The role of variety seeking in short and long run revisit intentions in holiday destinations

The main purpose of the present paper is to identify the differences in the antecedents of holiday destinations revisit intentions in the short and long run. Specifically, this work analyzes the influence of specific variety seeking, perceived value, destination image, satisfaction, switching costs and past switching behavior.

The role of variety seeking in short and long run revisit intentions in holiday destinations

J Enrique Bigne´, Isabel Sa´nchez and Luisa Andreu

Abstract Purpose – The main purpose of the present paper is to identify the differences in the antecedents of holiday destinations revisit intentions in the short and long run Specifically, this work analyzes the influence of specific variety seeking, perceived value, destination image, satisfaction, switching costs and past switching behavior.

Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative study and the authors collected data personal interviews at households using the random route sampling technique The sample comprises 400 tourists who have been on holiday at least once in the last two years, excluding lodging in relatives’ and friends’ houses or their own secondary residence The data is analyzed through structural equation modeling.

Findings – The results show that there are relevant differences in the antecedents of holiday destination revisit intentions in the short and long term The main determinants of the intention to return to the destination for the next holiday are past switching behavior, switching costs and specific variety seeking, whereas the assessment of the destination (image and satisfaction) does not have a significant effect However, in the long term, satisfaction becomes the most relevant antecedent of intentions to return, specific variety seeking maintains its influence, and past switching behavior and switching costs become irrelevant.

Practical implications – The findings have relevant implications for destination managers in helping them to understand the temporal pattern of tourist revisit intentions and the main antecedents Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper is twofold Firstly, researchers have rarely considered the temporal dimension when analyzing the antecedents of revisit intention, despite the usefulness of this approach to improve the understanding of tourists’ return intentions Secondly, the research is focused on specific variety seeking – that is, the propensity to seek variety in a concrete product category; rather than general variety seeking that is the usual approach.

Keywords Tourism, Consumer behaviour, Customer loyalty Paper type Research paper

Introduction Satisfaction has attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners for many decades due

to broad agreement on its key influence on consumer loyalty (Lam et al., 2004; Zeithaml et al., 1996) This concern stems from the assumption that satisfied customers will return to the company in the future and that loyal customers are more profitable than new ones (Anderson

et al., 2004; Jones and Sasser, 1995), because they provide increasing income with decreasing costs (Mittal and Lassar, 1998; Rust and Zahorik, 1993) Furthermore, a loyal customer is more willing to continue doing business with the company even when prices rise (Bolton and Lemon, 1999; Zeithaml, 2000)

Nevertheless, the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions is more complex than it first appears (Fournier and Mick, 1999; Mittal and Kamakura, 2001) Dissatisfied customers could continue with their provider due to the perception of switching costs or inertia Satisfied customers, however, may decide to switch providers with the

J Enrique Bigne´, Isabel

Sa´nchez and Luisa Andreu

are all based at the

University of Valencia,

Valencia, Spain.

Received: February 2008

Revised: June 2008

Accepted: September 2008

expectation of obtaining even better results (Mittal and Lassar, 1998; Jones and Sasser, 1995) or because they perceive that there are more attractive alternatives on the market (Andreassen and Lervik, 1999) The difference between satisfied and completely satisfied customers could partially explain this situation (Jones and Sasser, 1995; Roos, 1999), especially in the present highly competitive environment Another important explanation that may justify why satisfied customers decide to switch providers is the variety seeking propensity (Bansal et al., 2005; Ratner et al., 1999), which is the focus of this work Although variety seeking research has a long tradition in marketing, there are still several topics that deserve investigation (Berne´ et al., 2001; Goukens et al., 2007; Kahn, 1995) Most researchers have focused on goods, so studies in the service industry are still scarce, and quite recent (Barroso et al., 2007; Berne´ et al., 2005; Niininen et al., 2004) Furthermore, many works have adopted a descriptive approach, focusing mainly on the measurement of variety seeking behavior and on the motivations that lead consumers to seek variety in their purchases (Kahn, 1995) Therefore, the relationship between variety seeking and loyalty in services is an under-researched topic in the marketing literature (Berne´ et al., 2001, 2005) However, the understanding of the relationship between variety seeking and loyalty has key managerial implications (Berne´ et al., 2001, 2005; Feinberg et al., 1992; Van Trijp et al., 1996):

B Differences in the proportion of variety seekers could lead to the disparity in consumer loyalty in different product categories

