A Comprehensive Evaluation of Yacht Charter Service Concept: Influence of Voyager-to-Voyager Interaction on Service Satisfaction

Abstract

The study attempts to evaluate yacht charter service attributes considering the service quality customer satisfaction and loyalty three-leg framework. Besides visited destinations the service concept is enlarged with social servicescape dimensions of interaction quality and customer similarity for a holistic approach. A self-administered questionnaire was provided to 359 customers and the relationships in the research model were tested via structural equation modeling. The results showed that satisfaction depends on the interaction quality which is strongly related to the similarity between other customers as well as the quality of the service elements and the attractiveness of the visited destination. This study presents a pioneering research attempt focusing on the influence of customer-to-customer interaction and customer similarity on yacht charter services. Findings of the study provide a theoretical contribution highlighting the importance of customer-to-customer interaction for service appraisals of customers. Theoretical and practical implications for interaction-dominant services are discussed.