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A service performance model of Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors and satisfaction
Tourism Management 20 (1999) 237 — 244
A service performance model of Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors and satisfaction Hailin Qu *, Elsa Wong Yee Ping Department of Hospitality Management, College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Received 1 February 1998; accepted 1 May 1998
Abstract The objectives of this study were to find the Hong Kong cruise travelers’ profile, motivation factors, and satisfaction level, and to assess the important determinants and the probability of cruise travelers joining cruise travel again. A structured personal interview was conducted and a systematic sampling approach was used to select 330 respondents from five vessels. A service performance model was adopted and descriptive and logistic regression analysis was employed. The results indicated that the major traveling motivation factors were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Travelers reported a high satisfaction level with food and beverage facilities and quality and staff performances. However, they were dissatisfied with the factors of ‘‘Attractiveness, variety and organization of entertainment’’, ‘‘Sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities’’, and ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’. The most important determinants of joining cruise travel again were ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Food and beverage’’ and ‘‘Entertainment’’. 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cruise travel; Hong Kong; Service quality; Motivation; Satisfaction
1. Introduction The worldwide cruise industry has demonstrated a significant trend towards expansion over the past decade. The rise in the number of cruise travelers was equally spectacular — from 1.4 million in 1980 to nearly 4 million in 1990 (an increase of 65%). According to the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), the predominant North American market (about 85% of the worldwide cruise industry) recorded an annual average growth rate of 9.2% between 1980 and 1993. It is estimated that the number of worldwide cruise travelers will increase to 8 million by the year 2000 and that the cruise industry will be worth some US$50 billion over the next five years (Canadian Travel Press, 1994). In the past, the Southeast Asia region has received only minor attention as a cruise destination. However, exotic Southeast Asia is now starting to exert a powerful influ-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: (415) 338-7483; fax: (415) 338-0997; e-mail: [email protected]
ence on the cruise industry for good reasons. Popular with the traveling public and packed with attractive destinations and diverse cultures, the Southeast Asia region provides a concentrated cruise experience. With a growing number of new vessels commissioned by international cruise operators, new ports are in great demand. Many frequent cruisers are also looking for attractive cruising areas and wonderful experiences which they will find in Southeast Asia. Cruising in Asia Pacific will become more regular. Hong Kong has seen a dramatic growth in the cruise industry recently. The number of visitors who either arrived at or departed from Hong Kong to join a cruise voyage increased significantly by 102% from 21,764 in 1992 to 44,051 in 1993. The vast majority of them (92% in 1993 and 80% in 1992) took a fly—cruise package (Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1994). A study in late 1992 showed that 92% of Hong Kong overseas vacationers were interested in a fly—cruise trip and this high potential demand stimulated the establishment of the Hong Kong International Cruise Council (ICC) in November 1993 (Hong Kong News, 1994).
0261-5177/99/$ — see front matter 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 7 3 - 9
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Hong Kong, which is located at the heart of Southeast Asia, is a perfect destination for the cruise market: a dynamic and vibrant city with strong Chinese traditions blended with a colorful Western culture. Hong Kong has become a favorite destination in Southeast Asia with more than 11 million visitors in 1996 (Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1996). In addition, a number of notable attractions are within a couple of days’ sailing time from Hong Kong. To the northeast are the coastal cities of China (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai), Japan and Korea. To the southwest are Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Bali. Hong Kong is also an important aviation hub in Southeast Asia that is served by nearly 50 airlines and these transportation networks facilitate the development of the cruise industry in Hong Kong. With an increased level of affluence and sophistication, Hong Kong people are demanding a better lifestyle and they are ready to consider cruising as one of holiday options. Cruising has been widely recognized as the most rapidly expanding element in the leisure travel arena (PATA, 1995). In terms of cruise ship facility, the unique downtown location (Tsimshatsui) of the Ocean Terminal is very convenient for the worldwide cruise business. It is surrounded by hotels, important transportation services and shopping centers. The Terminal can berth up to four ships at the same time with a berthing length of 1250 ft. Hong Kong is already a port of call on the annual round-the-world cruises of such famous vessels as the Queen Elizabeth II (QE II), Sagafjord, Canberra, Royal Viking Sun and so on. An examination of the schedules of cruise vessels provided by the Hong Kong Tourist Association showed that approximately 60 international vessels were scheduled to call at the Ocean Terminal between November 1995 and October 1996. Almost all research conducted in the cruise market related to western countries and most of it concerned the North American market. The Southeast Asia cruise market has generally been ignored. Hence, a study of the Southeast Asia cruise travel market, travelers’ motivation factors and the service quality of cruise companies is overdue. The Chairman of the Hong Kong International Cruise Council addressed that the growth in cruise passenger will largely depend on the consumer awareness that is tackled (PATA, 1995). Additionally, although some surveys were carried out concerning the number of cruise passengers, no formal research has been conducted concerning the motivation and satisfaction level of Hong Kong cruise travelers. The objectives of this study were to: 1. find out the Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors; 2. identify Hong Kong cruise travelers’ satisfaction level with services provided by the cruise companies;
3. explore the determinants and probability of cruise travelers joining cruise travel again; and, 4. assess the profiles of Hong Kong cruise travelers.
2. Literature review Tourists’ satisfaction level is greatly related to their needs and purposes for travel. Not everyone gets the same satisfaction out of the same tour package, it is important to gain a clear picture of motivation that corresponds to different level of satisfaction. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) carried out a research in 1993 to explore the interest of Hong Kong holiday travelers towards cruising in Pacific-Asia region (Lee, 1993). This study try to find the profile of Hong Kong holiday travelers who are interested in joining a cruise or fly—cruise package, their degree of interest, and their motivations. In this study, six categories of motivation factors were identified ‘‘Self-indulgent’’, ‘‘Cultural relaxation seekers’’, ‘‘Cultural experience seekers’’, ‘‘Beach fun lovers’’, ‘‘Modern enthusiasts’’ and ‘‘Anthropologists’’. Mok and Armstrong (1995) conducted a study of Hong Kong residents’ destination choice criteria. It was found that the top five destination choice criteria were ‘‘Safety’’, ‘‘Scenic beach’’, ‘‘Price of trip’’, ‘‘Service in hotels and restaurants’’, and ‘‘Friendliness of local people’’. Different researchers have different views on the measurement of service quality. Lewis and Booms (1983) claim that the service quality depends on how well the delivery of services matches customer’s expectation. This concept is further elaborated and developed by Zeithaml (1988) who said that service quality is defined as the customer’s judgment of the overall excellence of service. Parasuraman et al. (1985) claimed that service quality is determined by an assessment of how well actual service performance matches customers’ expectations. Identifying and reducing the difference (gap) between expectation and performance is the key to improving customer satisfaction level. According to this study, service quality can be described on the basis of 10 dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, communication, credibility, security, courtesy, competence, understanding customers, and assess. However, attempts to measure the above 10 dimensions revealed that customers often could not distinguish among and the categories overlapped. Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) amended their study to encompass only five dimensions of service quality. These dimensions could be viewed as factors for consumers to consider when evaluating the overall performance of service. These five dimensions of service quality are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
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The weighted importance theory is another measurement of service quality which was supported by Carman (1990) and Lewis and Mitchell (1990). Different weight was given to each factor influencing service quality, so that the expectation—performance gap would not dominated by some less important factors. Bolton and Drew (1991) objected to the weighted importance theory. They also argued that there was little empirical evidence to support the expectation—performance gap as the basis for measuring service quality. Corning and Taylor (1992) highly recommended the performance-based model claiming that it was more effective for measuring service quality than other approaches. They developed another approach called the SER»PERF model which represented the performance-alone measurement for service quality and excluded the customer expectation measurement. According to a study carried out by the World Tourism Organization (1985), the results of provision of good service quality were service value, repurchase intention, and customer satisfaction. First, good service quality increased service value in customers’ minds and led them to think that it is worthwhile to purchase the service. Secondly, good service quality had a significant effect on customers’ repurchase intentions and it is essential to have a high rate of repeat business for a company. The third outcome of good service quality in the study was customer satisfaction, which is a psychological concept based on individual desires and needs. A number of theoretical models were studied and evaluated by Mowen (1995a). The first model introduced is the expectancy disconfirmation model. In this model, the customer compares his/her expectation to actual service performance. If performance is above expectations, emotional satisfaction results. If the opposite situation occurs, emotional dissatisfaction results. However, Mowen said that expectation is influenced by some other factors. First, how the company promoted the service through its advertising and how salesmen might influence customer expectation. Advertising can create expectations that are greater than can possibly be satisfied. Secondly, the other factors influencing expectations of performance involve the customer’s experience with other services of a similar nature. Thirdly, some customers simply expect more service than others, and consequently set higher expectation standards. Another model that predicts the satisfaction/dissatisfaction level that a customer obtains from a service purchase is an equity theory. It holds that people analyze the ratio of their inputs and outcomes to the ratio of the inputs and outcomes of the partner in an exchange. If a customer perceives that his/her ratio is unfavorable in relation to the other members of the exchange, the individual tends to have feelings of inequity. However, it is
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hard to get all the information about inputs and outcomes of customer and the producers. The third model is the actual service performance mode. The main theme of this theory is that service performance influences customer satisfaction independent of the customer’s expectations and matters of equity. A study in 1995 investigated the effects of service performance as well as the impact of attribution, expectations, and equity on satisfaction with a stock market selection (Mowen, 1995a). The results revealed that performance, independent of expectations, influenced satisfaction. In addition, Mowen (1995b) claimed that perceived service performance/quality appears to directly influence consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, particularly when the service is unambiguous and easy to evaluate. The limitations of the expectancy disconfirmation model and the equity theory were noticed and the actual service performance model was adopted in this study. The service quality was measured from the actual service performed in the Hong Kong cruise industry and the results reflect the service performance of cruise liners.
