Effects of Service Fairness and Service Quality on Tourists’ Behavioral Intentions and Subjective Well-Being

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of service fairness and service quality on tourists’ behavioral intentions and subjective well-being (SWB) with the mediation of satisfaction. It conceptualizes SWB as a sociopsychological benefit that people receive from tourism activities in parallel with behavioral intentions to visit the destination treated as economic benefit. A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted in Xiamen city of Fujian Province, China, and a valid sample of 541 tourists was used for data analysis. Findings show that service fairness has more of an effect on behavioral intentions and SWB than service quality; and such differentiated effects can be partly attributed to the mediating role of satisfaction between the antecedent constructs (i.e, service fairness and service quality) and consequence constructs (i.e, behavioral intentions and tourist SWB). The results suggest that tourism service providers should deliver services in a fairer way and tourist SWB should be attended to by both governments and academics.

KEYWORDS:

• Subjective well-being (SWB)
• service fairness
• service quality
• tourist satisfaction
• behavioral intentions

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation for Young Scholars of China (Grant No. 71203240), the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 70921001), and the Postdoctoral Science Fund of Central South University, China.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lujun Su

Lujun Su is a Lecturer, Business School, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China (E-mail: [email protected]).

Songshan (Sam) Huang

Songshan (Sam) Huang is Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, School of Management, University of South Australia, City West Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia (E-mail: [email protected]).

Xiaohong Chen

Xiaohong Chen, is Professor, Business School, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China (E-mail: [email protected]).