How constraints on tourist complaints affect perceptions of justice and intentions of loyalty: Case of tourists from China visiting Turkey

Companies rarely enjoy hearing bad news, particularly when it comes from dissatisfied customers. Yet, in the face of continually growing competition and empowerment of customers, it is essential that companies learn of the problems that are causing their customers distress. In fact, companies never hear from most of the customers who simply go away unsatisfied, without voicing their complaints. The tourism and hospitality industries have a number of unique features that make them especially susceptible. Although several studies treat tourist complaints and general consumer complaints as the same, Ekiz (2011) reasoned that these unique features demand a new measurement scale, tourist complaint restraints (TCC scale). Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of TCC on perceptions of justice (justice perceptions in the model) and commitment to loyalty (loyalty intention) among Chinese tourists in Istanbul, Turkey. To achieve this aim, 700 questionnaires in Mandarin were printed and distributed around Istanbul's historic tourist attractions as a form of purposive sampling. 597 questionnaires were found to be complete, giving a response rate of 85.3 percent. Structural Equation Modeling analyses indicated that the proposed seven-factor theoretical model fitted the data reasonably well. Results indicated that the majority of the hypothesized relationships were supported. In particular, limited communication on the interactional justice dimension, and unfamiliarity on the procedural and distributive justice dimension were found to be the most important constraints. Distributive justice was found to have the strongest effect on loyalty. The implications of these findings will be discussed.