3. Methodology 3.1. Instrument A structured personal interview questionnaire was developed to collect the data. The questionnaire was composed of three main parts. Part one evaluated motivation factors. Eight motivation factors were identified based on the literature reviews of PATA (1993) survey of Hong Kong cruise travelers (Lee, 1993) and Hong Kong residents travel destination choice criteria (Mok & Armstrong, 1995). The eight motivation factors were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Health and exercise’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, ‘‘Social status’’, ‘‘Self-discovery’’, ‘‘Business purpose’’, ‘‘Cultural understanding’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Part two measured satisfaction attributes, based on the literature reviews of travelers’ satisfaction attributes, thirty-one satisfaction attributes were included in the study. The thirdy-one attributes were grouped into five categories: ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Food and beverage’’, ‘‘Entertainment’’, ‘‘Other facilities’’, and ‘‘The staff ’’. At the end of each category, the travelers’ overall satisfaction was measured and at the end of part two the overall satisfaction level on the trip was assessed. A Likert five-point satisfaction rating scale was used to measure cruise travelers’ satisfaction level towards cruise facilities and services (5 — very satisfied, 1 — very dissatisfied). Part three assessed cruise travelers’ demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, monthly income, and household size. In order to assess the probability of repurchase intention, the question of likelihood of joining a cruise trip again was asked. In order to assess the
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probability of likelihood of joining a cruise trip again, a logistic regression was used. The logistic regression is a unique complement to multiple regression in its ability to utilize a binary dependent variable, such as satisfied or not and would like to join again or not. Based on this requirement, the response of the question was coded as ‘‘1’’ — Yes and ‘‘0’’ — No. 3.2. Sampling plan The target population of this study were cruise travelers who were Hong Kong residents and took a cruise trip from one of five vessels outside Hong Kong water during the period of 12—22 January, 1996. The sample size was 350. The five vessels included ‘‘Sun Viking’’, ‘‘Berlin’’, ‘‘Island Princess’’, ‘‘Shin Sakura Maru’’ and ‘‘Mermoz’’. All of them are managed by different international cruise companies. A systematic sampling approach was used to select the samples. The passenger capacity of each cruise ship was collected from the Hong Kong Tourist Association. Due to the competition of each vessel, the occupancy rate of each vessel was not available. The estimated occupancy rate of 70% was used to calculate occupancies in each vessel. The sampling interval of 12 was derived by dividing the total number of estimated cruise travelers by the sample size of 350. Thus, every 12th cruise traveler debarking from the ship was the sample of the study.
4.1. Demographic characteristics As seen in Table 1, the sample of cruise travelers contained an almost equal number of females (52%) and males (49%). The majority of travelers were age 18 to 44 (84%) and very few were under age 18 (2%) or over 55 (5%). Most of the travelers were married (58%), 45% of them married with children and 13% married without children. More than 48% of the travelers had college or university degrees, 61% had a high/middle/vocational or technical school education, and only 7% had only primary school education. More than 51% of the travelers were white-collar, professional, technical, or government workers, 11% were blue-collar workers, about 33% were not in the workforce or were students, and only 4% were self-employed. More than 40% of travelers had monthly household incomes of US$2,560—3,839, and 26% and 24% had incomes of US$1280—2559 and US$3840—5119 respectively, only a few had incomes below US$1280 (7%) and US$5220—6399 (3%), and none of travelers had income over US$6400. More than 84% of the travelers had a household size of 3—6, 14% had a two household, and only 2% had a seven household. 4.2. Motivation factors As shown in Table 2, more than one-third (36.6%) of travelers indicated that ‘‘Escape from normal life’’ was
3.3. Data analysis In this study, there were a total of 38 variables relating to the respondents’ motivation factors and satisfaction levels in relation to Hong Kong cruise traveling. A descriptive statistic of frequency analysis was employed to analyze each variable in the questionnaire and to examine the distribution pattern of the motivation factors and satisfaction levels. The five overall satisfaction measurements were used as independent variables and the ‘‘likelihood of joining cruise trip again’’ was used as a dependent variable in a logistic regression to identify the impacts and relative importance of each overall satisfaction on the probability of joining a cruise trip again in the future.
4. Findings Due to the discrepancies of the projected occupancy rates of the five vessels, 330 structured personal interviews were conducted. The actual number of travelers interviewed from each vessel was: Sun Viking 72, Berlin 50, Island Princess 63, Shin Sakura Maru 55, and Mermoz 90. Among 330 respondents, 15 were English-speaking Hong Kong residents, whereas 315 were local Chinese.
