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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/17506180910940360. When citing the article, please cite: Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong, Kenneth E. Miller, (2009), “Socio-demographic constraints to travel behavior”, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 3 Iss: 1, pp. 81 - 94.

A significant way of achieving high profitability is to retain existing customers who contribute to the service provider's revenue by continuously purchasing and paying more for products and services and building brand equity to the provider. The main objective of this study is to empirically examine and extend the knowledge underlying the linkage between service loyalty and brand equity performance outcomes in the context of business‐to‐business markets. It aims to develop and empirically test a theoretical model examining the antecedents and the outcomes of service loyalty in a business‐to‐business context. The model also aims to examine the relationship between service loyalty and customer share of wallet and price premium, as well as the links between the proposed antecedents (habitual buying, trust in the service provider, and perceived service quality) and service loyalty.

The theoretical model was empirically tested with a sample of 294 Australian small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), using online and paper‐and‐pencil surveys. Respondents were owners of SMEs, financial controllers, and managers who are decision‐makers in the selection and use of courier service providers for their businesses.

Findings provide support for the theoretical model in linking drivers of service loyalty with two types of loyalty, purchase intentions (i.e. behavioural loyalty) and attitudinal loyalty. Furthermore, the two types of loyalty are differential predictors of brand equity outcomes in that customer share of wallet is mainly driven by purchase intentions, whereas willingness to pay a price premium is mainly driven by attitudinal loyalty.

The paper examines the relationship between service loyalty and willingness to pay a price premium as one key indicator of brand equity.

This paper seeks to compare some key antecedents of brand loyalty between two emerging markets: Thailand and Vietnam.

Using a sample of 603 female consumers of international shampoo brands, including 304 consumers in Bangkok, Thailand and 299 users in Hanoi, Vietnam, a model was tested that incorporates key determinants of brand loyalty – perceived quality, brand awareness, advertising attitudes, and distribution intensity – by means of structural equation modeling.

The paper found that there are positive relationships between perceived quality and brand loyalty, between brand awareness and perceived quality, between advertising attitudes and brand awareness, and between distribution intensity and brand awareness in both markets. However, the relationship between brand awareness and brand loyalty was found only in the Vietnamese market, and the relationship between advertising attitudes and perceived quality was only found in the Thai market. Finally, no relationship between distribution intensity and perceived quality was found in either market.

A major limitation of this study is the examination of only one concept that stands for strong brands, i.e. brand loyalty. Several other concepts, such as brand relationship quality and brand impressions, should be investigated in future research in order to compare and contrast with those found in advanced economies.

The results of this study suggest that managers of international brands in emerging markets should recognize the differences between markets in order to design effective loyalty programs for each market.

A major contribution of this study is to empirically compare the impacts of perceived quality, brand awareness, advertising attitudes, and store image on brand loyalty in two emerging markets: Thailand and Vietnam.

The principal objective here is to describe conceptual and research tools for achieving deeper sense‐making of what happened and why it happened –including how participants interpret outcomes of what happened and the dynamics of emic (executive) and etic (researcher) sense‐making.

This article uses a mixed research design including decision systems analysis, cognitive mapping, computer software‐based text analysis, and the long interview method for mapping the mental models of the participants in specific decision‐making processes as well as mapping the immediate, feedback, and downstream influences of decisions‐actions‐outcomes.

The findings in the empirical study support the view that decision processes are prospective, introspective, and retrospective, sporadically rational, ultimately affective, and altogether imaginatively unbounded.

Not using outside auditors to evaluate post‐etic interpretations is recognized as a method limitation to the extended case study; such outside auditor reports represent an etic‐4 level of interpretation. Incorporating such etic‐4 interpretation is one suggestion for further research.

Asking executives for in‐depth stories about what happened and why helps them reflect and uncover very subtle nuances of what went right and what went wrong.

A series advanced hermeneutic B2B research reports of a specific issue (e.g., new product innovation processes) provides an advance for developing a grounded theory of what happened and why it happened. Such a large‐scale research effort enables more rigorous, accurate and useful generalizations of decision making on a specific issue than is found in literature reviews of models of complex systems.

This study aims to ascertain the effect of socio‐demographic constraints on dimension of travel choice. This study also seeks to derive personal ecological explanations for variation in travel preference, travel intention and travel choice behavior of a wide range of destinations.

A large representative sample of 49,105 Australian respondents is utilized. Binary logistic regression is used to determine the impact of constraint variables.

Age, income and life stage have significant differential and interactive effects on travel behavior. Socio‐demographic variables act in different ways to constrain/free different types of travel behavior. However there are significant levels of travel by even the most constrained groups as well as significant amounts of non‐travel by the least constrained sectors of our society. These impacts are country specific.

The travel motivations of constraint groups need to be considered to order better understand travel behavior. Investigation of psychological and ecological facilitators and constraints to travel is needed.

This information is most useful for market segmentation and the development of constraint group destination marketing plans. Managers can use utilize such results to minimize the barriers to travel by particular groups.

This paper utilizes a large database to provide insights into the personal ecological constraints to travel.