An Investigation of Determinants of Satisfaction of Foreign Tourists and Level of Loyalty in Isfahan as a Tourism Destination Brand

Abstract
Tourism Destination Branding is relatively one of the new strategies to attract tourists. Although this approach has been introduced earlier in the field of marketing, it is possible to apply its potentials to tourism places and destinations as well. Branding of tourism destinations is an effective tool for marketing because brand can give identity and personality to the destination and can distinguish it from other tourist destinations. Among the factors considered in branding are satisfaction and loyalty tourism. In this research, we attempted to empirically examine tourist satisfaction and loyalty according to the model of “Consumer-Based Brand Equity for a Tourism Destination”.This research is based on a survey carried out on 100 foreign tourists who visited Isfahan in 1392. The results of the research show that tourist awareness and recognition of Isfahan and the Image of Isfahan as a tourism destination among tourists has an important role in the perceived quality of tourist services. On the other hand, the image which tourists have in their minds and recalling it, not directly but through perceived value and perceived quality has an impact on tourists' satisfaction. Tourist satisfaction has a strong relationship with tourist loyalty in destination that represents with likelihood of revisiting or recommends Isfahan to others. All in all, this research shows that it is possible to apply the model of “Brand Equity” as an organized framework to understanding effective mechanisms on satisfaction and loyalty of tourist.
 
Introduction
One of the main strategies in introducing a place and showing its potentials to tourists is tourism destination branding. Now, branding is an efficient tool for marketing of tourism destination, because brand gives identity and personality to tourism destination and distinguishes it from other tourism destinations (Qu et al. 2011). About branding, concept of “Consumer-Based Brand Equity for a Tourism Destination” as a strategic marketing tool reflects consumer views to brand (Lim &Weaver, 2014). The theoretical framework of this research is based on Aker (1991, 1991), Keller (1998, 2003) and Konecnick and Gartner (1997), in which these variables were considered: Brand Awareness, perceived quality, brand association, perceived value (as a conceptual dimension), Satisfaction and Loyalty (as a behavioral dimension).
 
Materials and Methods
The aim and orientation of present research is practical one and as strategy, places in quantitative and survey researches. The statistical population of this research is all of the foreign tourists who were visited popular locations of Isfahan and were staying in hotels. Since there were not any exact statistics from tourists who entered to Isfahan, 100 foreign tourists was chosen with convenience sampling method to complete questionnaire. The main variables were included on destination awareness, perceived quality, image destination, perceived value, satisfaction, destination loyalty and also age, gender, education, ethnicity, marital status, job situation,  all were considered as control variable. Totally, according to these variables, twelve hypotheses were proposed. Construct validity was used to validation of variables and Cronbach’s alpha to assess reliability. To examine the relationships between variables, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) from Amos Graphic software was used.
 
Discussion and Results
56.2 of respondents were men and 43.8 were women. The average age of respondents was about 42 years that the most was for 25 years respondents. As job situation %4.1 of respondents had part-time job, %59.2  full-time job, %3.1  were looking for job, %2  women were house worker, %14.3  retired and %15.3  students. As marital status %50 were single and %45.9 married, %3.1 widows and only %1 divorced. And also %3.1 of respondents had grade school, % 59.2 colleges/ university degree and % 16.3 higher university degrees (mastering and PhD). As Ethnicity 79% were Caucasian, %17 Asian, and %4 others. The results of the partial correlation coefficients with control of demographic variables show that most of the variables have significant relationship with each other. But between destination awareness and satisfaction and loyalty, there were not significant relationship among samples. And also between perceived value and destination image and perceived quality there were not any significant relationship as well. The results of Structural Equation Modeling show that destination awareness has significant effects on destination perceived quality and destination image, while were not significant relationship with perceived value among of samples. Similarly, Perceived quality does not have any direct significant relationship with destination loyalty, but through satisfaction have indirectly influence on destination loyalty. On the other side, perceived image have indirect effect on satisfaction through perceived value and perceived quality. Eventually, the results show that destination satisfaction is the strongest variable that influencing destination loyalty.
 
Conclusion
The results of research show that satisfaction from destination services play important role to make destination tourist’s loyalty to revisit and recommend it to others. As researches shows, most of the tourism destinations rely on repeat tourists. So, the investment on this part of tourists has relatively less expense compared with investing for attracting new tourists. This point needs to study about the mechanisms of increasing loyalty such as particular attention on improving tourist satisfaction from the quality of services.