Table 1 The characteristics of Hong Kong cruise travelers (N"330) Sex Male Female Age Under 18 18—24 25—34 35—44 45—54 55# Marital status Single Married with children Married without children Educational level Not educated Primary school Middle school High/vocational/technical school College/university Graduate
% Occupation 49 Self-employed 52 Blue-collar worker White-collar worker % Technical worker 2 Government worker 30 Student 32 Not in workforce 22 10 Monthly household income 5 (HK$) Below $9999 ((US$1280) % $10 000—19 999 42 (US$1280—2559) 45 $20 000—29 999 13 (US$2560—3839) % $30 000—39 999 0 (US$3840—5119) 7 $40 000—49 999 46 (US$5220—6410) $50 000 or over ('US$6410) 15 No. of household member 33 1 Person only 0 2 Persons 3—4 Persons 5—6 Persons 7 Persons or more
% 4 11 40 9 2 11 23 % 7 26 40 24 3 0 % 0 14 50 34 2
H. Qu, E.W.Y. Ping / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 237—244 Table 2 The results of Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors (N"330) Motivation factors
Frequency
Percentage (%)
Escape from normal life Social gathering Beautiful environment and scenery Cultural understanding Social status Business purpose Health and exercise Self-discovery Total
120 87 40 25 23 18 12 5 330
36.4 26.4 12.1 7.6 6.9 5.5 3.6 1.5 100.0
their main motivation for joining the cruise trip. This may well reflect Hong Kong’s fast-paced life and the great pressures of daily life and work. So, more and more people apparently like to join cruise travel for the purpose of relaxation. The second most popular motivation was ‘‘Social gathering’’ (26.5%), followed by ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’ (12.1%). These results showed that ‘Cultural understanding’ (7.6%), ‘‘Social status’’ (6.8%), ‘‘Business purpose’’ (5.3%), and ‘‘Self-discovery’’ (1.5%) were regarded as less important motivation factors for Hong Kong cruise travelers. 4.3. Satisfaction Table 3 listed the mean score of satisfaction for each of 31 variables in five categories. The highest overall satisfaction category was ‘‘Staff performance’’ (4.01), followed by ‘‘Food and beverage’’ (3.96), ‘‘Entertainment’’ (3.82), ‘‘Accommodation’’ (3.76), and ‘‘Other facilities’’ (2.66). The variables with relatively high satisfaction scores (Mean*4.0) were ‘‘Courtesy of staff’’ (4.21), ‘‘Karaoke’’ (4.21), ‘‘Quality of F&B services’’ (4.14), ‘‘Helpfulness of staff’’ (4.07) ‘‘Theater’’ (4.06), ‘‘Quality of F&B’’ (4.05), ‘‘Cleanliness of F&B outlets’’ (4.02), ‘‘Neatness of staff’’ (4.01), ‘‘Variety of F&B’’ (4.00), and ‘‘Conference facilities’’ (4.00). It was found that most of variables in the categories of ‘‘Staff performance’’ (4 out of 5) and ‘‘Food and Beverage’’ (4 out of 6) received satisfaction scores four and higher. Compared with the other variables, ‘‘Shopping facilities’’ (2.55), ‘‘Attractiveness of entertainment’’ (2.65), ‘‘Sport/fitness facilities’’ (3.35), ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’ (3.38), and ‘‘Child care facilities’’ (3.60) received the lowest rating (Mean)3.6). The general results from the travelers’ satisfaction ratings indicated that travelers had a high satisfaction level on the status of food and beverage facilities and quality of products and services offered, and staff performances. However, they were dissatisfied with the other facilities and services such as ‘‘Attractiveness, variety and organ-
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izations of entertainment’’, ‘‘Sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities’’, and ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’. The overall satisfaction of the trip was assessed in the survey. More than 76.5% of travelers were either ‘‘satisfied’’ (62.1%) or ‘‘very satisfied’’ (14.4%) with the whole trip, 23.5% were ‘‘neutral’’, and none of them were ‘‘dissatisfied’’ or ‘‘very dissatisfied’’. The mean score of overall satisfaction was 3.91. It indicated that overall travelers were satisfied by the service quality provided by the cruise companies in Hong Kong. 4.4. Likelihood of joining cruise travel again Of the 330 cruise travelers surveyed, 86% of them indicated that they would like to join the cruise travel again in the future, and only 14% of them said ‘‘No’’. In order to investigate the impact and relative importance of travelers’ satisfaction levels (predictor variables) on the likelihood of joining cruise travel again, a logistic regression analysis was employed based on the results of five overall satisfaction measurements with a dichotomous dependent variable. The dependent variable was the logarithm of the odds that the travelers would join cruise travel again. The dependent variable was then predicted by the independent variables, which were the five satisfaction measurements extracted from the previous analysis. The logistic model for the likelihood of joining cruise travel again is expressed as follows: ln
Ps " b ln X G G 1!Ps
where Ps the probability that the travelers would join cruise travel again, X independent variables, G b estimated parameters, ln natural logarithm. The logistic equation is written as: ln ½"b #b ln X #b ln X #2#b ln X #e where ½
1 — (would like to join cruise travel again), 0 — (would not like to join cruise travel again), X overall satisfaction on accommodation, X overall satisfaction on food and beverage, X overall satisfaction on entertainment, X overall satisfaction on other facilities, X overall satisfaction on staff performance, b coefficient of intercept, b , 2 b estimated parameters, ln natural logarithm, e error term.
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Table 3 The results of satisfaction levels of Hong Kong cruise traveler (N"330) Attributes
VD (%)
D (%)
N (%)
S (%)
VS (%)
Mean (SD)
Accommodation Space Facilities Cleanliness Room services Atmosphere and comfort Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
15 0 0 5 0 0
(5%) (0%) (0%) (2%) (0%) (0%)
62 83 57 80 50 85
(19%) (25%) (17%) (24%) (15%) (26%)
208 238 223 218 240 240
(63%) (72%) (67%) (66%) (73%) (73%)
45 10 50 27 40 5
(14%) (3%) (15%) (8%) (12%) (2%)
3.86 3.78 3.98 3.81 3.97 3.76
(0.70) (0.48) (0.51) (0.59) (0.52) (0.46)
Food and Beverage Variety Quality of F&B Quality of services Seating space Atmosphere and comfort Cleanliness Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 0 0 40 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (12%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
83 67 32 130 80 55 67
(25%) (21%) (10%) (40%) (24%) (17%) (21%)
165 180 218 155 218 214 210
(50%) (55%) (66%) (47%) (66%) (65%) (64%)
82 82 80 5 32 60 52
(25%) (25%) (24%) (2%) (10%) (18%) (16%)
4.00 4.05 4.14 3.38 3.86 4.02 3.96
(0.71) (0.68) (0.57) (0.72) (0.57) (0.59) (0.60)
Entertainment Variety Attractiveness Organization Karaoke Theater Gambling Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 170 7 0 0 0 0
(0%) (52%) (2%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
100 110 120 27 55 67 75
(30%) (33%) (36%) (8%) (17%) (21%) (23%)
210 45 196 205 200 208 240
(64%) (14%) (59%) (62%) (61%) (63%) (73%)
20 5 7 98 75 55 15
(6%) (2%) (2%) (30%) (23%) (17%) (5%)
3.76 2.65 3.62 4.21 4.06 3.96 3.82
(0.55) (0.59) (0.56) (0.58) (0.62) (0.61) (0.49)
0 30 0 0 0
(0%) (9%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
37 148 0 0 195
(11%) (45%) (0%) (0%) (59%)
163 92 0 132 52
(49%) (28%) (0%) (40%) (16%)
108 60 330 198 83
(33%) (18%) (100%) (60%) (25%)
22 0 0 0 0
(7%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
3.35 2.55 4.00 3.60 2.66
(0.77) (0.87) (0.48) (0.49) (0.49)
Staff Courtesy Neatness Communication Helpfulness Problem handling skill Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
20 60 92 57 67 55
(6%) (18%) (28%) (17%) (21%) (17%)
223 208 176 193 206 218
(67%) (63%) (53%) (58%) (62%) (66%)
87 62 62 80 57 57
(27%) (19%) (19%) (24%) (17%) (17%)
4.21 4.01 3.91 4.07 3.97 4.01
(0.53) (0.61) (0.68) (0.64) (0.62) (0.59)
Overall satisfaction
0 (0%)
Other facilities Sport/fitness facilities Shopping facilities Conference facilities Child care center Overall satisfaction
0 (0%)
78 (24%)
205 (62%)
47 (14%)
3.91 (0.46)
VD — very dissatisfied; D — dissatisfied; N — neutral; S — satisfied; VS — very satisfied. Percentages and standard deviations are in parentheses.
