The effects of restaurant crowding on consumers' perceived value and purchase intention

[[abstract]]As the hospitality industry raises in Taiwan, there are more and more business entities entering into this market, and the competition gets more intense at the same time. The traditional mode of merchandising has not been able to satisfy customers. The lower prices of products do not reflect the higher sales anymore. What customers emphasize now are the environment of the restaurant, the service of employees, the experience of brands, the originality of products, etc. And crowding is one of them in the environment of restaurants. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the level of crowding affects customers' purchase intention. The model established in this study is based on past researches. Independent variables of this study include choice, social density, and time limit. Intervening variables contain perceived human crowding , perceived control, and perceived value. Tolerance for crowding is the moderating variable of perceived human crowding and perceived value. Finally, purchase intention would be measured primarily as the dependent variable. Research method adopted role-playing scenario technique and a 3×2×2 factorial design of laboratory experience. 493 student subjects from National Taiwan Normal University. The data were then analyzed through SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 6.0. The results are as follows: choice and perceived control positively affect perceived human crowding; social density negatively affects perceived human crowding; social density and time limit negatively affect perceived control; perceived human crowding and perceived control positively affect perceived value. perceived human crowding, perceived control and perceived value positively affect purchase intention. The unexpected findings obtained in this study are the positive effect of choice to perceived control and time limit to perceived human crowding were not significant. And the effect of perceived human crowding to perceived value can’t be moderated by personal tolerance for crowding. This research has many implications for marketing. It can help the restaurant mangers develop more effective marketing programs to affect consumers’ purchase intention.