Application of logistics model in analysing relationship marketing in travel agencies

Abstract

A concept of relationship marketing in tourism implies creating quality relations among all participants in the tourist supply chain. Analyzing the assumptions of the development of relations and their impact on the overall performance of companies in tourism is especially important. In this regard, the subject matter of this research is the application of relationship marketing in travel agencies in Serbia and the identification of key factors of loyalty of users of tourist services. This paper aims to investigate the influence of relationship marketing assumptions (such as trust, customer complaint management, investment in internal marketing, implementation of information technology in agencies, business image and tradition of agencies, as well as socio-demographic characteristics of clients) on the choice of travel agency through which clients will travel. The contribution of the paper is in the application of the logistics model in the research of relationship marketing in agencies. The results of this research have confirmed that investing in relational determinants in tourism leads both to the development of a long-term relationship with customers and to business performance improvement. Also, the results showed that customer profiles are important in the implementation of relationship marketing to increase the number of loyal customers in tourism. The importance of the paper is in proposing an efficient model for the application of relationship marketing in order to increase the level of customer loyalty in travel agencies operating on the Serbian market.