The results of the logistic regression are shown in Table 4. The Chi-square of the model is 39.57 at an observed significance level P)0.0001, which indicates that the model was significant overall. The constant term for the model is !17.5213 (P)0.0001). The coefficients of the five independent variables are b 2.6122 (sig.)0.0001), b 1.1855 (sig.)0.0542), b 1.5667 (sig.) 0.0123), b 1.3133 (sig.)0.2518), and b 0.6352 (sig.)0.4254). Among five variables examined in the model, only three variables X ‘‘Accommodation’’, X ‘‘Food and Beverage’’, and X ‘‘Entertainment’’ re mained in the equation with P)0.05. Given the coefficients of these three significant independent variables, the logistic regression equation for the
likelihood of joining cruise travel again was written as ln ½"!17.5213#2.6122X #1.1855X #1.5667X This is usually interpreted as meaning that one-unit increase in the overall satisfaction on the cruise accommodation, with the independent variables (X and X ) remained unchanged, the log odds of the dependent variable ‘‘the likelihood of joining cruise travel again’’ would be increased by 2.6122. The same interpretation could be applied to the independent variables X and X . There fore, the logistic coefficients could be identified as the separate impact of each of the three predictors that influence travelers’ likelihood of a joining cruise trip
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Table 4 Results of logistic regression — likelihood of joining cruise trip again !2 Log likelihood Goodness of fit Model chi-square Improvement »ariables in the equation Variable X , Accommodation X , Food and beverage X , Entertainment Constant »ariables not in the equation Variable X , Other facilities X , Staff performance
65.286 152.932 Chi-square 39.572 !1.331 B 2.6122 1.1855 1.5667 !17.5213 Score 1.3033 0.6352
df 3 1
Significance 0.0000 0.0014
S.E. 0.6730 0.6246 0.6257 4.0023
Wald 15.0673 3.6023 6.6269 19.1650
df 1 1 1
df 1 1
Sig. 0.2518 0.4254
R 0.0000 0.0000
again. The larger the coefficient, the more the factor contributed to explaining the probability of repurchase intention. The results indicated that the most influential component of the probability of re-joining the cruise travel was variable X ‘‘Accommodation’’, (b "2.6122) and followed by X ‘‘Entertainment’’ (b "1.5667) and X ‘‘Food and Beverage’’ (b "1.1855). The estimated probability of joining the cruise trip again could be calculated from the model by using the following formula: 1 Estimated prob." 1#e\ where Z"!17.5213#2.6122X #1.1855X #1.5667X . If travelers’ ratings on variables X , X and X were ‘‘4’’ (Satisfied), the estimated probability of joining the cruise travel again is 0.9808. By increasing the value of satisfaction by one unit to ‘‘5’’ (Very satisfied), the odds changed from 0.9809 to 0.9999. That is, they increased by a factor of about 1.02. If travelers’ ratings on X , X and X were ‘‘1’’ (Very dissatisfied), the estimated probability of joining the cruise traveling again is 0.0000.
5. Conclusions As the worldwide cruise industry demonstrated an important trend of expansion over the past decade, the Hong Kong cruise market has great potential for growth and development in the future. Motivation, service quality and customer satisfaction are essential to marketers and cruise companies. This in-depth study provides valuable information on motivation factors and satisfaction levels of Hong Kong cruise travelers. It provides greater insight into the up keep and improvement of the service
Sig. 0.0001 0.0542 0.0123 0.0000
R 0.3530 0.1236 0.2018
Exp(B) 13.6289 3.2725 4.7908
quality and the enhancement of customer satisfaction. More importantly, cruise companies and travel agents can make better use of the information to successfully promote their cruise packages, develop the vast untapped cruises, and gain competitiveness in the market. It was found that the majority of Hong Kong cruise travelers were white-collar or not in the workforce, from 18 to 45 years old with an annual income from US$15,000 to US$62,000. Most of them were single or married with children with the educational level of middle school or higher. This group of people usually had the financial ability, energy and interests to explore the new type of vocations. Geographic limitations and the fast pace and stressful life style in Hong Kong motivated people to explore a new venture. The study identified the fact that the major traveling motivation factors of Hong Kong cruise travelers were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Most Hong Kong cruise travelers were satisfied with the cruise services provided. However, there was some room for improvements such as re-designing seating arrangements in the dining room, providing well organized and attractive entertainment programs, and improving the sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities. Based on the results of the logistic regression analysis, the most significant variables in determining the likelihood of joining a cruise trip again were ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Entertainment’’ and ‘‘Food and beverage’’. Some significant implications resulted from this study. First, cruise companies should design different and attractive entertainment programs and activities suitable for different age groups, including children. Secondly, cruise companies could further improve the sport/fitness programs, shopping and child care facilities, and seating space in F&B outlets. These areas received relatively low customer satisfaction scores. Thirdly, there is great
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potential for the growth of the Hong Kong cruise industry because over 86% of the respondents showed their interest in repeat cruising. Fourthly, the cruise companies should understand and be aware of the underlying reasons people take a cruise journey. Thus, cruise companies can launch effective marketing campaigns that are developed based on customers’ motivations. Fifthly, the cruise companies and travel agents should target the local Chinese market. The promotion and advertising materials should be printed in Chinese or both Chinese and English. It was found that most respondents surveyed are local Chinese and the potential is in the local market. Finally, the cruise companies and travel agents should work closely to create opportunities to family with the cruise products and make a joint effort of promotion. The greatest challenge facing cruise industry is getting travel agents to know/understand the different cruise products (Mowen, 1995b). Furthermore, the findings of the study are essential in providing a greater insight into maintaining and improving services quality and enhancing customer satisfaction. More importantly, cruise companies and tourism-related organizations such as Hong Kong Tourist Association, International Cruise Council (ICC), airlines and travel agents, will have a better understanding of how to promote their cruise or fly-cruise packages and how to further develop the Hong Kong cruise market. Cruise companies can make the cruise more user friendly to Hong Kong cruise travelers and promote the notion of cruising as part of a land/sea tour to the long haul market: the US, Europe and Australia. More and more Hong Kong residents choose cruise vacations although this is a relatively new travel concept. They have either started their first cruise journey or intend to join the cruise trip again. The Hong Kong cruise market has great potential for growth in the future. However, it should be noted that when Hong Kong cruise travelers gain more experiences in cruising, the expectations of service quality may increase.
6. Limitations It should be conceded that there were two major limitations in this study. The sample size of 330 was
relatively small. It might have limited the representation of the findings for the target population. Secondly, the survey was only conducted on five vessels in the month of January. The results could be different, if the survey were to be conducted on other vessels or conducted on the five vessels in different seasons. References Bolton, R. N., & Drew, J. H. (1991). A multistage model of customers’ assessments of service quality and value. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(4), 375—384. Canadian Travel Press. (1994). Consumer interest in cruising continues to grow, CLIA report says. Canadian ¹ravel Press, 27(4), 22. Carman, J. M. (1990). Consumer perceptions of service quality: an assessment of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66(1), 33—55. Corning, J., & Taylor, S. (1992). Measuring service quality: A re-examination and extension. Journal of Marketing, 56, 55—68. Hong Kong Tourist Association. (1994). ¹he cruise industry — background. Hong Kong Tourist Association. Hong Kong News. (1994). Cruise line begins services to Hong Kong. Hong Kong News, June. Hong Kong Tourist Association. (1996). A statistics review of tourism. 1996. Hong Kong Tourist Association. Lee, A. (1993). Nature of markets: Hong Kong. Third PATA Asia Business Forum. Pacific Asia Travel Association, 6 July, 28—30. Lewis, R. C., & Booms, B. H. (1983). The marketing aspects of service quality. In L. Berry, G. Shostack & G. Upah (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on services marketing (pp. 99—107). Chicago: American Marketing Association. Lewis, B. R., & Mitchell, V. W. (1990). Defining and measuring the quality of customer service. Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 8(6), 11—17. Mok, C., & Armstrong, R. (1995). Leisure travel destination choice criteria of Hong Kong residents. Journal of ¹ravel & ¹ourism Marketing, 4(1), 99—104. Mowen, J. (1995a). Consumer Behavior. USA: Prentice-Hall. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implication for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49, 41—50. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 64(1), 12—40. PATA (1995a). Cruises: Hooking the Asian dollar. PA¹A ¹ravel News, 6—9 February. PATA (1995b). Bold step pays off. PA¹A ¹ravel News, 12 February, 1995. WTO (1985). Report of the Secretary-General on the General Program of ¼ork for the Period 1984—1985. France: World Tourism Organization. Zeithaml, V. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality and value. Journal of Marketing, 52, 28—32.