B Marketing efforts, such as loyalty programs, could be inefficient if marketing managers do not distinguish between consumers with high and low propensity to seek variety

B Variety seeking intensity in a specific market could be a basic feature of the market that would affect the potential market share of the brands In this sense, variety seeking would

be an initial restriction affecting the potential rate of customer retention Hence, to increase customer loyalty, service companies should not only focus on improving satisfaction levels but also on designing strategies to reduce the negative impact of variety seeking (Berne´ et al., 2001)

Previous research has mainly attempted to explain the divergence in variety seeking among individuals, identifying the optimum stimulation level as the main precursor of the variety consumers seek However, very few studies have focused on explaining the differences in the amount of variety sought by a consumer when purchasing different product categories (Givon, 1984; Mazursky et al., 1987), although several works have found that consumer variety seeking behavior is different depending on the product category involved (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1992; Steenkamp et al., 1996) In this sense, some researchers posit that variety seeking is higher when the product has more hedonic attributes (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Van Trijp et al., 1996)

A general consensus exists over the pre-eminence of hedonic motivations in the consumption of tourism and leisure services (Decrop and Snelders, 2005; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982) Consequently, variety and novelty seeking plays a key role in the comprehension of tourist behavior, affecting their intention to return to the same destination

in the future (Barroso et al., 2007; Jang and Feng, 2007; Niininen et al., 2004)

Scholars define variety seeking as a consumer tendency to change the item consumed in the last purchase (Givon, 1984; Kahn et al., 1986) or the propensity to seek diversity in the choice of goods and services (Kahn, 1995) Consumers can satisfy their need for variety either through the purchase of new options or alternating among familiar brands or providers Therefore, it is logical to expect that the temporal horizon considered will affect the role played by variety seeking and satisfaction on destination revisit intention However,

as Jang and Feng (2007) point out, tourism researchers have paid very little attention to the influence of the temporal dimension on revisit intention We address the issue in this paper, considering two different points in time, the short run (defined as the next holiday trip) and the long run (the intention to return to the destination in the distant future) to examine any

divergence in the effects of different antecedents of revisit intention, i.e perceived value, image, satisfaction, switching costs, past switching behavior and specific variety seeking Conceptual framework and research hypotheses

This paper highlights the differences in the influence of specific variety seeking, perceived value, perceived image, satisfaction, switching costs and past switching behavior on holiday destination revisit intention in the short and long term

Broad agreement exists among authors regarding the positive influence of perceived value

on consumer satisfaction (Lam et al., 2004; Liu et al., 2005), because satisfaction is the outcome of the customer’s perception of the value received in a transaction or relation (Lam

et al., 2004; Yang and Peterson, 2004)

However, researchers have not reached a consensus concerning the relationship between perceived value and repurchase intention While some authors posit that perceived value has a direct influence on customer loyalty (Hartline and Jones, 1996; Sweeney et al., 1999), others argue that there is an indirect relation mediated by satisfaction (Lam et al., 2004; Zins, 2001) or even both (Cronin et al., 2000; Liu et al., 2005) The present study adopts this last approach Hence, the study proposes the following hypotheses:

H1 Destination perceived value has a positive influence on consumer satisfaction H2 Destination perceived value has a positive influence on short and long term revisit intention

The influence of brand and corporate image on consumer satisfaction has obtained strong support in the service marketing literature (Andreassen and Lindestad, 1998a, b; Zins, 2001), receiving special attention in tourism marketing research (Barroso et al., 2007; Bigne´

et al., 2001) In addition, other works consider that perceived image is an important and direct antecedent of service loyalty (Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001; Zins, 2001) Tourism destination studies also corroborate this direct effect (Bigne´ et al., 2001; Court and Lupton, 1997) However, several authors postulate that image has an indirect influence on behavioral intentions, through the mediator effect of satisfaction (Barroso et al., 2007; Bloemer and De Ruyter, 1998) The present study considers both a direct and an indirect effect, via the following hypotheses:

H3 Destination image has a positive influence on tourist satisfaction

H4 Destination image has a positive influence on short and long term revisit intention Although research points out that the relationship between satisfaction and repurchase intention is more complex than scholars thought (Mittal and Kamakura, 2001; Yi and La, 2004), literature continues considering satisfaction as one of the main precursors of consumer loyalty (Bolton and Lemon, 1999; Lam et al., 2004; Zeithaml et al., 1996) Therefore:

