Tourist satisfaction and the souvenir shopping of domestic tourists: extended weekends in Spain

Abstract

The satisfaction dimensions of domestic tourists when buying souvenirs are studied in relation to the overall satisfaction of the same tourists, a theme that has received little attention in the prior scientific literature. The research data were gathered from interviews with domestic tourists visiting Seville over an extended weekend. The results show that souvenir shopping satisfaction consists of four factors: internal attraction, service differentiation, service provision and external attraction. The last two, moreover, influence the overall tourist satisfaction rates. A discussion of these results and their implications help contribute to a better understanding among both scholars and practitioners of tourist satisfaction.

Keywords:

• tourist shopping satisfaction
• souvenirs
• tourist satisfaction
• Spain

Notes

1 This may be due to it being easier to find data on international tourism than on domestic tourism (Turner & Reisinger, 2001).

2 In 2012, lava that had solidified on the surface of the island of Hierro, the Canary Islands (Spain), shortly after an underwater volcanic eruption, soon became a fashionable souvenir. http://www.elalmeria.es/article/andalucia/1365209/se/busca/buen/producto/turistico.html

3 The confidence level means that 19 out of 20 random samples would have arrived at similar results to those found from this random sample or that authors are 95% certain that the sample results are a reasonably accurate estimate of the population. Permitted error – in this case 5% – in survey results is one way to estimate precision. The larger the margin of error, the less certainty there is that the reported results are close to the ‘true' figures; that is, the figures for the whole population. In the social sciences, the standard permitted error is ±5% (Lohr, 2010; Thompson, 2012).

4 These items were: ‘Accessibility to the store', ‘Authenticity of in-store goods' and ‘Style of in-store goods'.