Loyalty In Tourism

M.P.Sharma

Asst. Professor Amity School of Hospitality, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Sector 125, Noida, (UP).

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Customer loyalty: Challenges & Strategies in the Tourism Industry

Abstract

Purpose: The travel and tourism industry in India is continuously putting its effort to sustain the image of top tourism destination in the world. The industries have to think about new strategies and policies to handle their customers and tourists to optimize their customer loyalty and revenues. The industry need to follow and adopt, to acquire, to develop and retain customers with greater precision and improved results.

Creating a profile of a customer in a systematic manner, delivering consistent development process across all media

The literature provides some definitions of it dependently of typology. There are two main typologies of customer loyalty, relying on behavior and attitude. Richard L. Oliver in his book "Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer" provides the behavioral typology of customer loyalty. Though the book is not directly related to the tourism and tourism industry, it can be useful because of the detailed descriptions of customer 's behavior. The author describes the satisfaction, reviews the diversity of its definition, compares it to the related concepts, analyses the dissatisfaction as the opposition to satisfaction. Oliver describes basic mechanisms of satisfaction, attributes, features and dimensions. He pays some attention to such important factor as customer perception of quality and describes the interrelation between satisfaction and quality, customers ' retention/repurchase and loyalty. Describing the loyal customers, he writes: "Loyal customers repeatedly purchase products or services. They recommend a company to others. And they stick with a business over time" (Oliver, p.189). Oliver concluded that the satisfaction is a necessary step in loyalty formation. Nevertheless, ultimate loyalty "is a combination of perceived product superiority, personal fortitude, social bonding, and their synergistic effects" (Oliver,

It has completely revolutionized the ways communication used to take place even a decade ago. According to a recent study conducted by Edison Research on social media behaviours of modern users 58 million Americans are hooked to social media sites and use them on daily basis. This has risen to 22% against 18% in 2011. So, one can easily assume the potential of social media in shaping future economy. People now rely more on social sites to learn about events and influenced more than ever by their peers. As a result, social media now play a significant role in forming public opinion. Social media continuously generate hordes of information so that it becomes difficult for enterprises to monitor them. As a result, an increasing number of CRM developing companies are now offering social media integration with their CRM. CRM customization allows your social media accounts to be linked and managed through your customer relationship management software. It helps businesses in devising business strategy using the insight gained from social sites. The benefits offered by SCRM or social CRM are: Improved peer-to-peer interaction in offering customer support Market feedback research, Idea management, Brand positioning and promotion, Product launching, CRM helps businesses in streamlining operation and improve customer dealing. Integration of social media to it has further enforced its usefulness in helping businesses to connect and serve