H5 Satisfaction has a positive influence on short and long term revisit intention The literature suggests that consumers’ past behavior has a direct influence on their behavioral intentions (Cheng et al., 2005; Conner and Armitage, 1998) Scholars define consumer past switching behavior as the extent to which consumers have switched providers in the past (Bansal et al., 2005) The greater the past switching behavior, the lower the perception of switching costs (Burnham et al., 2003; Hu and Hwang, 2006) and, therefore, the lower the intention to return Consequently:

H6 Past switching behavior has a negative influence on short and long term revisit intention

A wide consensus exists in the marketing literature over the positive effect of switching costs

on customer loyalty, at least as far as the repurchase component is concerned (Jones et al., 2000; Lam et al., 2004) In fact, the empirical study carried out by Burnham et al (2003)

shows that switching costs explain a higher proportion of the variance of the repurchase intention than satisfaction (30 percent versus 16 percent) Hence:

H7 Switching costs have a positive influence on short and long term revisit intention The variety seeking concept is a key determinant in the consumer decision to switch providers (Bansal et al., 2005; Van Trijp et al., 1996) True variety seeking is intrinsically motivated and it has the following features: it involves switching brands, products or providers for the sake of variety and not because of the functional value of the alternatives Most authors consider that variety seeking leads either to the acquisition of new options or to alternation among familiar alternatives Many researchers conceive variety seeking as an individual trait (Berne´ et al., 2001, 2005; Kahn, 1995) However, the literature also points out that variety seeking depends on the product category (Givon, 1984; Van Trijp et al., 1996) In this sense, Givon (1984) postulates that variety seeking behavior is idiosyncratic for consumer consumption of brands within a concrete product category Consequently, a consumer may seek variety in one product category but avoid it in another

The research has paid little attention to the role of variety seeking in consumer repurchase intention in services Exceptions include the works of Barroso et al (2007), Berne´ et al (2001, 2005), Jang and Feng (2007), and Niininen et al (2004), among others These studies posit a negative relation between variety or novelty seeking propensity and intention to return

to the service company or to the destination in the future In this sense, Berne´ et al (2001) analyze the negative effect of variety seeking on customer retention in restaurant services, including also in the analysis of the relation between perceived quality and satisfaction The findings suggest that consumer variety seeking propensity reduces the effect of satisfaction and perceived quality improvements on return intention Berne´ et al (2005) also obtain support for a direct and negative influence of variety seeking on consumer behavioral intentions in grocery retailing

Focusing on tourist destinations, Niininen et al (2004) analyze the role played by variety seeking propensity in tourist destination choice, in order to better understand tourist loyalty

in this field, where variety seeking is usually important for consumers The findings moderately support the authors’ proposal: tourists with a high variety seeking propensity will show a varied pattern of destination choice However, these findings are not sound because

of the small sample size employed Regarding the work of Barroso et al (2007), the authors postulate a moderator effect of variety seeking propensity in the relationship between destination image, satisfaction, perceived quality and tourists’ future behavioral intentions After segmenting the sample based on the propensity to seek variety, the authors obtain four segments:

1 tourists with a medium need for variety, the largest group (43.6 percent);

2 tourists who need continuous changes and new experiences (26.9 percent);

3 tourists who do not need variety (23.2 percent); and

4 tourists who want to experience changes, but from time to time (6.3 percent)

Barroso et al (2007) obtain support for the moderator effect of variety seeking, and so the authors find that the relationship between image, satisfaction, perceived quality and behavioral intentions depends on tourists’ propensity to seek variety

Finally, Jang and Feng (2007) focus on destination revisit intention from a temporal perspective, analyzing the effects of novelty seeking and destination satisfaction on short-term, mid-term and long-term revisit intention As pointed out in the Introduction, the temporal approach is unusual in the destination revisit intention research The findings show that satisfaction only has a significant influence on short-term revisit intention, whereas novelty seeking has a direct effect on mid-term revisit intention and an indirect effect on long-term intention to return through mid-term revisit intention

The contributions of the above mentioned works suggest that variety seeking will have a negative influence on destination revisit intention However, most of these studies focus on

variety or novelty seeking as an individual trait – that is, the general propensity of consumers

to seek variety or novelty in their purchases of products and services Therefore, despite the fact that variety seeking can differ from one product category to another, the measurements employed by researchers do not reflect this possibility In this work we aim to highlight the role of specific variety seeking on tourists’ return intention and shall therefore focus on the propensity to seek variety in holiday destinations considering that specific variety seeking is both an individual trait and a behavior linked to the product category Based on the contributions previously mentioned:

