satisfaction: A Study in Tourism

Abstract

Available evidence from the literature tells that satisfaction depends upon the consistency between expectations and performance. When product performance is below expectations dissatisfaction is resulted, whereas satisfaction arises when performance equals or exceeds the performance expected. We argue that incorporating tourist's purchase involvement with the tourism product as a moderator in the above relationship can enrich the above model. Through an empirical study we establish that increased purchase involvement increases dissatisfaction in the event of disconfirmation and decreases satisfaction in the event of confirmation. Likewise, decreased purchase involvement decreases dissatisfaction in the event of disconfirmation and increases satisfaction in the event of confirmation.

Keywords: Expectation-disconfirmation, GAP model, Satisfaction, Moderation, and Purchase involvement