PROGRESS ON THE RESEARCH OF CUSTOMER VALUE THEORY IN TOURISM
LI Jia1, CHENG Sheng-kui2, ZHONG Lin-sheng2
1. College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070, China;
2. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 00101, China
Abstract:The research of customer value theory was introduced into tourism area in the middle of 1990s. It plays a great role in avoiding vicious competition of tourism market, enhancing competitiveness of tourism enterprise and improving sustainable development of tourism industry. With a literature review, this paper summarizes the customer value theory in tourism context, including the research origin, course, objects, methods and contents.
It is revealed that the starting time, the amount and the methods of the domestic research are behind the overseas research. The overseas research papers commonly use quantitative analysis. However, the domestic research papers mainly use qualitative analysis, and quantificational research should be strengthened. Despite the short history of the customer value theory, the research objects have related to hotel, travel agency, aviation, tourism product, tourism market and so on. The research focus mainly includes four aspects, the significance of applying customer value theory in tourism, the composing dimensionality and the estimation list of customer value in tourism, the relationship between the forwards and backwards drive of customer value in tourism and subsequent influence, and the creation and upgrade of the customer value. Demonstration analyses are mostly made and theory analyses are very rare.
The paper proposes that the studies on customer value in tourism should be further widened and deepened in the future. Firstly, customer value theory shoule be introduced into more tourism fields. Secondly, more attention should be paid to the intermediates and strategies in different tourism enterprises, destinations, markets and products. Thirdly, further in-depth and systemic research is needed and more stress should be put on quantitative analysis and theory research.
李佳, 成升魁, 钟林生. 顾客价值理论在旅游中的应用研究进展[J]. 人文地理, 2009, 24(5): 21-24.
LI Jia, CHENG Sheng-kui, ZHONG Lin-sheng. PROGRESS ON THE RESEARCH OF CUSTOMER VALUE THEORY IN TOURISM. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2009, 24(5): 21-24.