旅游体验质量与满意度：内涵、关系与测量

Tourist Experience Quality and Satisfaction: Connotation, Relationship and Measurement

旅游体验质量既是旅游体验研究中的重要问题,也是旅游企业或目的地的生命线。目前,一些研究主要使用游客满意度测量旅游体验质量,也有研究关注旅游体验质量本身,旨在识别旅游体验质量的维度对其进行测量。然而,已有研究未从游客满意度与旅游体验质量的概念内涵以及概念之间的关系出发,考虑使用游客满意度测量旅游体验质量的适合性问题。此外,由于对旅游体验和旅游体验质量内涵的模糊认识使得研究者对旅游体验质量维度的认识截然不同。鉴于此,文章梳理并重新界定了旅游体验和旅游体验质量两个概念,并尝试厘清游客满意度、旅游体验和旅游体验质量之间的关系。研究认为,旅游体验质量是旅游者对其旅游体验优劣程度的评价,是游客满意度的前因变量。使用游客满意度测量旅游体验质量,实际上抹杀了概念之间的因果关系。与游客满意度或服务质量普遍从属性、功能方面展开测量不同,对旅游体验质量的测量应该从整体上、心理上着手。唯有如此,方能还旅游体验质量一个本来面目,从而有效地监测、提升旅游者的体验质量。

In tourism research, the quality of the tourist experience has long been considered an important area. That quality is related to the development of tourism enterprises and tourism destinations. Previous studies have mainly used tourist satisfaction to measure the quality of the tourist experience;however, they have not examined the appropriateness of employing tourist satisfaction as a measure of tourist experience quality. In recent years, some researchers have begun investigating tourist experience quality and attempted to define the dimensions of that quality. Some of the identified dimensions, however, do not directly relate to the quality of the tourist experience: they are factors that only affect the quality of that experience(such as involvement and participation);others are simply the result of that experience(such as recovering after the exertion). Similarly, some dimensions of tourist experience quality are actually evaluations at different stages within that experience. Those studies did not conduct an overall evaluation of tourist experience quality from a psychological perspective. The main cause of these problems is that before identifying the dimensions of tourist experience quality,researchers have failed to distinguish the connotations of tourist experience and tourist experience quality and the relationship between them. In a detailed review of satisfaction and customer experience in marketing and the concept of experience in philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology, the present study determined that vague understanding and broad definitions of those concepts were the main reasons for using satisfaction to measure tourist experience quality. Accordingly, this article redefines the concepts of tourist experience and tourist experience quality;it attempts to clarify the relationship among satisfaction, tourist experience, and tourist experience quality. The present study maintains that tourist experience is the tourists’ psychological feeling when they interact with various stimuli in tourism;that experience is largely expressed in the form of emotions. There are two dimensions to the tourist experience: valence and intensity. Based on the defined concept of tourist experience, this article considers that tourist experience quality is the evaluation of the experience made by the tourists themselves. Further, the tourist experience constantly changes during the trip and is thus a function of time. Tourist experience quality is the overall evaluation of the entire tourist experience made by tourists. Tourist experience quality is the antecedent of tourist satisfaction. Thus, in terms of both definitions and conceptual relationship, using satisfaction to measure tourist experience quality is inappropriate. Only after seriously addressing tourist experience quality and identifying its dimensions will it be possible to assess that quality effectively.