A service performance model of Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors and satisfaction Hailin Qu *, Elsa Wong Yee Ping Department of Hospitality Management, College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Received 1 February 1998; accepted 1 May 1998
Abstract The objectives of this study were to find the Hong Kong cruise travelers’ profile, motivation factors, and satisfaction level, and to assess the important determinants and the probability of cruise travelers joining cruise travel again. A structured personal interview was conducted and a systematic sampling approach was used to select 330 respondents from five vessels. A service performance model was adopted and descriptive and logistic regression analysis was employed. The results indicated that the major traveling motivation factors were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Travelers reported a high satisfaction level with food and beverage facilities and quality and staff performances. However, they were dissatisfied with the factors of ‘‘Attractiveness, variety and organization of entertainment’’, ‘‘Sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities’’, and ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’. The most important determinants of joining cruise travel again were ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Food and beverage’’ and ‘‘Entertainment’’. 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cruise travel; Hong Kong; Service quality; Motivation; Satisfaction
1. Introduction The worldwide cruise industry has demonstrated a significant trend towards expansion over the past decade. The rise in the number of cruise travelers was equally spectacular — from 1.4 million in 1980 to nearly 4 million in 1990 (an increase of 65%). According to the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), the predominant North American market (about 85% of the worldwide cruise industry) recorded an annual average growth rate of 9.2% between 1980 and 1993. It is estimated that the number of worldwide cruise travelers will increase to 8 million by the year 2000 and that the cruise industry will be worth some US$50 billion over the next five years (Canadian Travel Press, 1994). In the past, the Southeast Asia region has received only minor attention as a cruise destination. However, exotic Southeast Asia is now starting to exert a powerful influ-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: (415) 338-7483; fax: (415) 338-0997; e-mail: [email protected]
ence on the cruise industry for good reasons. Popular with the traveling public and packed with attractive destinations and diverse cultures, the Southeast Asia region provides a concentrated cruise experience. With a growing number of new vessels commissioned by international cruise operators, new ports are in great demand. Many frequent cruisers are also looking for attractive cruising areas and wonderful experiences which they will find in Southeast Asia. Cruising in Asia Pacific will become more regular. Hong Kong has seen a dramatic growth in the cruise industry recently. The number of visitors who either arrived at or departed from Hong Kong to join a cruise voyage increased significantly by 102% from 21,764 in 1992 to 44,051 in 1993. The vast majority of them (92% in 1993 and 80% in 1992) took a fly—cruise package (Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1994). A study in late 1992 showed that 92% of Hong Kong overseas vacationers were interested in a fly—cruise trip and this high potential demand stimulated the establishment of the Hong Kong International Cruise Council (ICC) in November 1993 (Hong Kong News, 1994).
0261-5177/99/$ — see front matter 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 7 3 - 9
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Hong Kong, which is located at the heart of Southeast Asia, is a perfect destination for the cruise market: a dynamic and vibrant city with strong Chinese traditions blended with a colorful Western culture. Hong Kong has become a favorite destination in Southeast Asia with more than 11 million visitors in 1996 (Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1996). In addition, a number of notable attractions are within a couple of days’ sailing time from Hong Kong. To the northeast are the coastal cities of China (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai), Japan and Korea. To the southwest are Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Bali. Hong Kong is also an important aviation hub in Southeast Asia that is served by nearly 50 airlines and these transportation networks facilitate the development of the cruise industry in Hong Kong. With an increased level of affluence and sophistication, Hong Kong people are demanding a better lifestyle and they are ready to consider cruising as one of holiday options. Cruising has been widely recognized as the most rapidly expanding element in the leisure travel arena (PATA, 1995). In terms of cruise ship facility, the unique downtown location (Tsimshatsui) of the Ocean Terminal is very convenient for the worldwide cruise business. It is surrounded by hotels, important transportation services and shopping centers. The Terminal can berth up to four ships at the same time with a berthing length of 1250 ft. Hong Kong is already a port of call on the annual round-the-world cruises of such famous vessels as the Queen Elizabeth II (QE II), Sagafjord, Canberra, Royal Viking Sun and so on. An examination of the schedules of cruise vessels provided by the Hong Kong Tourist Association showed that approximately 60 international vessels were scheduled to call at the Ocean Terminal between November 1995 and October 1996. Almost all research conducted in the cruise market related to western countries and most of it concerned the North American market. The Southeast Asia cruise market has generally been ignored. Hence, a study of the Southeast Asia cruise travel market, travelers’ motivation factors and the service quality of cruise companies is overdue. The Chairman of the Hong Kong International Cruise Council addressed that the growth in cruise passenger will largely depend on the consumer awareness that is tackled (PATA, 1995). Additionally, although some surveys were carried out concerning the number of cruise passengers, no formal research has been conducted concerning the motivation and satisfaction level of Hong Kong cruise travelers. The objectives of this study were to: 1. find out the Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors; 2. identify Hong Kong cruise travelers’ satisfaction level with services provided by the cruise companies;
3. explore the determinants and probability of cruise travelers joining cruise travel again; and, 4. assess the profiles of Hong Kong cruise travelers.