H8 Specific variety seeking propensity has a negative influence on short and long term destination revisit intention

Figure 1 shows the whole set of hypotheses

In addition, the present study aims to respond to the following research question:

RQ1 Identify the differences between the influence of the proposed antecedents on short and long run destination revisit intention

Method

The present work focuses on holiday destinations, as opposed to weekend and long weekend trips This setting makes it possible to identify different tourist profiles depending

on their propensity to switch destinations: those who seek variety and those who prefer to return to the same destination for their holidays (Decrop and Snelders, 2005)

The study is mainly quantitative, although a focus group was used to adapt the measurement scales to the field of study Furthermore, the approach is causal and the information was collected by means of a structured questionnaire Data were gathered during the month of February 2007 in eight Spanish cities, and the questionnaire was administered personally to the respondents

The target population comprises individuals between 18 and 65 years old who have traveled

on their main holiday at least once in the last two years, excluding lodging in relatives’ and friends’ houses or their own secondary residence We established a two-year period rather than one year in order to make sample recruitment easier, as the proportion of Spanish inhabitants who travel for leisure is around 57 percent but this figure would be even lower if secondary residences were excluded, as in the case of the present study

The sample selection was a result of a combination of the random route sampling method and the establishment of gender and age quotas to ensure that the sample shows the same sociodemographic structure as the target population We finally obtained a sample size of

400 individuals with a 4.9 percent sample error, for a confidence level of 95.5 percent (p¼ q ¼ 0:5)

Figure 1 Theoretical model

Concerning the measurement scales used to operationalize the variables, since the main purpose of the present work is to analyze relationships among variables and not deepen examination of each of the constructs involved, we focus on global and one-dimensional measures of the variables rather than multidimensional ones Furthermore, all the scales were adapted to the research context firstly by means of a focus group, and then through a pre-test of the measurement tool Below we detail the initial measurement scales selected for each variable and the following section shows the final composition of the scales, obtained after evaluating their psychometric properties

The scale to measure perceived value is largely based on Bourdeau (2005), which, in turn, is based on Dodds et al (1991) This scale provides very good reliability with a reasonable number of items Thus, the scale used in the present work contains four items measured through a seven-point Likert scale Sample items: ‘‘I think that it was worthwhile going to X’’;

‘‘My trip to X has given me many benefits (amusement, relaxation, discovering new places, etc.)’’

The scale finally selected for destination image is based on Nguyen and LeBlanc (2001), due to its high reliability and parsimony, and it consists of three items in a seven-point Likert scale format Sample item: ‘‘I think that X has a good image among tourists’’

The measurement scale employed to collect tourists’ overall satisfaction with the destination

is an adaptation of that used by Burnham et al (2003) and comprises five items in a seven-point Likert-scale format Sample items: ‘‘I am satisfied with my experience in X’’; ‘‘My trip to X has met my needs completely’’

The scale employed to measure switching costs is broadly based on Jones et al (2000), because of the excellent reliability and parsimony of the scale proposed by the authors The scale contains three items in a seven-point Likert format Sample item: ‘‘It would take a lot of time and effort to change holiday destinations’’

Concerning behavioral intentions, although some authors have used multi-item measures (Cronin et al., 2000; Zeithaml et al., 1996), as we focus on short and long run revisit intention and not on behavioral intentions in general, we decided to choose a single item measure, following other studies such as Cronin and Taylor (1992), Mattila and Wirtz (2000) and Mittal and Kamakura (2001) Thus, we measure revisit intention through a seven-point scale that collects return probability both for the next holiday trip (short term) and in the distant future (long term)

Past switching behavior measurement consists of an objective question that collects how many different holiday destinations the tourist had visited over the last four years, following Niininen et al (2004) Those authors asked respondents about the last five years but we have limited the period to four years to facilitate the response

Finally, scholars have approached the measurement of variety seeking from a general rather than a specific perspective (Bansal et al., 2005; Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 1996; Van Trijp et al., 1996), focusing on the propensity of consumers to seek variety in their purchases

in general, without reference to a concrete product category Researchers have traditionally collected variety seeking behavior linked to a concrete product category through the number of different brands/providers purchased in a period of time, usually obtained by means of panel data This kind of measure is really equivalent to what we have called ‘‘past switching behavior’’, but does not allow a distinction between intrinsic or extrinsically motivated variety seeking, while it is widely accepted in the literature that true variety seeking

is intrinsically motivated and not due to the instrumental value of the alternatives (Van Trijp

et al., 1996)

