Perception Determinants of Tourist Satisfaction on Destination

tourists experience in a specifi c destination is a determinant of the tourist revisiting. Furthermore, more holistic model has been used by Yoon and Uysal 2005 to explain destination loyalty in tourism research. They developed a model which relates destination loyalty with travel satisfaction and holiday motivations. This study found a signifi cant cause-effect relationship between travel satisfaction and destination loyalty as well as between motivations and travel satisfaction. Oh 1999 establishes service quality, perceived price, customer value and per- ceptions of company performance as determinants of customer satisfaction which, in turn, are used to explain revisit intentions. Bigne et al. 2001 identify that return- ing intentions and recommending intentions are infl uenced by tourism image and quality variables of the destination. Kozak and Rimmington 2000 model intends to revisit the following explanatory variables: overall satisfaction, number of previ- ous visits and perceived performance of destination. Meanwhile, Um et al. 2006 propose a structural equation model that explains revisiting intentions as determined by satisfaction, perceived attractiveness, perceived quality of service and perceived value for money. In this study repeat visits are determined more by perceived attrac- tiveness than by overall satisfaction. Another important conclusion from the study carried out by Um et al. 2006 is that the revisit decision-making process should be modelled in the same way as modelling a destination choice process. This implies that the personal characteristics of tourists, such as perception, motivations and socio-demographic characteristics, play an important role in explaining their future behaviour.

2.2.2.1 Perception

Perception is defi ned as the ability to see, hear or be aware of something that expresses a particular understanding as a process of perceiving Waite and Hawker 2009 . Perception is also defi ned as ‘the process by which these sensations are selected, organized and interpreted, while sensation refers to the immediate response of our sensory receptors: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and fi ngers to basic stimuli such as light, colour, sound, odors and textures’ Solomon 1999 :43. There are limitations in the brain’s ability to process information, so that people are very selective about what they pay attention to called ‘perceptual vigilance’. Therefore, people practise a form of ‘psychic economy’, picking and choosing amongst stimuli to avoid being overwhelmed Solomon 1999 . The people are more likely to be aware of stimuli that are related to their current needs. Moreover, people see what they want to see and don’t see what they don’t want to see called ‘perceptual defence’. The degree to which consumers continue to notice stimulus over time is known as ‘adaptation’ Reisinger 2009 . The process of adaptation occurs when consumers no longer pay attention to a stimulus because it is so familiar. A consumer can become habituated and require increasingly stronger ‘doses’ of a stimulus for it to be noticed. Several factors can lead to adaptation, namely, intensity, duration, discrimination, exposure and relevance. ‘Intensity’ means that less intense stimuli are less likely to be noticed. ‘Duration’ refers to the length of exposure to the stimulus; stimuli that require a balitrulyyahoo.com relatively lengthy exposure time in order to be processed tend to habituate because they require a long attention span. ‘Discrimination’ relates to simple stimuli that tend to habituate because they do not require attention to detail. ‘Exposure’ refers to the frequency of exposure; frequently encountered stimuli tend to habituate as the rate of exposure increases. Perception is one of the social and psychological factors which, together with other factors such as personality, learning, motives and atti- tudes, plays an important role in infl uencing a person’s travel decisions. In this study, these concepts of perception are adapted to obtain tourists’ opinions about certain imported and local products and services in Bali Kim and Jamal 2007 .

2.2.2.2 Motivation