2. Literature review Tourists’ satisfaction level is greatly related to their needs and purposes for travel. Not everyone gets the same satisfaction out of the same tour package, it is important to gain a clear picture of motivation that corresponds to different level of satisfaction. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) carried out a research in 1993 to explore the interest of Hong Kong holiday travelers towards cruising in Pacific-Asia region (Lee, 1993). This study try to find the profile of Hong Kong holiday travelers who are interested in joining a cruise or fly—cruise package, their degree of interest, and their motivations. In this study, six categories of motivation factors were identified ‘‘Self-indulgent’’, ‘‘Cultural relaxation seekers’’, ‘‘Cultural experience seekers’’, ‘‘Beach fun lovers’’, ‘‘Modern enthusiasts’’ and ‘‘Anthropologists’’. Mok and Armstrong (1995) conducted a study of Hong Kong residents’ destination choice criteria. It was found that the top five destination choice criteria were ‘‘Safety’’, ‘‘Scenic beach’’, ‘‘Price of trip’’, ‘‘Service in hotels and restaurants’’, and ‘‘Friendliness of local people’’. Different researchers have different views on the measurement of service quality. Lewis and Booms (1983) claim that the service quality depends on how well the delivery of services matches customer’s expectation. This concept is further elaborated and developed by Zeithaml (1988) who said that service quality is defined as the customer’s judgment of the overall excellence of service. Parasuraman et al. (1985) claimed that service quality is determined by an assessment of how well actual service performance matches customers’ expectations. Identifying and reducing the difference (gap) between expectation and performance is the key to improving customer satisfaction level. According to this study, service quality can be described on the basis of 10 dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, communication, credibility, security, courtesy, competence, understanding customers, and assess. However, attempts to measure the above 10 dimensions revealed that customers often could not distinguish among and the categories overlapped. Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) amended their study to encompass only five dimensions of service quality. These dimensions could be viewed as factors for consumers to consider when evaluating the overall performance of service. These five dimensions of service quality are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
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The weighted importance theory is another measurement of service quality which was supported by Carman (1990) and Lewis and Mitchell (1990). Different weight was given to each factor influencing service quality, so that the expectation—performance gap would not dominated by some less important factors. Bolton and Drew (1991) objected to the weighted importance theory. They also argued that there was little empirical evidence to support the expectation—performance gap as the basis for measuring service quality. Corning and Taylor (1992) highly recommended the performance-based model claiming that it was more effective for measuring service quality than other approaches. They developed another approach called the SER»PERF model which represented the performance-alone measurement for service quality and excluded the customer expectation measurement. According to a study carried out by the World Tourism Organization (1985), the results of provision of good service quality were service value, repurchase intention, and customer satisfaction. First, good service quality increased service value in customers’ minds and led them to think that it is worthwhile to purchase the service. Secondly, good service quality had a significant effect on customers’ repurchase intentions and it is essential to have a high rate of repeat business for a company. The third outcome of good service quality in the study was customer satisfaction, which is a psychological concept based on individual desires and needs. A number of theoretical models were studied and evaluated by Mowen (1995a). The first model introduced is the expectancy disconfirmation model. In this model, the customer compares his/her expectation to actual service performance. If performance is above expectations, emotional satisfaction results. If the opposite situation occurs, emotional dissatisfaction results. However, Mowen said that expectation is influenced by some other factors. First, how the company promoted the service through its advertising and how salesmen might influence customer expectation. Advertising can create expectations that are greater than can possibly be satisfied. Secondly, the other factors influencing expectations of performance involve the customer’s experience with other services of a similar nature. Thirdly, some customers simply expect more service than others, and consequently set higher expectation standards. Another model that predicts the satisfaction/dissatisfaction level that a customer obtains from a service purchase is an equity theory. It holds that people analyze the ratio of their inputs and outcomes to the ratio of the inputs and outcomes of the partner in an exchange. If a customer perceives that his/her ratio is unfavorable in relation to the other members of the exchange, the individual tends to have feelings of inequity. However, it is
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hard to get all the information about inputs and outcomes of customer and the producers. The third model is the actual service performance mode. The main theme of this theory is that service performance influences customer satisfaction independent of the customer’s expectations and matters of equity. A study in 1995 investigated the effects of service performance as well as the impact of attribution, expectations, and equity on satisfaction with a stock market selection (Mowen, 1995a). The results revealed that performance, independent of expectations, influenced satisfaction. In addition, Mowen (1995b) claimed that perceived service performance/quality appears to directly influence consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, particularly when the service is unambiguous and easy to evaluate. The limitations of the expectancy disconfirmation model and the equity theory were noticed and the actual service performance model was adopted in this study. The service quality was measured from the actual service performed in the Hong Kong cruise industry and the results reflect the service performance of cruise liners.
3. Methodology 3.1. Instrument A structured personal interview questionnaire was developed to collect the data. The questionnaire was composed of three main parts. Part one evaluated motivation factors. Eight motivation factors were identified based on the literature reviews of PATA (1993) survey of Hong Kong cruise travelers (Lee, 1993) and Hong Kong residents travel destination choice criteria (Mok & Armstrong, 1995). The eight motivation factors were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Health and exercise’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, ‘‘Social status’’, ‘‘Self-discovery’’, ‘‘Business purpose’’, ‘‘Cultural understanding’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Part two measured satisfaction attributes, based on the literature reviews of travelers’ satisfaction attributes, thirty-one satisfaction attributes were included in the study. The thirdy-one attributes were grouped into five categories: ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Food and beverage’’, ‘‘Entertainment’’, ‘‘Other facilities’’, and ‘‘The staff ’’. At the end of each category, the travelers’ overall satisfaction was measured and at the end of part two the overall satisfaction level on the trip was assessed. A Likert five-point satisfaction rating scale was used to measure cruise travelers’ satisfaction level towards cruise facilities and services (5 — very satisfied, 1 — very dissatisfied). Part three assessed cruise travelers’ demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, monthly income, and household size. In order to assess the probability of repurchase intention, the question of likelihood of joining a cruise trip again was asked. In order to assess the
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probability of likelihood of joining a cruise trip again, a logistic regression was used. The logistic regression is a unique complement to multiple regression in its ability to utilize a binary dependent variable, such as satisfied or not and would like to join again or not. Based on this requirement, the response of the question was coded as ‘‘1’’ — Yes and ‘‘0’’ — No. 3.2. Sampling plan The target population of this study were cruise travelers who were Hong Kong residents and took a cruise trip from one of five vessels outside Hong Kong water during the period of 12—22 January, 1996. The sample size was 350. The five vessels included ‘‘Sun Viking’’, ‘‘Berlin’’, ‘‘Island Princess’’, ‘‘Shin Sakura Maru’’ and ‘‘Mermoz’’. All of them are managed by different international cruise companies. A systematic sampling approach was used to select the samples. The passenger capacity of each cruise ship was collected from the Hong Kong Tourist Association. Due to the competition of each vessel, the occupancy rate of each vessel was not available. The estimated occupancy rate of 70% was used to calculate occupancies in each vessel. The sampling interval of 12 was derived by dividing the total number of estimated cruise travelers by the sample size of 350. Thus, every 12th cruise traveler debarking from the ship was the sample of the study.
4.1. Demographic characteristics As seen in Table 1, the sample of cruise travelers contained an almost equal number of females (52%) and males (49%). The majority of travelers were age 18 to 44 (84%) and very few were under age 18 (2%) or over 55 (5%). Most of the travelers were married (58%), 45% of them married with children and 13% married without children. More than 48% of the travelers had college or university degrees, 61% had a high/middle/vocational or technical school education, and only 7% had only primary school education. More than 51% of the travelers were white-collar, professional, technical, or government workers, 11% were blue-collar workers, about 33% were not in the workforce or were students, and only 4% were self-employed. More than 40% of travelers had monthly household incomes of US$2,560—3,839, and 26% and 24% had incomes of US$1280—2559 and US$3840—5119 respectively, only a few had incomes below US$1280 (7%) and US$5220—6399 (3%), and none of travelers had income over US$6400. More than 84% of the travelers had a household size of 3—6, 14% had a two household, and only 2% had a seven household. 4.2. Motivation factors As shown in Table 2, more than one-third (36.6%) of travelers indicated that ‘‘Escape from normal life’’ was
3.3. Data analysis In this study, there were a total of 38 variables relating to the respondents’ motivation factors and satisfaction levels in relation to Hong Kong cruise traveling. A descriptive statistic of frequency analysis was employed to analyze each variable in the questionnaire and to examine the distribution pattern of the motivation factors and satisfaction levels. The five overall satisfaction measurements were used as independent variables and the ‘‘likelihood of joining cruise trip again’’ was used as a dependent variable in a logistic regression to identify the impacts and relative importance of each overall satisfaction on the probability of joining a cruise trip again in the future.
4. Findings Due to the discrepancies of the projected occupancy rates of the five vessels, 330 structured personal interviews were conducted. The actual number of travelers interviewed from each vessel was: Sun Viking 72, Berlin 50, Island Princess 63, Shin Sakura Maru 55, and Mermoz 90. Among 330 respondents, 15 were English-speaking Hong Kong residents, whereas 315 were local Chinese.
