Perceived Relationship Quality of Destination Marketing Organisations in Kerala

Relationship quality is an emerging concept for destination marketers to retain the tourists in a highly volatile and competitive tourism marketplace. The study illustrates the relationship quality perceptions of tourists by using the modified constructs of the RELQUAL scale (Carmen Lages, Cristiana Raquel Lages, Luis Filipe Lages, 2005). Thus, the purpose of the paper is to propose a model illustrating interactions between the dimensions of relationship quality and assessing the extent of relationship quality of Destination Marketing Organisations in Kerala perceived by both foreign and domestic tourists. Mann Whitney U test is applied to draw inference about the significance of the difference in the perception of foreign and domestic tourists about the six dimensions of relationship quality of DMOs viz. Trust, Commitment, Cooperation, Information and communication, tourist loyalty and guest orientation. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) has been used for exemplifying the proposed model. Trust is found to be the most important factor of relationship quality of DMO perceived by the tourists.