What makes customers of airport lounges satisfied and more? Impact of culture and travel class

Abstract

The study explores the relative importance of various service factors related to airport-lounge that reflects customer satisfaction and recommendation behavior of the consumers, who are different in terms of their travel class and culture. We use the airport-lounge review dataset comprising 2261 reviews on 786 lounges from 202 airports between 2015 and 2019. Using construal level theory and expectation disconfirmation theory, we found the relative importance of various service attributes, categorized into process-outcome and actual—intangible dimensions. We also found the moderating roles of travel class and the cultural background of travelers of such relative importance. The study is one of the pioneering studies on customer evaluations of airport-lounge service, a critical hospitality service in the airline industry. The results also help the airport-lounge managers in lounge service design, customer segmentation, targeted communication, and customer relationship management.