Table 1 The characteristics of Hong Kong cruise travelers (N"330) Sex Male Female Age Under 18 18—24 25—34 35—44 45—54 55# Marital status Single Married with children Married without children Educational level Not educated Primary school Middle school High/vocational/technical school College/university Graduate
% Occupation 49 Self-employed 52 Blue-collar worker White-collar worker % Technical worker 2 Government worker 30 Student 32 Not in workforce 22 10 Monthly household income 5 (HK$) Below $9999 ((US$1280) % $10 000—19 999 42 (US$1280—2559) 45 $20 000—29 999 13 (US$2560—3839) % $30 000—39 999 0 (US$3840—5119) 7 $40 000—49 999 46 (US$5220—6410) $50 000 or over ('US$6410) 15 No. of household member 33 1 Person only 0 2 Persons 3—4 Persons 5—6 Persons 7 Persons or more
% 4 11 40 9 2 11 23 % 7 26 40 24 3 0 % 0 14 50 34 2
H. Qu, E.W.Y. Ping / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 237—244 Table 2 The results of Hong Kong cruise travelers’ motivation factors (N"330) Motivation factors
Frequency
Percentage (%)
Escape from normal life Social gathering Beautiful environment and scenery Cultural understanding Social status Business purpose Health and exercise Self-discovery Total
120 87 40 25 23 18 12 5 330
36.4 26.4 12.1 7.6 6.9 5.5 3.6 1.5 100.0
their main motivation for joining the cruise trip. This may well reflect Hong Kong’s fast-paced life and the great pressures of daily life and work. So, more and more people apparently like to join cruise travel for the purpose of relaxation. The second most popular motivation was ‘‘Social gathering’’ (26.5%), followed by ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’ (12.1%). These results showed that ‘Cultural understanding’ (7.6%), ‘‘Social status’’ (6.8%), ‘‘Business purpose’’ (5.3%), and ‘‘Self-discovery’’ (1.5%) were regarded as less important motivation factors for Hong Kong cruise travelers. 4.3. Satisfaction Table 3 listed the mean score of satisfaction for each of 31 variables in five categories. The highest overall satisfaction category was ‘‘Staff performance’’ (4.01), followed by ‘‘Food and beverage’’ (3.96), ‘‘Entertainment’’ (3.82), ‘‘Accommodation’’ (3.76), and ‘‘Other facilities’’ (2.66). The variables with relatively high satisfaction scores (Mean*4.0) were ‘‘Courtesy of staff’’ (4.21), ‘‘Karaoke’’ (4.21), ‘‘Quality of F&B services’’ (4.14), ‘‘Helpfulness of staff’’ (4.07) ‘‘Theater’’ (4.06), ‘‘Quality of F&B’’ (4.05), ‘‘Cleanliness of F&B outlets’’ (4.02), ‘‘Neatness of staff’’ (4.01), ‘‘Variety of F&B’’ (4.00), and ‘‘Conference facilities’’ (4.00). It was found that most of variables in the categories of ‘‘Staff performance’’ (4 out of 5) and ‘‘Food and Beverage’’ (4 out of 6) received satisfaction scores four and higher. Compared with the other variables, ‘‘Shopping facilities’’ (2.55), ‘‘Attractiveness of entertainment’’ (2.65), ‘‘Sport/fitness facilities’’ (3.35), ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’ (3.38), and ‘‘Child care facilities’’ (3.60) received the lowest rating (Mean)3.6). The general results from the travelers’ satisfaction ratings indicated that travelers had a high satisfaction level on the status of food and beverage facilities and quality of products and services offered, and staff performances. However, they were dissatisfied with the other facilities and services such as ‘‘Attractiveness, variety and organ-
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izations of entertainment’’, ‘‘Sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities’’, and ‘‘Seating space in F&B outlets’’. The overall satisfaction of the trip was assessed in the survey. More than 76.5% of travelers were either ‘‘satisfied’’ (62.1%) or ‘‘very satisfied’’ (14.4%) with the whole trip, 23.5% were ‘‘neutral’’, and none of them were ‘‘dissatisfied’’ or ‘‘very dissatisfied’’. The mean score of overall satisfaction was 3.91. It indicated that overall travelers were satisfied by the service quality provided by the cruise companies in Hong Kong. 4.4. Likelihood of joining cruise travel again Of the 330 cruise travelers surveyed, 86% of them indicated that they would like to join the cruise travel again in the future, and only 14% of them said ‘‘No’’. In order to investigate the impact and relative importance of travelers’ satisfaction levels (predictor variables) on the likelihood of joining cruise travel again, a logistic regression analysis was employed based on the results of five overall satisfaction measurements with a dichotomous dependent variable. The dependent variable was the logarithm of the odds that the travelers would join cruise travel again. The dependent variable was then predicted by the independent variables, which were the five satisfaction measurements extracted from the previous analysis. The logistic model for the likelihood of joining cruise travel again is expressed as follows: ln
Ps " b ln X G G 1!Ps
where Ps the probability that the travelers would join cruise travel again, X independent variables, G b estimated parameters, ln natural logarithm. The logistic equation is written as: ln ½"b #b ln X #b ln X #2#b ln X #e where ½
1 — (would like to join cruise travel again), 0 — (would not like to join cruise travel again), X overall satisfaction on accommodation, X overall satisfaction on food and beverage, X overall satisfaction on entertainment, X overall satisfaction on other facilities, X overall satisfaction on staff performance, b coefficient of intercept, b , 2 b estimated parameters, ln natural logarithm, e error term.
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Table 3 The results of satisfaction levels of Hong Kong cruise traveler (N"330) Attributes
VD (%)
D (%)
N (%)
S (%)
VS (%)
Mean (SD)
Accommodation Space Facilities Cleanliness Room services Atmosphere and comfort Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
15 0 0 5 0 0
(5%) (0%) (0%) (2%) (0%) (0%)
62 83 57 80 50 85
(19%) (25%) (17%) (24%) (15%) (26%)
208 238 223 218 240 240
(63%) (72%) (67%) (66%) (73%) (73%)
45 10 50 27 40 5
(14%) (3%) (15%) (8%) (12%) (2%)
3.86 3.78 3.98 3.81 3.97 3.76
(0.70) (0.48) (0.51) (0.59) (0.52) (0.46)
Food and Beverage Variety Quality of F&B Quality of services Seating space Atmosphere and comfort Cleanliness Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 0 0 40 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (12%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
83 67 32 130 80 55 67
(25%) (21%) (10%) (40%) (24%) (17%) (21%)
165 180 218 155 218 214 210
(50%) (55%) (66%) (47%) (66%) (65%) (64%)
82 82 80 5 32 60 52
(25%) (25%) (24%) (2%) (10%) (18%) (16%)
4.00 4.05 4.14 3.38 3.86 4.02 3.96
(0.71) (0.68) (0.57) (0.72) (0.57) (0.59) (0.60)
Entertainment Variety Attractiveness Organization Karaoke Theater Gambling Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 170 7 0 0 0 0
(0%) (52%) (2%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
100 110 120 27 55 67 75
(30%) (33%) (36%) (8%) (17%) (21%) (23%)
210 45 196 205 200 208 240
(64%) (14%) (59%) (62%) (61%) (63%) (73%)
20 5 7 98 75 55 15
(6%) (2%) (2%) (30%) (23%) (17%) (5%)
3.76 2.65 3.62 4.21 4.06 3.96 3.82
(0.55) (0.59) (0.56) (0.58) (0.62) (0.61) (0.49)
0 30 0 0 0
(0%) (9%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
37 148 0 0 195
(11%) (45%) (0%) (0%) (59%)
163 92 0 132 52
(49%) (28%) (0%) (40%) (16%)
108 60 330 198 83
(33%) (18%) (100%) (60%) (25%)
22 0 0 0 0
(7%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
3.35 2.55 4.00 3.60 2.66
(0.77) (0.87) (0.48) (0.49) (0.49)
Staff Courtesy Neatness Communication Helpfulness Problem handling skill Overall satisfaction
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
0 0 0 0 0 0
(0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
20 60 92 57 67 55
(6%) (18%) (28%) (17%) (21%) (17%)
223 208 176 193 206 218
(67%) (63%) (53%) (58%) (62%) (66%)
87 62 62 80 57 57
(27%) (19%) (19%) (24%) (17%) (17%)
4.21 4.01 3.91 4.07 3.97 4.01
(0.53) (0.61) (0.68) (0.64) (0.62) (0.59)
Overall satisfaction
0 (0%)
Other facilities Sport/fitness facilities Shopping facilities Conference facilities Child care center Overall satisfaction
0 (0%)
78 (24%)
205 (62%)
47 (14%)
3.91 (0.46)
VD — very dissatisfied; D — dissatisfied; N — neutral; S — satisfied; VS — very satisfied. Percentages and standard deviations are in parentheses.
