Exploring the role of service delivery in remarkable tourism experiences

This work was supported by Secretariat for Universities and Research, from the Department Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia, Spain; the European Social Fund, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [ECO2017-86054-C3-1-R], and the Autonomous Government of Catalonia [2017 SGR 1259]. The authors would like to thank the support received by the Tourism Office of the city of Girona belonging to the City Hall. To Gloria Plana, Director of Economic Promotion, Local Development and Tourism of Girona.The purpose of the article is to analyze through a service-experience framework the consequences and contingency factors of Service Delivery (SD) in Remarkable Tourism Experiences (RTE) and explore to what extent these factors interact to evoke delight behaviors in customers. The proposal was validated with empirical data from 284 tourists collected through survey method on remarkable experiences in hotels and restaurants. Both an exploratory and a confirmatory analysis were developed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The result highlights to what extent SD components identified (service staff, service availability, and customer service interaction) affect RTE and aid to evoke CD in tourists with high-quality memories. The service-experience model goes beyond the frontline employees with a service-oriented perspective to better understand the emerging factors that provide happiness in customers. The organizational staff is the most important component influencing a customer's happiness and love feelings. The empirical findings support a model and measurement scale that allows analysis of the impact of SD component statements about customer delight (CD). The study shows the antecedents and interactions among SD emergent factors in RTE, specifically regarding CD behavior. The model proposed in this study links SD components and basic emotions and has important practical implications