Abstract
Organisations can make use of high levels of customer-service delivery to stimulate positiveword-of-mouth referrals. Referral marketing is primarily applied by organisations when the budgetis the marketers’ largest limitation. The purpose of the article is to indicate the current status of therelationships that travel agencies in the Western Cape Province have with their referral market,and to provide recommendations to the management of travel agencies in said province regardingthe improved application of the principles of relationship marketing to this market. The targetpopulation for this study comprised 118 travel agencies of which 61 managers and/or ownersparticipated through personal interviews in the completion of questionnaires. Data analysis wasdone by calculating averages and standard deviations, explorative factor analysis, CronbachAlpha-values and practical significance by means of effect sizes. The findings stipulate that theowners and managers of travel agencies must create and establish more closely integratedrelationships with strategic suppliers to increase the value offering of their products and servicesto customers, whereby the travel agencies can ensure that the needs and wants of customerscan be satisfied more successfully, which, in the long run, could lead to positive word-of-mouthreferrals.
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