The results of the logistic regression are shown in Table 4. The Chi-square of the model is 39.57 at an observed significance level P)0.0001, which indicates that the model was significant overall. The constant term for the model is !17.5213 (P)0.0001). The coefficients of the five independent variables are b 2.6122 (sig.)0.0001), b 1.1855 (sig.)0.0542), b 1.5667 (sig.) 0.0123), b 1.3133 (sig.)0.2518), and b 0.6352 (sig.)0.4254). Among five variables examined in the model, only three variables X ‘‘Accommodation’’, X ‘‘Food and Beverage’’, and X ‘‘Entertainment’’ re mained in the equation with P)0.05. Given the coefficients of these three significant independent variables, the logistic regression equation for the
likelihood of joining cruise travel again was written as ln ½"!17.5213#2.6122X #1.1855X #1.5667X This is usually interpreted as meaning that one-unit increase in the overall satisfaction on the cruise accommodation, with the independent variables (X and X ) remained unchanged, the log odds of the dependent variable ‘‘the likelihood of joining cruise travel again’’ would be increased by 2.6122. The same interpretation could be applied to the independent variables X and X . There fore, the logistic coefficients could be identified as the separate impact of each of the three predictors that influence travelers’ likelihood of a joining cruise trip
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Table 4 Results of logistic regression — likelihood of joining cruise trip again !2 Log likelihood Goodness of fit Model chi-square Improvement »ariables in the equation Variable X , Accommodation X , Food and beverage X , Entertainment Constant »ariables not in the equation Variable X , Other facilities X , Staff performance
65.286 152.932 Chi-square 39.572 !1.331 B 2.6122 1.1855 1.5667 !17.5213 Score 1.3033 0.6352
df 3 1
Significance 0.0000 0.0014
S.E. 0.6730 0.6246 0.6257 4.0023
Wald 15.0673 3.6023 6.6269 19.1650
df 1 1 1
df 1 1
Sig. 0.2518 0.4254
R 0.0000 0.0000
again. The larger the coefficient, the more the factor contributed to explaining the probability of repurchase intention. The results indicated that the most influential component of the probability of re-joining the cruise travel was variable X ‘‘Accommodation’’, (b "2.6122) and followed by X ‘‘Entertainment’’ (b "1.5667) and X ‘‘Food and Beverage’’ (b "1.1855). The estimated probability of joining the cruise trip again could be calculated from the model by using the following formula: 1 Estimated prob." 1#e\ where Z"!17.5213#2.6122X #1.1855X #1.5667X . If travelers’ ratings on variables X , X and X were ‘‘4’’ (Satisfied), the estimated probability of joining the cruise travel again is 0.9808. By increasing the value of satisfaction by one unit to ‘‘5’’ (Very satisfied), the odds changed from 0.9809 to 0.9999. That is, they increased by a factor of about 1.02. If travelers’ ratings on X , X and X were ‘‘1’’ (Very dissatisfied), the estimated probability of joining the cruise traveling again is 0.0000.
5. Conclusions As the worldwide cruise industry demonstrated an important trend of expansion over the past decade, the Hong Kong cruise market has great potential for growth and development in the future. Motivation, service quality and customer satisfaction are essential to marketers and cruise companies. This in-depth study provides valuable information on motivation factors and satisfaction levels of Hong Kong cruise travelers. It provides greater insight into the up keep and improvement of the service
Sig. 0.0001 0.0542 0.0123 0.0000
R 0.3530 0.1236 0.2018
Exp(B) 13.6289 3.2725 4.7908
quality and the enhancement of customer satisfaction. More importantly, cruise companies and travel agents can make better use of the information to successfully promote their cruise packages, develop the vast untapped cruises, and gain competitiveness in the market. It was found that the majority of Hong Kong cruise travelers were white-collar or not in the workforce, from 18 to 45 years old with an annual income from US$15,000 to US$62,000. Most of them were single or married with children with the educational level of middle school or higher. This group of people usually had the financial ability, energy and interests to explore the new type of vocations. Geographic limitations and the fast pace and stressful life style in Hong Kong motivated people to explore a new venture. The study identified the fact that the major traveling motivation factors of Hong Kong cruise travelers were ‘‘Escape from normal life’’, ‘‘Social gathering’’, and ‘‘Beautiful environment and scenery’’. Most Hong Kong cruise travelers were satisfied with the cruise services provided. However, there was some room for improvements such as re-designing seating arrangements in the dining room, providing well organized and attractive entertainment programs, and improving the sport/fitness, shopping and child care facilities. Based on the results of the logistic regression analysis, the most significant variables in determining the likelihood of joining a cruise trip again were ‘‘Accommodation’’, ‘‘Entertainment’’ and ‘‘Food and beverage’’. Some significant implications resulted from this study. First, cruise companies should design different and attractive entertainment programs and activities suitable for different age groups, including children. Secondly, cruise companies could further improve the sport/fitness programs, shopping and child care facilities, and seating space in F&B outlets. These areas received relatively low customer satisfaction scores. Thirdly, there is great
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potential for the growth of the Hong Kong cruise industry because over 86% of the respondents showed their interest in repeat cruising. Fourthly, the cruise companies should understand and be aware of the underlying reasons people take a cruise journey. Thus, cruise companies can launch effective marketing campaigns that are developed based on customers’ motivations. Fifthly, the cruise companies and travel agents should target the local Chinese market. The promotion and advertising materials should be printed in Chinese or both Chinese and English. It was found that most respondents surveyed are local Chinese and the potential is in the local market. Finally, the cruise companies and travel agents should work closely to create opportunities to family with the cruise products and make a joint effort of promotion. The greatest challenge facing cruise industry is getting travel agents to know/understand the different cruise products (Mowen, 1995b). Furthermore, the findings of the study are essential in providing a greater insight into maintaining and improving services quality and enhancing customer satisfaction. More importantly, cruise companies and tourism-related organizations such as Hong Kong Tourist Association, International Cruise Council (ICC), airlines and travel agents, will have a better understanding of how to promote their cruise or fly-cruise packages and how to further develop the Hong Kong cruise market. Cruise companies can make the cruise more user friendly to Hong Kong cruise travelers and promote the notion of cruising as part of a land/sea tour to the long haul market: the US, Europe and Australia. More and more Hong Kong residents choose cruise vacations although this is a relatively new travel concept. They have either started their first cruise journey or intend to join the cruise trip again. The Hong Kong cruise market has great potential for growth in the future. However, it should be noted that when Hong Kong cruise travelers gain more experiences in cruising, the expectations of service quality may increase.
6. Limitations It should be conceded that there were two major limitations in this study. The sample size of 330 was
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