engleski

Can we predict visitor loyalty in protected areas? The case of Kornati National Park

Visitors to Kornati National Park (Kornati NP) can be divided into two basic groups: individual visitors and group visitors. The number of visits has increased over time, from 166, 941 in 2015 to 172, 603 in 2017 (according solely to the tickets sold). The main motives to visit Kornati NP are leisure and relaxation and enjoying nature (Markov et al., 2016).Satisfaction is the most commonly used customer perceptual metric by managers - because it is generic and can be universally gauged for all products and services and it is clearly understood by respondents (Gupta and Zeithaml, 2007). The degree of tourists’ loyalty to a destination is reflected in their intentions to revisit the destination and in their recommendations to others, and thus, information about tourists’ loyalty is important to destination marketers and managers (Yoon and Uysal, 2005). The survey was conducted by Polytechnic of Šibenik in the period 2015 - 2016 by using a structured questionnaire prepared in five languages. The sampling was conducted using a stratified random sampling, in total, after data cleansing, 250 group visitors were interviewed in 2015 and 177 in 2016.The relationship between visitor satisfaction and loyalty is analysed by performing univariate tests and by applying structural equation modelling (SEM). In total, 40.2% of visitors stated that they intend to revisit NP Kornati, while 16.4% of visitors stated that they don’t intend to revisit with 43.4% not sure about their revisiting. Moreover, most of the visitors would recommend visiting Kornati National Park (86%), 12% of visitors would maybe recommend, while a minority (2%) would not recommend a visit. Each satisfaction indicator was analysed separately due to loyalty variables. The SEM model confirms the same structure having visitor loyalty positively related to visitor satisfaction where only main satisfaction factor stands out as a significant predictor of loyalty.Visitor loyalty is positively affected by visitor satisfaction where overall satisfaction, staff professionalism and kindness, the possibility to enjoy nature, and value for money are the main indicators of visitor satisfaction. The results are not surprising since they show that main drivers of visitor loyalty comprise overall satisfaction dimension, monetary dimension, social interaction, and primary motives for visiting.

protected areas, Kornati National Park, visitor loyalty

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