The present work aims to fill the gap in the literature on the measurement of variety seeking in

a specific product category With this purpose, to measure the variety seeking propensity in the choice of holiday destinations we have taken as a base the scale of Van Trijp et al (1996), adapting the wording of the items to the product category under study They employ a shorter version of the scale of ‘‘exploratory acquisition of products’’ created by Baumgartner and Steenkamp (1996) The scale proposed by Van Trijp et al (1996) provides good

reliability with a more reasonable number of items and it has been successfully used by other researchers such as Bansal et al (2005) and Bourdeau (2005) Consequently, the scale finally used comprises six items measured on a seven-point Likert format Sample items:

‘‘On holidays, I would rather return to a destination I usually visit than try a destination I am not very sure of’’; ‘‘On holidays, I prefer to go to destinations I am familiar with’’

Since the purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of several variables on short and long-term destination revisit intention, we test the proposed set of hypotheses jointly through structural equation modeling, using the program EQS 6.1

Findings Before testing the proposed hypotheses, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the measurement scales through confirmatory factor analysis (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) using EQS 6.1 The estimation method was the maximum likelihood robust method due to its appropriateness even when data do not follow a normal distribution The evaluation of the measurement scales led to the elimination of some items due to problems of convergent validity Therefore, the final items employed to measure the variables involved in the present research are those displayed in Table I In addition, Tables I and II show the results for the reliability and validity of the measurement tool, which show satisfactory levels for both psychometric properties

Notes: a On the diagonal the AVE of each factor is shown In the upper part, the square of the correlation between each pair of factors is detailed and the confidence interval for every pair of factors

is collected in the lower part

Table I Measurement tool: reliability and convergent validity

Notes: S-Bx2 ¼ 177:96; significance 0.00; df ¼ 125; NFI ¼ 0:93; NNFI ¼ 0:97; CFI ¼ 0:98; IFI ¼ 0:98; RMSEA ¼ 0:03 (0.02-0.04).aItems were measured through a seven-point Likert scale.bAll the standard factor loadings are significant for p , 0:01.cReverted items

After refining the measurement scales, we conduct structural equation analysis using the maximum likelihood robust estimation method and EQS 6.1 The main results obtained for short and long run destination revisit intention are displayed in Tables III and IV, respectively

In addition, Figures 2 and 3 show a graphical representation of the results in order to facilitate comparison

Table III Hypotheses testing for short run revisit intention

Standard

Notes: S-Bx2¼ 213.27; significance 0.00; df ¼ 153; NFI ¼ 0.93; NNFI ¼ 0.97; CFI ¼ 0.98; IFI ¼ 0.98; RMSEA ¼ 0.03 (0.02-0.04) A/R, hypotheses acceptance or rejection of hypothesis. aHypothetical sign of the relation *p, 0.10 and t 1.64; **p , 0.05 and t 1.96; ***p , 0.01 and t 2.58

Table IV Hypotheses testing for long run revisit intention

Standard

Notes: S-Bx2 ¼ 214:69; significance 0.00; df ¼ 15; NFI ¼ 0:93; NNFI ¼ 0:97; CFI ¼ 0:98; IFI ¼ 0:98; RMSEA ¼ 0:03 (0.02-0.04) A/R, acceptance or rejection of hypotheses a Hypothetical sign of the relation **p , 0:05 and t 1:96; ***p , 0:01 and t 2:58

Figure 2 Short run revisit intention antecedents

A first approach to the findings shows several differences in the significant antecedents of short and long-term revisit intention Specific variety seeking propensity, followed by switching costs and past switching behavior, are the main determinants of the intention to return to the same destination for the next holiday Perceived value also has a significant influence on short run revisit intention, but only for p , 0:01 Nevertheless, perceived image and satisfaction have no significant influence on the intention to return to the destination for the next holiday, notwithstanding the strong support offered by the literature regarding the positive effect of destination image and satisfaction on tourists’ future intention to return (Bigne´ et al., 2001; Chen and Tsai, 2007; Court and Lupton, 1997) However, these studies refer to the future revisit intention in general, without distinguishing between short and long term, while the present work collects both the intention to return for the next holiday and the intention to return in the long term As mentioned above, in the short term neither satisfaction nor destination image are relevant antecedents of revisit intention The high propensity of consumers to seek variety in the purchase of hedonic products could explain these findings (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Steenkamp et al., 1996; Van Trijp et al., 1996) and, especially, in tourism and leisure services (Barroso et al., 2007; Jang and Feng, 2007) Consequently, tourists may decide to switch holiday destinations on their next trip, despite being satisfied, for the sake of variety

In contrast, in the long-term, satisfaction becomes the strongest antecedent of revisit intention, whereas specific variety seeking maintains its influence Although perceived value and destination image have no direct effect on revisit intention, these constructs do have an indirect influence on the intention to return through the mediating effect of satisfaction, corroborating the findings of previous works such as Barroso et al (2007), Lam et al (2004) and Zins (2001) Since consumers can satisfy their variety needs through the purchase of new options but also by alternating between familiar ones (Kahn and Isen, 1993; Kahn et al., 1986), tourists could intend to go to a different destination for their next holiday but, in the long run, they would be willing to repeat if the experience was satisfactory, because as time goes by the stimulation capacity of the destination increases again However, tourists with a higher propensity to seek variety in their choice of holiday destinations will show a lower intention to return to the destination not only on the next trip but also in the distant future Nevertheless, neither past switching behavior nor switching costs are relevant when explaining long-run revisit intention, while these variables are significant in the short-term intention to return This result could be due to tourists’ perception of lower switching costs in the long term

The previous findings show that the only variable that maintains a significant and consistent influence on revisit intentions with time is specific variety seeking The study approaches variety seeking propensity in the choice of holiday destinations through a self-reported

Figure 3 Long run revisit intention antecedents

measure However, if we had used an objective measure (number of different holiday destinations visited in the last four years), which is the usual approach, its influence on revisit intention would be limited to the short term

Comparison of the findings of the present study with those obtained by Jang and Feng (2007) reveals some discrepancies Those authors found that satisfaction had a significant influence on revisit intention only in the short term and not in the mid or long term We have found support for the contrary With reference to novelty seeking, Jang and Feng (2007) only obtain support for the influence of this variable on mid-term revisit intention (three-year period), whereas present work has found that specific variety seeking affects revisit intention

in both the short and long term However, the time periods considered in Jang and Fang’s work and in the present study are different, because they understand the short term as an annual period while we refer to the next holiday and they restrict the long term to a five-year period whereas we do not delimit a concrete range of years Furthermore, Jang and Feng focus on novelty seeking but in the present work we analyze variety seeking, which is a wider concept

The above-mentioned discrepancies, along with the scant research on the influence of the temporal dimension on destination revisit intention, are evidence of the need to advance in this incipient research line

Conclusions This work analyzes the influence of specific variety seeking, perceived value, destination image, satisfaction, switching costs and past switching behavior on holiday destination revisit intention in the short and long run, aiming to identify the main differences

The most outstanding findings are those concerning the influence of satisfaction and specific variety seeking on short and long run destination revisit intentions While satisfaction only has a significant effect on long-term revisit intention, specific variety seeking has a relevant influence both on short and long term intentions to return to the destination Past switching behavior and switching costs are only significant antecedents of the short term revisit intention

The main contributions of the present work are concerned with the consideration of temporal issues in the research of revisit intention, and the analysis of specific variety seeking The findings offer new insights into the role of the time perspective in intention to return However, this topic requires additional research to help improve understanding of the temporal pattern

of tourist revisit intentions Regarding variety seeking, we have focused on variety seeking linked to a specific product category instead of general variety seeking, measuring the former through a self-reported measure Traditionally, scholars have collected specific variety seeking through consumer purchase history and, consequently, this kind of measure does not allow true variety seeking to be distinguished from extrinsic variety seeking Findings show that while true specific variety seeking is a key determinant of revisit intention regardless of the period considered, the objective approach (called past switching behavior

in the present work) only has a significant influence on revisit intention in the short-run Concerning the managerial implications of this study, destination managers should segment tourists according to their propensity to seek variety in the choice of destinations Whereas high variety seekers show a low probability of returning to the same destination both in the near and in the distant future, low or medium variety seekers are not likely to return to the destination on the next trip but they probably will revisit it in the long term if the experience was satisfactory Therefore, the findings have relevant implications for practitioners in helping them to understand the temporal pattern of tourist revisit intentions

A limitation of the present work is the consideration of only two temporal moments and the cross-sectional nature of the empirical study Thus, we encourage future research that can offer new insights into the role played by the temporal dimension in the understanding of tourist revisit pattern from a longitudinal approach